Swollen throat vomiting

Im F21 - I’ve been suffering since September of last year. Everyday I’m profusely vomiting. I’ve vomited blood a good 15 times. I have incurable nausea that no sickness tablet will touch. I can’t keep any food down whatsoever. I’m permanently burping. I struggle with stomach and intestinal pain. It permanently feels like my stomach is swollen and in knots. I also suffered from extreme bloating for the first 4 months but have since found things to manage that. I’ve been on PPIs for over a year. It’s a horrendous way of living. I did a h.pylori stool test months back. It came back negative. But just yesterday I went back to the doctors and they’re gonna put me through for another stool test. It turns out if you’re on PPI such as omeprazole or lansoprazole it can actually cause a false negative so doctors let me down when they did the first test. I’ve been suffering for months losing loads of weight and completely unable to eat or enjoy food worrying and I’ve given myself eating disorders because of how poorly I’ve been. I’ve now come off my PPI and I’m really hoping that in two weeks time when I take my stool test, it actually comes back positive. I match all the symptoms. I’ve been waiting for my gastroenterologist referral since September2023 it has been expedited/sped up four times and I’m still waiting. I’ve been feeling like I’ve been dying, but the doctors say there’s nothing they can do. It’s only when you’re threaten complaints that they start doing a little bit of something. The only thing I have found to keep me going all these months is cannabis but that is literally masking my problem not solving it. If you’re stool sample came back negative were you on PPIs? Additionally, I was also told it is gastritis. It is gastroenteritis. it is IBS. It is IBD. I just think they failed to do the correct testing. Is anyone going through the same or a similar experience? I’m feeling desperate. If my test comes back negative for h.pylori I don’t know what else I can do. I’m really struggling

23F, 160cm, 54Kg, no substances. No known allergies. I am lactose intolerant and have eliminated lactose from my diet. I have been feeling generally 'off' for around a year now, and have been having semi-regular blood tests. I have always had iron levels on the lower side of healthy. I have always eaten a diet high in red meat and other iron-rich foods, and yet I still have low iron.
It began about a year and a half ago, when I suddenly had an episode of feeling very off. I was fatigued, had pain in my arms, a strange rash that didn't go away when pressing (the best way to describe it is unconnected small red and purple blotches, confined to a small area usually appearing on my torso or legs), and experienced an overwhelming feeling of doom. I do have anxiety, however I have never before (or since) experienced that feeling, and there was nothing in my life happening at the time to trigger it.
I had my blood taken and it showed extremely high iron levels all of a sudden (more than 2.5x my previous levels). The only other results of note were low Urea and cholesterol, and high bilirubin. I have never had anything wrong with my liver before. My white blood cell count was normal at this time. The doctor recommended to monitor and have a follow-up test in three month's time.
Three months passes and I remain fatigued, and the joint pain is on and off. The rash mostly just appears after showering. I'm not sure if it's related, but I started coughing up a large volume of tonsil stones. My follow-up blood test showed that my iron had returned to its normal borderline low levels! everything else had returned to normal, except my white blood cell count. The total count had decreased but was still within healthy levels. My neutrophil levels had decreased by 50%. Everything looked pretty normal, so despite still feeling bad I didn't test again for another 8 months. I felt embarassed to talk to doctors as I felt like I was wasting their time.
Over those 8 months my energy levels took a nosedive. I could only last until around 3pm before feeling incredibly tired. I am not a big caffeine drinker, and drinking tea didn't help my energy levels. I get around 8 hours of sleep per night. I started taking iron supplements with vitamin c, but there was no improvement. The strange rash continued after showering, however the joint pain decreased (but still occured). I saw a doctor who confirmed the rash wasn't due to scarlet fever. He told me not to be concerned as it may be due to a skin allergy. I was feeling nauseous every morning, and my abdomen was constantly bloated. I often experienced severe pain just under the ribs. I also got recurring pain in my lower left abdomen and my doctor suggested a possible hernia. At nights I would again feel nauseous. I was still eating like normal. I always felt like there was something caught in the back of my throat, and I had a lot of excess mucus. I was constantly clearing my throat.
I mainly noticed that wounds were bleeding for longer and I had a lot of mouth ulcers. My gums would bleed overnight and are always an inflamed red colour despite regular burshing, flossing, and dental checkups. Also strangely I have had new brown moles appearing even in places not exposed to the sun. Around 5-6 new moles appear per month. I had a skin check by a dermatologist, and he confirmed no skin cancer. He biopsied two moles which came back healthy. I have been getting itchy red sores on my hands and feet which come and go. This is different to the other rash, and happens mainly when exposed to moisture for too long.
Still feeling very off, I went back for the next blood test. My cholestorol had reverted to the previous low levels, and my glucose was very low (borderline hypoglycemic). I have no family history of diabetes. My total white blood cell levels had once again dropped and were now bordeline low. My Neutrophils in particular were clinically low and the report noted mild neutropenia. I had not recenty been sick or had an infection. My iron levels were still borderline low despite taking supplements. The doctor once again said to just do follow-up testing when possible. That was a month ago, and I have since moved somewhere remote with very limited access to healthcare facilities to volunteer.
Since then, my appetite has been steadily decreasing. I have been eating around 1.5 meals a day as I feel very full very quickly. I don't weigh myself regularly, however it looks like I have been losing some weight. My throat is now constantly mildly irritated. A doctor noted that the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck were enlarged, however we chalked this off to me moving to the tropics. Two lymph nodes have remained swollen most of the time, one feels firm and doesn't hurt. The other feels soft and moveable, and is a little sore when pressed. The doctor checked for both ear and throat infections but nothing was found. The doctor recommended an ultrasound of my neck, however there are no ultrasound facilities in the place i'm living.
I had to go to a hospital in a neighbouring location for unrelated reasons after an injury, and they did x-rays of my entire spine. Nothing was noted in the neck area, and no blood tests were taken. I brought up the other symptoms I had been experiencing, but after treating the injury I was discharged.
I am just not entirely sure what to do. I am tired of feeling sick all the time. No changes in diet or supplements have worked, and doctors seem to have no answer for me. I keep being dismissed for a variety of circumstantial reasons like moving to the tropics, being stressed, indigestion, period symptoms. Everyone keeps saying it's because of the tropical climate, but these symptoms have been ongoing since months before, and the blood tests were all taken prior to moving.
