In some states, saving her life would have been illegal. Many women rightfully fear living in such states even if they are not currently pregnant because it’s a dystopian nightmare. It’s literal body horror. Imagine being raped, getting pregnant, being forced to carry the baby, then one day the pain is unbearable and the bleeding won’t stop but the doctors just sit there and watch you die. Some might risk giving you a painkiller, others fear even that could put them at risk.

It’s not that it’s illegal to move to another state. But it might be a death sentence.

This is an important message and a positive one. Thank you.

Sounds similar to my journey in some ways. I’ll share a bit on the off chance that some of my experiences might be useful.

I always had headaches and mental health struggles. Hopefully you don’t. I sought help for both. My mental health issues were misdiagnosed (I’m AuDHD, the other stuff mostly stems from that) and for the headaches I was just told to lose weight. Easier said than done, and the headaches got worse while I tried. I used pain meds and developed chest pain that got diagnosed as heartburn. Prescription omeprazole (prilosec) keeps it in check.

I finally lost enough weight for them to take the headaches seriously and get referred to a neurologist. We can’t be sure of the exact cause, but a good bet is anxiety - a very sensitive/overactive nervous system as a result of C-PTSD and autism. I take topiramate to calm it a little, edibles 1-2 times a week, quarterly injections, and I do a somatic meditation. This is a great exercise for pain without a physical source, caused by things like my overactive nervous system.

If your pain is made worse by anxiety, it may help to get in the habit of practicing a quick somatic meditation focusing on the pain whenever you experience it. Otherwise, just keep advocating for yourself until you find a doctor that will help. I hope you find something that works for you soon.

Also, on brain meds: they’re all multi-function, so if it’s anti-anxiety that’s more of a happy accident. They wouldn’t give you a nerve blocker just for anxiety. Side effects tend to lessen the longer you take the drug, but not always, and the time scale is a bit different for each. At 2 weeks it should be starting to get better, at a month if it’s not better it’s probably not going to get much better. Hang in there!

Yup, it was the first thing we checked when I actually got treatment. I’m sure that didn’t help, but compared to the pain of the migraines it was negligible. Having to refrain from pain meds for a while to make sure was a hell of a ride though. I lasted about three months. The doctor was satisfied with 1-2 but I wanted to be damn sure.

I give people the same warning nowadays. Don’t take that stuff more than once a week.

I’m kinda in this meme. I went through one of those big bottles roughly every 1-2 months for 20 years. Sometimes 12 pills in one day, with 4-8 acetaminophen on top (they do giant double packs of those too). Chronic migraines, but every doctor I asked for help just told me to lose weight so it went untreated and got worse and worse. Our health care suuuucks.

I did lose the weight. It didn’t magically fix my migraines, or affect them at all. Insurance dicked me around for another year and a half while my neurologist tried to help every way she could, but we finally got it down to only one migraine a week. I’m truly glad for that, but I still think about the years of unnecessary suffering, and how much better it might be now if I’d been treated sooner.

Live content has lots of downtime and dull gameplay moments. It can’t compete with polished, edited videos - except in the one area it shines: human interaction. That works better when you can see the person. So most streams feature a person or at least an avatar, while edited videos often place a higher emphasis on gameplay. Each format is simply playing to its strengths. The ones that don’t you rarely see because they’re buried at the bottom of page 726 with four views.