Posts by Brandon Brown35

Should I just head straight to my primary care doctor, or do I actually need to hunt down a referral first?

I don't know, I just find it weird that the symptoms are so mild. For the most part, I feel totally fine—it’s just this light sense of unknown a few times a day. It isn't really an ache, just more of a strange sensation rather than actual pain.

The symptoms just seem way too subtle to be caused by swallowing gum

I forgot to mention I'm only 18. Isn't that a bit early to be dealing with gastritis?

I’ve been looking up symptoms for gastritis and ulcers—just trying to make sense of things—and nowhere does it mention feeling totally repulsed by food because of them. It’s honestly pretty weird. I can go through lunch just fine, but then dinner rolls around and sometimes I just can't stomach anything at all. It's like my appetite just hits a wall.

So, for the last three or four days now, I’ve been waking up with this constant feeling of unknown in my stomach. It seems to vanish once I actually get out of bed, but if I try to lie back down—well, there it is again, making it impossible to drift back to sleep. On top of that, my appetite is pretty much shot; I’m struggling to eat anything because everything just sounds unappealing right now.

I noticed there isn't a thread on lordosis on this forum yet. To put it simply—lordosis is when that lower spine curve gets way too exaggerated, which ends up pushing your stomach forward and tilting your upper lower back backward. My issue is that while my posture doesn't actually look that bad visually, I really feel it whenever I’m on my feet for too long, even when I'm trying my best to stand straight. Like, if I stand up tall (the curve is still there, obviously), I look fine aesthetically, but after a few hours, I start getting this ache right in the middle of my lower back—somewhere between the upper and lower sections—and it even hits near my shoulder blades a bit. I'm standing almost exactly like the guy in the photo below. So, I was wondering—should I go see a physical therapist, or can anyone dealing with something similar suggest the kind of exercises they used to fix it?

I haven't even gone in for blood work yet—might head to the clinic later this week if I don't start feeling better. My fever finally broke and I've actually got an appetite again, it's just this damn phlegm I can't seem to shake.

So, I’m going to start using an inhaler and dealing with this constant hacking—it's getting old. My biggest worry is that I can't actually cough anything up, so I'm kind of terrified it might just settle deeper in my chest. Hopefully, this Fluimukan does the trick and clears things out.

So, I’m currently going through the whole routine—taking Fluimukan, drinking tea, using saline nasal spray, the works—but I just can't seem to clear this cough. It's frustrating. I can feel that there's something stuck in there, like something's lingering deep down, but nothing is coming up. I managed to hack up maybe two or three things, but after that, it's just... nothing.

It might be because I tend to get hit by these bugs pretty often—it seems like my immune system just takes a dive every other month—but back when I had my lung scan two years ago, everything came back totally clear. No obstructions, no nothing, just healthy lungs according to the docs. And it’s not like I can’t cough it up; it’s more that the mucus gets so thick that it’s a struggle to actually move it. I haven't really dealt with anything as extreme as shortness of breath or feeling like I'm suffocating, though. Just the fever. Actually, it dropped quite a bit last night after I posted that message, so I didn't have it hanging over me all evening. I doubt it's allergies either, since I don't get sick during any specific season. Last time I was under the weather was basically at the start of summer.

melloworca6, you actually calmed me down a bit there, haha. It felt weird because usually, I don't run a fever when I get sick, so my mind immediately jumped to that bronchitis I had a few years back—plus, the doctor mentioned it could be a viral pneumonia.

You totally misread me—it’s not like I’ve been coughing nonstop for five years straight, I just have really sensitive lungs. Every single year, I end up getting hit with something—either a cough or a nasty sore throat—and over this five-year stretch (if you can believe my doctor), she hasn't actually managed to nail down a diagnosis once. She just keeps sending me off for blood work. The only reason I’m posting here is because, unlike my usual bouts, I’ve got this persistent fever that won't quit (it's been three days now) and she mentioned she's starting to suspect pneumonia. What do you guys think: should I go ahead with the blood tests or just stay in bed for a few more days?

What happened to this place? It feels like this whole forum is just circling the drain. I remember a few years back, you’d drop a single post and get five different replies within thirty minutes—now? It’s just a ghost town where everyone's talking past each other. Maybe these old-school message boards are just becoming obsolete at this point.

Giving everyone an update. Just clocked my temp at 101.1, though I’m not entirely sure if it’s spot on since I wasn't using a direct reading—it was some kind of infrared sensor thing. I’m actually thinking about heading to a private clinic tomorrow to get some bloodwork done, because honestly, our local hospital feels more like a slaughterhouse than a medical facility. Still, I'm curious—based on the symptoms I mentioned, what exactly are you all suspicious of? And what are you trying to imply?

P.S. Just realized my palms and the soles of my feet feel burning hot too.

Hey everyone,
So, look—on Friday I was feeling 100% fine, totally healthy, zero symptoms to speak of. Then Saturday morning rolls around and suddenly I’m coughing my lungs out along with this chest pain. It’s a productive cough, but honestly? I can’t actually get anything up because the phlegm is way too thick, and frankly, I’ve never been particularly good at coughing stuff up anyway. My temperature stays normal in the mornings, but by the afternoon and evening, I’m hitting somewhere between 99 and 100 degrees. It’s not steady, either—it just fluctuates wildly. Like, right now I feel feverish, but an hour ago I felt perfectly okay. I went to see my doctor today and she prescribed some Fluimukan to help clear things out, plus she wants me to go get blood work done. Here’s the thing: I’ve always had issues with this specific type of cough, and every single time she runs blood tests, everything comes back completely normal. She’s leaning toward it being pneumonia, but since she hasn't managed to land a correct diagnosis in the five years I've been seeing her, I'm not exactly thrilled about the idea of heading into a hospital just to catch some other random bug.
Sorry for the long rant, thanks in advance.

Not sure if anyone’s actually hanging out here today, but I was doing some deep diving online and stumbled onto something interesting. Apparently, those Wing Chun practitioners use these things called makiwara—and they have their own versions of heavy bags hanging on the wall where they just unload on them with everything they've got. It honestly looks more like some kind of shock-absorption setup rather than a standard sandbag you'd see at a local gym.

And how hard can you actually hit that thing? (I’m sitting at about 150 lbs, so I’m definitely not bringing much power to the table)

Since I don't have enough floor space at my place to fit a full-sized heavy bag, I was thinking about picking this up instead. I know it’s nothing fancy—definitely not top-tier gear—but hey, better than nothing, right? Any thoughts on the pros and cons here? Also, what kind of workouts can I actually get out of this, and what kind of combos work best?