At one doctor's appointment he asked if there was a possibility of blood born diseases. I noted that I used to work as a medical sterilisation technician, however I had never had a needlestick injury or other contamination that I knew of. It has been three years since I worked that job.
At this stage I am scared to go back to the doctor as I feel like I am wasting everyone's time. It would take a lot of effort for me to access medical facilities due to my location, and I don't see the point in going in for a follow-up test when I will probably be brushed off again. I would appreciate any advice at all, noting that it is very difficult for me to access medical facilities at the moment.

Hey everyone,
Totally new territory for me! So I got sick april 29th and was dead to the world for a week felt slightly better for two days then felt way worse and the doctor at that point gave antibiotics amox/clav and a nose spray. Nose was completely swollen shut, basically had no nose holes, crazy mucus etc etc.
Antibiotics worked pretty fast and after the 5 days may 13th my fever was finally gone, no more constant mucus from nose and I could breathe out of at least one nostril. I kept taking the nose spray for 4 more days as directed but it started to give me a really bad frontal sinus area headache 10 minutes after each dose so discontinued as I didn't feel it was improving anything.
As of right now I can breathe out of my nose which I am eternally grateful for lol but I deffinitley don't have full air intake from either nostril maybe 75% sometimes less sometimes more and the sides are constantly changing how much air can get past. When I look up my nose It still looks inflamed but it's hard to see as the inflamation is way farther up then before but I can see the sides of my nose narrowing towards eachother. I am trying to be patient but getting worried that this won't resolve itself! Is it common for inflamation to take a long time to resolve after a big infection? I do still have very consistent snot going down my throat but no need to blow my nose, if anything I'm worried about getting another bacterial infection :( I don't think antibiotics would help further because I do feel like the bacterial infection is gone, anyone with this experience?

Hi, long time sufferer of uvulitis here. Ive been getting this a lot as of recent, and i have some tips to help alleviate symptoms during a case of uvulitis AND prevention tips if you feel you might be getting there (because sometimes it starts off while youre awake
Prevention Tips!
Hygiene: Beush your teeth often, floss, and brush your tongue, when its the case of a bacterial infection its important to maintain a healthy microbiome in your mouth hole!
Humidity: Uvulitis can be caused by dry air or not being used to a dry environment, a humidifier can be very useful, or keep a glass of water nearby and keep any fans facing away from your face. (As a very hot sleeper i know that sounds like torture but its for the better)
Allergies: It can also be caused by allergic reactions, dust, pet dander, pollen, etc. Try to keep your fans and vents clean and keep pets out of your face or in the flow of circulation in your bedroom, my first time getting Uvulitis i was in a dusty basement bedroom and boy oh boy was it a rude awakening.
Infection: Sometimes you just get sick, and thats alright, and sometimes instead of your typical sore throat, you get uvulitis! And thats okay. Its always important to keep calm. It can be startling to wake up and you can feel your uvula, even if it isnt fully swollen yet, you get an uncanny awareness of it. Use over the counter throat spray, cold medicine and lozenges in the intervals suggested by the medication, and a salt water rinse in one hour intervals (IMPORTANT!! IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE BREATHING AND/OR SWALLOWING SEE A DOCTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE)
In Progress Uvulitis SOOTHING TIPS
All of the above are useful to soothe the inflammed uvula, humidifier and medicine especially, make sure to drink some warm herbal teas and get lots of rest, treat it like a sore throat (with a bit more urgency, its a lot more unpleasant.)
Thats all i really feel the need to say, my own experiences with Uvulitis have left me with a deep anxiety about my throat and what affects it, and i dont want others to have that same anxiety. Some people never experience this in their life. Its important to take my word with a grain of salt, and ALWAYS consult a doctor before running to the internet. But if youre like me and had no other option, i want you to have a resource for some basic information, because i really didnt, yaknow?
Thanks for reading!

Male 30 5’3 150
Medications Concerta 27mg Lexapro 20mg Couple weeks off mirtazapine.
Experiencing symptoms since 2021
Bright red flushing of neck and face, sometimes accompanied with heat other times not really.
Shortness of breath, feeling pressure in chest feels hard to breathe.
Heat intolerance. Unbearable.
Drenched night sweats
Tongue pale swollen and tingles on and off.
Pain upper left ribs/ upper abdomen ( can’t really tell where it’s coming from) Ribs are often sore to touch aswell is underarms
Diahrea Was extremely frequent but hasn’t been as bad lately. Hard to hold urine and stool lots of pressure down there. Pee is abut slow to come out sometimes it takes awhile to start and then is a weak stream
Horribly itchy scalp rash
Tingling and itching sensations on head, feet, legs.
Dry throat, dry cough
Pain and itchin under arms with no rash
Become very tired after minor activity
Often blood pressure is abit low well I’m not sure it’s often 107 sys over 48. Not sure if that’s normal or not.
Only known triggers are heat, exercise , caffeine possibly. After eating possibly hard to keep track.
I’m absolutely desperate I don’t know what to do it’s been years doctors haven’t really done anything for me. To be fair I’m horrible with doctors I get so nervous. I truly feel like I’m being neglected at this point. I’ve had friends with way less symptoms be seeing all sorts of specialists for stuff. I don’t know if it’s how i present my self or what but they seem to not take me seriously. Everyone in my life who knew me before this all started can see a stark difference in my appearance and ability’s. i used to be very active and work full time. Now I need to sleep for 5 hours after minor activity and can’t be in any heat what so ever. Out of breath. How can I explain that I generally feel fucking sick. Like I feel ill
Please any ideas I don’t even know what kind of doctor I need to see. I can’t take it much longer. I don’t know if these symptoms are all related but the most troubling symptoms is the flushing, heat intolerance, night sweats, rib pain , shortness of breath

Like to these works: https://www.attalus.org/poetry/theriaca.html
it into wine. That will be a most excellent protection, for you will stave off death in all forms alike.
700 Learn also that the powerful aid of the sea-turtle is a defence against the bite of all the long, crawling creatures that injure distressful mortals; and may you find it a strong protection. Thus, when fishermen draw the murderous Turtle up out of the sea on to the dry beach, do you, having turned it on its back, strike the life from its head with a bronze knife and let the coarse blood pour forth into an earthen jar newly baked in the furnace; but draw of the livid, thin serum with a well-made colander and on this dry and break up the dots of blood, 710 taking for your mixture four drachmas by weight. And add two drachmas of wild cummin, and to each two drachmas a quarter by weight of the curd in a Hare's stomach. From this cut off one drachma and drink in wine.
