My Chronic Health Issues

Some issues are worse than others.

For some of these and other reasons (excessive tiredness?), I have to be fairly punctual with eating and sleeping every day.

## Restless Leg Syndrome

Usually when I'm tired, at bed time.  Gets worse if I don't get enough sleep.  Makes it difficult to sleep.

I also suspect that sugary foods can make it worse. [indeed i'd say i rarely have RLS, except very predictably if i eat something sugary, perhaps particularly in the evening]

## Hunger Sensitivity

This is when I need to eat (or stop eating) lest I feel sick.  Supposedly it's from hypoglycemia.

This sensitivity gets worse if I delay or skip eating.  Doing so on one day can cause hunger sensitivity that lasts for many days.

Also, it can make me picky because not all foods satisfy the craving, or will feel tolerable to eat.  Usually I need meat, and this did stop me from briefly being rather vegetarian, years ago.

## Eczema or whatever

For the full story, see my page about my sickness of February 2018.

## Social Anxiety, Depression

Thankfully my medication makes the depression almost gone, and the anxiety gone except in some circumstances, where it is only decreased.

More recently, I have been off all medication for over a year.

Lack of sleep can heavily impact my mood.

## Narrow or collapsing nasal valve

Starting in the spring of 2019, I would briefly wake up a few hours early and discover that I couldn't breathe through my nose. My nose wasn't plugged with snot or anything, it seems the inner valves were just constricted on their own for some reason.

A doctor prescribed my a nose spray for about a month. During that time, the problem was gone. Afterwards, the problem did partially return, but with the nostrils able to open again if I stretch them.

[i have not had this problem for quite a while, as of Feb 2022, but I think there was more than one year that I experienced it]

## Hypersalivation when I have a cold

Ever since a similar event (during or shortly prior to my sickness of February 2018, I think), this symptom seems to occur now every time I get a cold. Usually not right away, usually on like the second day or something, shortly before bed time, which prevents me from sleeping for *hours*. I can't sleep even if I'm passing out tired, because the saliva keep me awake or will wake me up if I (rarely) am momentarily able to sleep. My mouth usually seems to fill up almost immediately, within a few seconds, though sometimes more seconds.

I'll have to spit it out (with a nearby spittoon) because I learned the first time that trying to swallow all of it will overwhelm my stomach or something and I'll just end up vomiting (that might be due to the amount of air that gets swallowed though).

I did think that eating causes it to stop, but apparently not always. Maybe it won't stop until I eat a really BIG meal?

Since then this symptom can happen when I don't have a cold as well (such as when my eating schedule is out of whack, or that time I got minor food poisoning), but that's the most common severe cause of it. I was recently sick [probably with COVID omicron] but I didn't have this problem.

## Arm issues

See: Arm injury 2020.

Arms, hands, fingers. Possibly carpal tunnel, and associated muscle atrophy.

Symptoms can be extremely varied, from discomfort and tingling, to throbbing aches or sharp pains. Also (as of summer 2021) sometimes (on at least two different occasions) an area of skin on a finger near a knuckle will become sensitive such that it feels fine, but the lightest touch to it feels like a splinter (even though there is no splinter).

I sometimes have to limit my computer usage. And wear splints and do exercises.

## Eye issues

As of August 2021, I sometimes need to limit computer use, due to stressful feelings in my eyes (and sometimes pain, itchiness, and twitching). It seems to be the muscles that are used to move the eyes, because the symptoms build up mostly from reading or browsing (for example, on youtube, deviantart, Art Station, flickr), which involve rapid eye movements.

For nearly anything long to read (such as blog posts, books, academic papers), I resort to using a free text-to-speech thing (which is annoying in school because many documents are in PDF format, which includes line breaks at the ends of lines that add pauses in the text-to-speech reader, which requires me to edit a text document. perhaps some other reader doesn't behave this way, but I'm not aware of one).

Programming can also build up the strain quite rapidly. This can surprise me, because I tend to think it just involves looking at one small area in one line of code.

## Tinnitus

Some mild unbothersome tinnitus since childhood.

Got worse recently (May 23rd 2022). Back near start of year, got covid [temporarily affected my taste and smell], afterwards noticed some tinnitus was worse. Yesterday (May 22nd 2022) went somewhere with LOUD MUSIC, with lots of people. It was also a distressing experience. Either the loudness or more covid from the people or the stress or all three made my tinnitues actually kind of annoying now. Yesterday was louder than usual in left ear, with multiple tones, at least one of which was shifting in various ways which made it a bit more annoying. Today seemed fine, but just in the past half hour it has picked up again. Not as bad, and not as much shifting, but a bit annoying. Today and yesterday it can also make me feel a bit antsy, like i need to hurry a bit with something. I also think in last few minutes i might also feel a bit pulled back from the external, like a mild form of derealization, and now some dizziness.