Against Snakes these remedies, you will find, will protect you.
Consider now the operations of the dangerous spider and the symptoms that attend its bite. The one which is the colour of pitchy smoke is named the grape ; it moves its feet in succession, and in the centre of its stomach it has hard and deadly teeth. But even when it has fastened on a man, his skin nevertheless remains as though unwounded; 720 yet the eyes above turn reddish and a shivering settles on his limbs, and straightway his skin and his genitals below grow taut, and his member projects, dripping with foul ooze, and at the same time numbness descending upon him overcomes his hips and the support of his knees.
Learn of one different from these - the starlet, on whose back striped bands gleam radiant on the skin. When it has bitten, a shivering comes unexpectedly upon the victim, a torpor is in his head and breaks the bonds of his knees beneath him.
Another kind is the blue spider : it darts about off the ground and is covered with hair. 730 Even on his flesh the victim of this spider carries a terrible wound: his heart is heavy within him and night is about his temples, while from his throat he discharges a deadly vomit like a spider's web; and he thinks that death is near to him.
Yet another is the huntsman, and he is like the Wolf-Spider in form, the destroyer of blue-bottles; he lies in wait for bees, gall-insects, gadflies, and whatsoever comes into his toils. But the bite he inflicts upon man is painless and without consequence.
But another kind is an aggressive foe, the one men call the wasp-spider, reddish and like the ravenous Wasp, 740 which resembles the horse in its high spirit, for horses are the origin of wasps and bulls of bees [which are engendered in their rotting carcases]. When this creature has inflicted a wound, sever swelling ensues and various forms of sickness, and in some cases a quivering, in others powerlessness in the knees; and the wasting man is overcome by an evil sleep that brings the final alleviation.
The antlet - now mark - which in truth resembles the ant, has a fiery neck, though its body is dust-coloured; its broad and spangled back is all speckled, 750 and its dusky head is raised but little on its neck, yet it inflicts as much pain as the spiders aforenamed.
Where men go plucking with their hands, not using sickles, gathering pulse and other legumes amid the fields while still green, there in swarms, wrapped in fiery colour and like to blister-beetles, dart small spiders. But for all their size around the troublesome bite of one blisters always rise, and the mind wanders and is crazed; the tongue shrieks disordered words and the eyes squint.
Consider now monsters which the grim land of Egypt fosters, 760 like the moth which the evening meal-time brings in to flutter round the lamps. All the wings are dense and are covered with down, even as a man appears who may chance to touch dust or ashes. Such in appearance, it is reared among the leaves of Perseus's tree {Persea}. Its terrible head nods ever in grim fashion and is hard, and its belly is heavy ; its sting it plants in the top of a man's neck or on his head, and it may easily and on the spot bring the doom of death.
Come now, and I will speak of the scorpion, armed with an agonising sting, 770 and of its disgusting brood. The white kind is harmless and does no hurt. But the red inflicts a swift and burning fever on men's mouths, and the victims struggle convulsively beneath the wound as though caught by fire, and there rises a mighty thirst. The black kind on the other hand, when it has struck, causes a fearful agitation in a man: victims go out of their wits and laugh without reason. But another kind is greenish, and when it strikes a limb it inflicts shivering fits, and after them a horrid eruption appears, even though the Dog-Star burn scorching hot. 780 Such in effect is the sharp edge of its sting, and behind such a sting nine-jointed vertebrae extend above its head. Another is livid; it carries beneath it a broad and hungry belly, for in truth it is ever an insatiable eater of grass and of earth; and it deals a stroke incurable upon the groin, so ravenous the hunger in its hard jaws. But another kind you will find like the crab on the sea-shore, which feeds in the delicate seaweed and the noisy surf. Others again, like the bandy-legged common crab to look at, are heavy-limbed and their weighty claws are hard, 790 and serrated as in the rock-haunting crabs. It is from them that they have their allotted being, whenever they quit the rocks and the delicate wrack of the pebble-strewn sea. The fishermen with their baits draw them from the salt water; but directly they are caught they slip into mouse-holes, and there the scorpions, the deadly offspring of these dead crabs, are born, to work ruin from wall and fence. Learn too of the honey-coloured scorpion: its end joint is black at the tip, and it dispenses doom unassuageable and most deadly. But the worst enemy of man is the one whose crooked legs are like fire: 800 to children it instantly brings death. Upon its back white wings unfold themselves like those of the corn-devouring locusts, which flitting over the tops of the corn feed on husked grain, and haunt Pedasa and the vales of Cissus.
I can tell you however of remedies against the scorpion's strokes, just as for those of the buzzer from the hills, or of the bee, whose death follows from its very sting when it has stabbed a man as he labours around the hive or in the fields; as it implants its sting, it leaves it in the wound, 810 and to the Bee the sting is both life and death. Yes, and I know too the devices of the woodlouse, and of the deadly wasp, and of the tiny tree-wasp, and of the two-headed centipede, which from both ends can bestow death upon a man, and as the creature moves there speed beneath it as it were the winged oars of a ship; also of the blind and fearsome shrew-mouse, which brings destruction upon men and meets its death in the wheel-tracks of carts. You should certainly avoid the seps, which resembles the squat lizards; and that treacherous and ever detestable beast the salamander, which makes its way through unquenchable fire [unharmed] and without pain; 820 nor does the unquenchable flame injure its tattered skin or its extremities. Furthermore I have knowledge of all the creatures that the sea whirls amid its briny surges, and the horror of the murry, since many a time has it sprung up from the fish-box and striking them with panic has hurled toiling fishermen from their boat to seek refuge in the sea . . . if it be true that this creature couples with deadly-biting vipers on the land, forsaking its salt pasturage. Again, from the death-dealing sting-ray and the ravening sea-snake I can protect you. The sting-ray causes trouble when it strikes with its sting 830 the toiler labouring at his hauled drag-nets; or if the sting is fixed in the trunk of some tree which is flourishing in pride, then, as though the tree were stricken by the fierce beams of the sun, its roots and with them its leafage wither; on a man his flesh rots and wastes away. Indeed the story tells how Odysseus of yore perished from the baneful sting of this monster from the sea.
Now will I rehearse the several remedies for these afflictions. You should take at one time the leaves, like wild-lettuce, of alkanet, at another potentilla, or the crimson flowers of the bramble; bearwort, sorrel, 840 and the long-stemmed viper's herb, cicamum, the luxuriant hartwort, and you may well include ground-pine and thick bark which you have broken off from the oak tree; with them too hedge-parsley, and seeds gathered from the carrot, and the fresh and variegated berries from the terebinth. Moreover you should store up the purple orchella-weed from the sea, and the unspotted maiden-hair, on whose leaves the fine moisture falling from the bursting rainstorm does not settle. Note too, you should cut the everblooming cretan alexanders or the tufted root of the dead-nettle and of the eryngo, 850 together with the fruit-bearing rosemary frankincense. Let there be present also cleavers and helxine and the heavy-headed poppy, capsuled or horned, to protect you. Cut off also a budding shoot of the fig-tree or the actual fruit of the wild fig which appears orbed and swelling before other fruit. Take too the fiery thorn and the blossoms of the bright mullein, and with them leaves of havergrass, and celandine, wild carrot, and the root of bryony, which wipes away freckles and the rash abhorrent to women's skin. 860 Powder also the leaves of vervain, or pluck the twigs of a the protective rhamnus, for by itself it is efficacious to ward off death from a man. Again, gather freshly plucked branches of feverfew, blue pimpernel, or hart's tongue, or take a portion of Lemnian ruddle, which is soothing in all afflictions. Sometimes too you may cut the bitter root of the squirting cucumber; to a stomach even sore oppressed with anguish also fruit of the prickly paliurus affords relief; so too its spiky leaves, and the young fruits of the pomegranate 870 with scarlet on its neck-like, closing sepals where it reddens about the slender flowers; at another time hyssop and the many-branched rest-harrow and the leaves of love-in-absence and the fresh tendril on the grape cluster, cloves of garlic, and the seed of the mountain-born coriander, or even the downy leaves of the delicate fleabane. Often too you may cut of some fresh pepper or Persian garden-cress and administer it in a drink; and the flowering pennyroyal and deadly nightshade and mustard too may save one in evil plight. Take also the green leak from the garden-plot, or else the hurtful seed of the nettle itself 880 with which boys play tricks. With these too perhaps the snow-white head of a squill and the dried coats of purse-tassels and the stalk of the dragon's namesake {dracunculus}, and the shoots of the shrubby rhamnus, and what the wildwood pines in the valleys nourish at the heart of their cones. Look you, you should lop the green root of the feeble herb scorpius that men liken to the poisonous sting of the beast, or waterlilies from Psamathe, and those which Traphea and Copae foster by the waters of their lake, wherein discharge the streams of Schoeneus and Cnopus, 890 and the pistachio nuts which look like almonds upon the boughs by the Indian flood of the roaring Choaspes. Collect hedge-parsley and the red-brown, astringent myrtle berries and slips of sage and of the flourishing fennel; collect also hedge-mustard and the seeds of the wild chick-pea, including with its green shoots the heavy-smelling leaves. Again, water-cress alleviates sickness; so too a fresh garland of melilot; also the white blossoms of the spongy dropwort which shepherds pound in a mortar, and those seeds which the corn-cockle and the red plantain and the rose foster within them, 900 and the tiny seed of the gilliflower. Or cut some knot-grass from the tangled watermeadows, depilatory, and the seed of the mournful hyacinth, over whom Phoebus wept, since without willing it, hard by the river of Amyclae he slew with a blow the boy Hyacinthus in the bloom of youth ; for the iron mass rebounding from a rock smote upon his temple and crushed the sheath beneath it. Mix too some trefoil and gum of silphium equal in scale to the weight of three obols; or else pluck the horn-shaped tufted thyme, often too samphire or lavendar-cotton, 910 and along with them grate into some drink anise and libyan roots. Having shredded them into a bowl, sometimes together sometimes separately, drink them mixed with vinegar or else with wine or water; these help too when shredded into milk.
If however some bite should call for haste as you are on your journey and among waterless glades, the moment you are overcome chew with your jaws some roots or leaves or seeds growing by the way, and sucking out the sap, lay the half-eaten remains of the food upon the wounds 920 in order that you may avoid suffering and imminent death.
Again, by applying to some deadly wound a brazen cupping vessel you will drain the poison and the blood together; or by pouring on the milky juice of the fig, or by using an iron heated in the heart of a hot furnace. Sometimes the skin of a grazing goat filled with wine will be of service at a time when the wound is in ankle or hand. You will fix the sufferer in the wineskin to the mid forearm or ankle and wind the fastening cord about the groin or armpit until the strength of the wine has drawn out the pain from the flesh. 930 At times moreover let leeches feed on wounds and drink their fill. Or drip onion juice, or else pour lees of wine or of vinegar, upon sheep's droppings, make a paste, and plaster the wound with the fresh dung.
But that you may with instruction compound a general panacea,- it will be very serviceable after you have mixed all the simples together - let there be birthwort, root of iris and of spikenard, of all-heal too with dried pellitory, of all-curing wild carrot, and of black bryony, 940 and with them the spongy roots of a freshly dug peony, sprigs of the black hellebore, and mingled with them native sodium carbonate. Pour in too cummin and a sprig of fleabane mixed with the husks of stavesacre; and grate down an equal quantity of the bay's berries and tree-medick and the lowly horse-moss, and gather in some cyclamen. Cast in also the juice of the gleaming poppy, and over all the seeds of the agnus castus, balsam too and some cassia, and with them cow-parsnip and a bowlful of salt, mingling them with curd and a crab; but the former should come from a hare, 950 the latter should be a dweller in pebbly streams. Now all these you should throw into the belly of a capacious mortar, kneading them with the blows of stone pestles. And on the dry ingredients pour at once the juice of cleavers and mix well together; then prepare round cakes of a drachma each, limiting the weight precisely with a balance; then shake them up in two cotylae of wine and drink.
So now you will treasure ever the memory of the Homeric Nicander, whom the snow-white town of Clarus nurtured.
https://www.attalus.org/poetry/theriaca.html

and seeing in its hole the deadly, trailing brute, implored it with fawning speech to aid him in his sore plight. Whereat the snake asked of the foolish creature as a gift the load which he had taken on his back; and the ass refused not its request. Ever since then do trailing reptiles slough their skin in old age, but grievous eld attends mortals. The affliction of thirst did the deadly brute receive from the braying ass, and imparts it with its feeble blows.
Come now and learn that the forms of the chersydrus and of the asp are alike in appearance. 360 Signs of a malignant nature follow on his bite: all the skin upon the flesh, dry, loathsome, and bloated with putrid sores, breaks out from below, disclosing a clammy wound, while innumerable and fiery are the pangs which overcome the man, and sudden swellings are raised upon his limbs, plaguing him by turns now in this quarter now in that. This is the snake that first beneath some shallow mere wreaks his truceless malice upon the frogs; but when the Dog-Star dries up the water and drought is upon the floor of the lake, then upon dry land he becomes dust-like and shabby, 370 as he warms his grim body in the sunshine, and with hissing tongue he haunts the thirsting ruts along the highways.
After him you shall learn of the amphisbaena, less in bulk and slow of gait, two-headed, ever dull of eye. From either end a blunt chin protrudes, the one far from the other. Its body is earth-coloured and wears a skin ragged, speckled, and sheeny. This snake, when it comes to full growth, do wood-cutters, as though they had cut for a walking-stick a stem of twisted wild-olive, strip of its skin as soon as it appears, 380 before the note of the cuckoo in spring. The amphisbaena benefits those with afflicted skin when crippling chilblains break out upon the hands of men overcome with cold, also when the bonds of their sinews slacken and weary.
You shall learn too of the scytale, like in appearance to the amphisbaena, though thick, and bulkier down to its useless tail, for the skytale is of the thickness that men make the haft of a mattock, while the amphisbaena's bulk is that of a maw-worm or of such earth-worms as the earth breeds after a shower. Nor at spring's oncoming, after it has quitted gully and hollow cleft 390 in the season when earth brings reptiles to light, does it browse upon the waving shoots on the fennel's branch, when it clothes its limbs with their new skin beneath the sun; rather does it retire to hedges and glades and lurk deep in slumber and feed upon what the earth may chance to yield, nor does it stave off its thirst for all its desire.
Consider too the king of snakes {basilisk}, small indeed yet far excelling all others: his head is pointed; he is golden-hued and three palms' width in outstretched length. Truly none of the heavy-coiled monsters of earth 400 abide his hissing when to feeding-ground or forest or in craving for a watering-place they dart forth at noontide, but they turn and flee. His bite swells a man's body, and from the limbs the flesh falls away livid and blackening. Nor even will a bird pursuing its track above the corpse, be it eagle or vulture or raven that croaks of rain, nor yet any species of wild beast that pastures upon the hills, feed upon it; such the terrible stench that it sends forth. Yet if so be that fatal greed draws one of them near in ignorance, 410 death and a swift ending are wrought for it on the spot.
Learn now the doom inflicted by the dryinas, which others call chelydrus. It makes its home in oaks or maybe Valonia oaks and dwells in mountain glens. For after it has deserted the water-weeds, the marsh, and the congenial lake, and is hunting molurides and small frogs in the meadows, it is sent speeding in expectation of the gadfly's distasteful onslaught; whereat slipping swiftly into the stem of some hollow oak it coils itself and builds its lair in the depths of the wood. 420 Its back is of a smoky hue, but in the flatness of its head it resembles the hydrus, and from its skin exhales a hateful air, as when about the damp horse-skins and hides the scraps of leather ooze beneath the paring of the tanner's knives. And truly, when it strikes the hollows of the knee or on the sole of the foot, a stifling smell is diffused from the flesh; also there rises up a dark swelling about the victim's wound; moreover he is distraught, hateful distress shackles his mind, and his body is parched with suffering. His skin hangs loose about him, so consuming is the fierce poison 430 which feeds ever upon him. and an encircling mist, veiling his eyes, overcomes him in his sore affliction. Some men scream and choke, and their urine is stopped; or again they fall asleep and snore, oppressed with frequent retchings, or from their throat discharging a bilious or sometimes a bloody vomit; and last of all a dreadful plague of thirst sheds a trembling upon their limbs.
Learn and consider the green and dark-blue dragon, which once on a time the god of healing fostered in a leafy oak upon snow-capped Pelion 440 in the vale of Pelethronius. Radiant indeed does he appear, but in his jaw above and below are arrayed three rows of teeth; gleaming eye are beneath his brows, and lower down beneath his chin there is ever a beard of yellow stain. Yet when he fastens on a man he does not hurt as other snakes, even though his rage be violent, for the wound upon the skin of one whose blood is drawn by his slender fang seems slight as that of a meal-nibbling mouse. From his earliest days the king of birds, the eagle, grows up cherishing fierce wrath against him, and against him with his beak 450 he wages a war of hate whenever he espies him moving through the forest, for every nest he lays desolate, devouring alike the young and the cherished eggs of birds. Nevertheless when the eagle has just snatched in his talons a lamb or a swift hare, the dragon will easily rob him, springing up from a thicket. The eagle avoids him: and then there is a battle for the feast. But as the eagle hovers round, the writhing snake is after him without cease, watching him with sidelong glance and grim eyes.
Should you chance to walk in some valley of limping Hephaestus's isle { Lemnos } or go to storm-beaten Samothrace - these lie far off in the Thracian Gulf, 460 where are Hebrus, the river of Hera of Rhescynthium, and the snow-crested mountains of Zone and the oaks of Oeagrus's son, where too is the cave of Zerynthus - you will find the long monster cenchrines, which men call the spangled lion, dappled with scales. His bulk and his length vary, but in a twinkling he sends upon the flesh a shower of putrid sores which will not heal, and these with their consuming poison feed upon the limbs; and ever deep in the belly the dropsy with its load of pain settles about the mid-navel. At the hour when the sun's rays are at their hottest 470 this snake eagerly resorts to rugged mountains, athirst for blood and on the watch for the gentle sheep, while beneath the tall pines of Saüs or Mosychlus the shepherds cool themselves, forsaking the tasks of herdsmen. Do you not dare, bold though you be, to face him in his fury, for fear he wind about and strangle you as he lashes your body all around with his tail, and gorge your blood after he has broken both your collar-bones. But in fleeing weave ever a crooked, manifold track, and baulk the beast's course by starting aside. 480 For by the many turnings and twistings of the spine he injures its ligaments; whereas he moves rapidly and at his swiftest when his path is straight. Such is the serpent which haunts the isles of Thrace.
There too are the bites of the gecko, hateful, though he is of no account. Of him the tale is current how the Sorrowing Demeter did him injury when she marred the limbs of him as a boy by the well Callichorum, after wise Metaneira of old had received the goddess in the dwelling of Celeus.
Harmless reptiles also there are however which feed in the forest, the brakes and thickets and gullies in the country; 490 and men call these Elopes, Libyans, and curling Mouse-hunters; and with them all the Darters and Moluri and Blind-eyes too which are reported innocuous.
Now all the simples and remedies for these ills, the herbs and the time to cut their roots, I will expound to mankind thoroughly and in straightforward fashion,- herbs by whose aid a man may heal the urgent pain of sickness. While the wound is still bleeding and painful, pluck your herbs freshly (this excels all other remedies) from some place where snakes feed in the thick wood. 500 Choose first the medicinal root of Chiron {centaury}; it bears the name of the Centaur son of Cronus, and Chiron once on a snow-covered col of Pelion found and took notice of it. Its waving leaves, like sweet marjoram, encompass it about, and its blossoms are golden to view; its root, at the surface and not deep-set, is native in the dell of Pelethronius. This when dry or while still green, after crushing in a mortar, mingle in a cotyle of pleasant wine, and drink. It is of service in every case; therefore men call it Panacea {"all-healing"}.
Assuredly let birth-wort which grows in the shade be commended; 510 the leaves it bears are like those of the woodbine with its ivy-shaped leaves, but its flowers are red with scarlet, while the odour diffused from it is heavy, and the fruit in the midst you will see to be like the wild pear upon the cordate pear-tree or the common pear. The root of the female shrub is rounded into a lump, but that of the male is lengthy and extends down as much as a cubit, and in colour it resembles the boxwood of Oricus. This you will search after as a surpassing aid against the dread blow of male and female viper. From it let a portion of a drachma's weight be mixed in a draught of tawny wine.
520 Furthermore take to yourself the treacle-clover as a protection against snakes, be it on some stony hill or in some steep glen (some call it Brief-flower, others would call it Trefoil) ; its leaves are like the melilot, but its scent is like rue. When however it sheds all its blossoms and its mottled leaves, it exhales a smell of bitumen. Then cut off enough seeds to fill the sauce-boat on your table, pound them in a mortar, and take to drink as a remedy against snakes.
Attend now and I will rehearse some compound remedies against disease. Grind down and take the strength-giving Sicilian root of fustic; 530 add a heap of the seed of the brightflowered agnus castus, savin, and the luxuriant rue, and pluck a shoot of the earth-pillowed savory, which in the forest spreads abroad fronds like those of the tufted thyme. Again take the root of the double-flowered asphodel, or else the upper portion of its stem; often with them too the seed which the enclosing pod ripens; or else helxine, which men call Clybatis and which delights in streams and flourishes ever in water-meadows. Drink them after crumbling them into a cotyle of vinegar or of wine which you have drawn. 540 Even with water you might easily escape death.
Consider now the excellent root of Alcibius's bugloss: its prickly leaves grow ever thick upon it, and it puts out a coronal of flowers like violets, but beneath them in the soil the root grows deep and slender. Alcibius a male viper wounded above the lowest part of his groin as he lay asleep upon a mound of uncleansed grain by the margin of a piled threshing-floor, straightway rousing him by the violence of the pain. Whereat he pulled the root from the ground and first broke it small with his close-set teeth as he sucked it, and then spread the skin upon his wound.
550 Again, if you pluck off the shoots of the sprouting horehound and drink them with bright wine you may ward of snakes : this is the plant which draws down the udder of a young cow which mothers not her first-born calf, and anon, swollen with milk, she cares for it. Herdsmen call it Meliphyllon {"honey-leaf"}, others Melictaena, for all about its leaves the bees lured by the fragrance of honey buzz busily.
Or else you should peel off the thin membranes of the brain of a domestic fowl, or pare fine some field basil and marjoram, or cut from a boar's liver 560 the tip of the lobe which grows from the 'table' and inclines towards the gall-bladder and the portal fissure. These then you should drink, mixed together or separate, with a draught of vinegar or wine, though a fuller cure will attend wine. And snip the foliage from the evergreen cypress for a potion, or all-heal, or the testicle which is fatal to the beaver, or that of the river-horse which the Nile beyond Sais with its black soil nurtures, and launches, a ruinous sickle indeed, upon the plough-lands. (For the beast, emerging from the muddy ooze of the river when the pastures grow green and the fallow has put forth grass, 570 tramples and leaves behind a deep track as long as that which it devours with its jaws as it cuts its returning swathe.) From it cut off a drachma's weight to match, and soak in water, shredding all together in a vessel.
And do not forget the wormwood or the berries of the slenderer bay; very serviceable too would sweet marjoram be, which flourishes in garden-plots and borders. And include curd from a nimble leveret or from a fawn of roe or red deer after separating the impurities, or the seminal purse which you have cut from a stag, or his paunch, which some indeed call the 'urchin' but others the 'intestinal snood'. 580 Take of them portions of two drachmas' weight and throw them into four cyathi of old wine and mix well. And do not overlook the succour afforded by the hulwort and the cedar-tree, the juniper berry and the catkins of the plane that invites to sleep in summer, and the seeds of the bishop's weed and the cypress of Ida ; for all these will heal you and will banish untold suffering.
Next consider another means of escape and protection from death, and take helxine and grind it in a round mortar 590 and pour in a cotyle of barley gruel, adding two cyathi of wine of ancient vintage, adding also an equal portion of gleaming olive oil; mix them by pounding and you will keep at bay the poison that bites like gall.
Take also to the sixth of a cotyle fragrant pitch and cut out the central pith from the green giant fennel; or grate the full-grown root of horse-fennel into juniper berries, also the seeds of the marsh-bred celery. The full depth of an alexanders 600 and two drachmas' weight of pungent myrrh: cut too the fruit of cummin that grows in summer and weigh them, or pour in at random and shake up unweighed. Then draw thrice a cyathus of wine and mix with them before drinking. Take to yourself a drachma's weight of fruitful spikenard and with it crumble into fresh-drawn milk an eight-footed crab ravished from the river ; some iris too which Drilon has fostered and the banks of Naron, the abode of Sidonian Cadmus and Harmonia, where as two fearsome snakes they move about the pastures. 610 Take next the thick-growing heath when in flower, round which the thronging bees crawl and feed; take too a young frond of the tamarisk that bears no fruit, an honoured prophet among mortals, which Apollo of Corope endued with prophetic properties and authority over men; with these green marjoram leaves and blossom in plenty, and tree-medick and the milky spurge. Bray all these in a mortar, and in the containing vessels medicate wine with them and take in one-tenth of a chous. 620 But of a truth the tadpoles' all too noisy parents, frogs, are excellent when boiled with vinegar in a pot; often the liver of the biting snake itself if drunk in common wine, or the poisonous head administered sometimes in water, at other times in a small quantity of wine, will help you.
You must not neglect the blossom of the sweet blue pimpernel with its closed eye, nor the all-healing marjoram, which men honour as Heracles's Organy; and with the Marjoram you should rub small a leaf of pot marjoram, and dry pellets of the savory that muzzle evil disease.
630 Be sure and take the well-watered rhamnus, like to the little Wild Lettuce; it ever clothes itself in blossom of white. The name whereby men call it is Good Companion, the men who dwell about the tomb of Tmolus and of Gyges on the steep of Parthenius, where horses that toil not pasture upon Cilbis, and where the Caÿster rises.
Attend now and I will tell you of roots that are a help against Serpents. First, learn the two kinds of viper's bugloss : of one the prickly leaf is somewhat like alkanet, since it is small, and the root which it extends is short and on the ground. 640 The other kind has robust leaves and stalks, is tall, grows purple with small blossoms all over, and puts out a head like that of a viper but rough on top. Of these two kinds cut off an equal portion and use as a remedy after shredding them on a block of wood or in a mortar or a hollow stone. Also you should make a paste of the roots of the eryngo and the flowering bearsfoot, and to these two add an equal weight of the campanula that flourishes about the hedgerows. Take too the heavy foliage of the field-basil upon the mountain and seed of the evergreen celery from Nemea ; 650 with them let the double burden of anise raise the scale that sinks with the weight of roots. These should you knead, and having mixed them in a single vessel you may cure one time the deadly bane of Male Vipers, at another the scorpion's wound, at another the bite of the poisonous spider, if you will crumble three obols' weight in wine.
Consider too the white pine-thistle and the dark kind also. The two are distinct: the dusky is like golden thistle in appearance; it puts forth a circle of leaves, its root is strong and dark, and it grows beneath shady mountain spurs 660 or in glades, shunning the sun. But the other you will find ever in the pride of its leaves, while the head lies low and bloated in the middle of them, and its root is whitish and honey-sweet to the taste. Reject the dark root of these plants, but of other stir a piece of a drachma's weight in river water and drink.
Take herbage of another kind that also bears the name of Alcibius, fill your hand full, and drink in a little wine. it was that when hunting beneath Phalacra's cliff, on Crymna's plain and about Grasus, and where lie the meadows of the horse, 670 as he hallooed to his Amyclaean whelps, he discovered through the anguished whimpering of his lion-hearted hound; for as it followed up a goat's trail along some woodland path it had received the female viper's stab in the watering corner of its eye. And with a howl it flung her off and readily ate the leaves of this herb and escaped deadly destruction.
Administer plenty of the sappy, oily bark of the castor oil tree, together with the leaves of the thick balm, or else the plant whose name is that of the sun's turnings, and which, like the glaucous leaves of the olive, 680 marks the path of the retreating scion of Hyperion. Take likewise the root of the navelwort, which in frosty weather draws out the painful chilblains on the feet of those with broken skin. Sometimes you may take the green leaves of the tall bindweed, or of hart's tongue, shearing off the stalk. Take too the Phlegyan all-heal, even that which the God of Healing was the first to pluck by the brim of the river Melas, when ministering to the wound of Iphicles Amphitryon's son, what time with Heracles he was burning the evil Hydra.
Now lay sudden hold on the marten's young or their mischievous mother, 690 and strip their fur over the flame of a fiercely blazing fire, and after rejecting all the inwards and the stomach's excrements, dress with holy salt, and then dry away from the light of the sun, so that its swift shafts do not shrivel the fresh carcase. But, when necessity comes upon you in anguish, rub the desiccated beast thoroughly with a rasp as though it were frail silphium or a round cake of dried milk, grating...

Readily, dear Hermesianax, most honoured of my many kinsmen, and in due order will I expound the forms of savage creatures and their deadly injuries which smite one unforeseen, and the countering remedy for the harm. And the toiling ploughman, the herdsman, and the woodcutter, whenever in forest or at the plough one of them fastens its deadly fang upon him, shall respect you for your learning in such means for averting sickness.
Now I would have you know, men say that noxious spiders, together with the grievous reptiles and vipers and the earth's countless burdens, are of the Titans' blood - 10 if indeed he spoke the truth, Ascraean Hesiod on the steeps of secluded Melissēeis by the waters of Permessus. And it was the Titan's daughter who sent forth the blighting scorpion with sharpened sting, when she compassed an evil end for Boeotian Orion, and attacked him after he had laid violent hands upon the immaculate raiment of the goddess. Thereupon the scorpion, which had lurked unobserved beneath a small stone, struck him in the ankle of his strong foot. But Orion's wondrous sign is set conspicuous, fixed there amid the constellations, 20 as of one hunting, dazzling to behold.
You for your part will easily chase and dispel all creeping things from farmstead and cottage, or from steep bank, or from couch of natural herbage, in the hour when, to shun parching summer's fiery breath, beneath the sky you make your bed on straw at nightfall in the fields and sleep, or else beside some unwooded hill or on the edge of a glen, where poisonous creatures feed in multitudes upon the forest, or beside the levelled perimeter of the threshing-floor, and where the grass 30 at its first burgeoning brings bloom to the shady water-meadows, at the time when the snake sloughs the withered scales of age, moving feebly forward, when in spring he leaves his den, and his sight is dim; but a meal of the fennel's sappy shoots makes him swift and bright of eye.
You may expel the hot and harmful doom that snakes bring, if you char the tined horn of a stag, or else set fire to dry lignite, which not even the violence of a fierce flame consumes. Cast also upon the fire the foliage of the male fern with its cloven fronds, 40 or take the heated root of the frankincense-tree mixed with an equal measure of garden-cress; and mingle the fresh, pungent horn of a roe, putting an equal weight of it in the balance. Burn also a portion no less heavy of the strong-smelling black cumin, or else of sulphur, or again of bitumen. Or you may ignite in the fire the Thracian stone, which when soaked in water glows, yet quenches its brightness at the least smell of a drop of oil. Herdsmen gather it for themselves from the river of Thrace which they call Pontus, where the Thracian shepherds 50 who eat ram's flesh so follow after their leisurely flocks. Again, the heavy-scented juice of all-heal stimulated over a fire, and the stinging nettle, and cedar cut with saws and ground to dust by their many-toothed jaws, produce in burning a smoky and repellent stench. With these means you may clear hollow clefts and couches in the woods, and may sink upon the ground and take your fill of sleep.
But if these things involve trouble, and night brings bed-time near, and you are longing for rest when your work is done, then gather to yourself among the eddies of some rushing river 60 the water-loving, leafy mint, for it grows in plenty by streams and is fed with the moisture about their edges, as it delights in gleaming rivers. Or you should cut and strew beneath you the flowering willow, or the strong-smelling hulwort, which has a most offensive odour; so too have viper's bugloss and the leaves of marjoram, aye, or of wormwood, which grows wild upon the hills in some chalky glen, or of tufted thyme from pasture-lands : tenacious of life it draws sustenance from a damp soil, deep-rooted, ever furnished with hairy leaves. 70 And you should mark the pale spikes of the low-growing fleabane and of the agnus castus, and the pungent stinking bean-trefoil. Likewise cut the rough twigs of the pomegranate, or else young and flourishing shoots of the asphodel, and deadly nightshade, and the horrid hypericum which injures the herdsman in the springtime when his cows are poisoned by eating the stalks; and further stems of the heavy-scented sulphurwort whose very odour scares snakes and chases them away should they approach you. so place some of these by you wherever you make a casual couch in the fields; others where snakes lurk, and a double quantity at their holes.
80 Now make in an earthen vessel or an oil-flask a paste of juniper berries and anoint your supple limbs - or of the heavy-scented sulphurwort; or else pound thoroughly in oil the dried leaves of fleabane from the hills, and likewise the healing salvia, adding the root of silphium, which the grater's teeth should grind small - many a time too have noxious creatures fled in terror from the scent of a man's spittle. But if you rub a caterpillar from the garden in a little vinegar, the dewy caterpillar with a green back, or if you anoint your limbs all about with the teeming fruit of the marsh mallow, 90 then you will pass the night unscathed. Also cast in and rub down in the stony heart of a mortar two leafy sprays of wormwood mixed with garden cress - an obol's weight is suitable - and with a pestle pound therein to smoothness a handful of fresh berries from the bay; then mould into rounds and put to dry in a shady, wind-swept spot; when dry break them in pieces in an oil-flask, and you can anoint your limbs with it at once.
If however you can cast snakes coupled at a crossroads, alive and just mating, into a pot, and the following medicaments besides, 100 you have a preventive against deadly disasters. Throw in thirty drachmas' weight of the marrow of a freshly killed stag and one-third of a chous of rose-oil, - essence which perfumers style 'prime' and 'medium' and 'well-ground' - and pour on an equal measure of raw, gleaming oil and one-quarter of wax. These you must quickly heat in a round, bellying pot until the fleshy portions are softened and come in pieces about the spine. Next take a shaped, well-made pestle and pound up these many ingredients in a mixture with the snakes; 110 but cast aside the vertebrae, for in them a venom no less deadly is engendered. Then anoint all your limbs, be it for a journey or for a sleep or when you gird yourself after work at the threshing-floor in summer's drought and with pronged forks winnow the high pile of grain.
But if you should chance to come upon biting creatures when your skin is un-medicined and you are fasting - that is the time when disaster strikes a man - you may readily save yourself by our precepts. It is the female snake that attacks with its bite those who encounter it; besides, it is thicker right down to the trailing tail, 120 and for that reason the doom of death will come more swiftly. But chiefly in summer must you be on your guard against harmful snakes, observing the rising of the Pleiads, those smaller stars which graze the tail of the bull in their course, when the dipsas either sleeps unfed with the young it broods, lurking in the recesses of its hole, or when it makes eagerly for its feeding-ground, or when therefrom, sated with the forest, it goes sleepily to its lair. Beware of meeting at the crossroads the dusky male viper when he has escaped from her bite and is maddened by the blow of the smoke-hued female, 130 in the season when, as the male covers her, the lustful female fastens upon him, tearing him with her foul fang, and cuts off the head of her mate; but forthwith in the act of birth the young vipers avenge their sire's destruction, since they gnaw through their mother's thin flank and thereby are born motherless. For alone of snakes the female viper is burdened with pregnancy, whereas oviparous snakes of the forest warm a membrane-enclosed brood. Beware too when the viper, having doffed the wrinkled scales of age, comes abroad again exulting in his new-found youth; beware when, after escaping in his hole from the trampling feet of deer, 140 he darts in fury his limb-corroding venom at men; for red deer and roe cherish a special anger towards long reptiles and track them down, exploring on every side stone-heaps, walls, and lurking-places, following hard after them with the dreadful breath of their nostrils.
Furthermore the snow-capped crags of Othrys too bear deadly serpents, and hollow gully and rough crags and woodland scaur, where haunts the thirst-provoking seps. It has a varying hue and not one alone, ever taking the colour of the place wherein it has made its hole. 150 Those that live in stony ground and cairns are smaller but fierce and irascible: no bite of theirs can fail of effect on man, but is malignant. Another's body is like a land-snail; yet another has scales of greenish hue which variegate its huge coil; and many there are that frequent dusty places and make their coils rough by wriggling in the sand.
Consider now the murderous asp, bristling with dry scales, the most sluggish of all snakes. 160 Its form is terrifying, but when in movement, it uncoils its weight slowly and ever seems to wear a fixed look in its drowsy eyes. Yet when it hears some strange noise or sees a bright light, it throws off from its body dull sleep and wreathes its coil in a circular ring upon the ground, and in the midst it rears its head, bristling in deadly fashion. Its length, horrible beyond that of any other of earth's creatures, measures a fathom, and its thickness is seen to be that 170 which a spear-maker fashions for a hunting-spear for fighting bulls and deep-voiced lions. Sometimes the colour spread over its back is dust-like, sometimes it is the yellow of a quince and sheeny, at other times an ashen hue, but often, when it grows dark with Aethiop soil, a smoky brown like the sludge which the many-mouthed Nile in flood pours into the sea, as it dashes against the waves. Above the brow over the eyes there appear, as it were, two calluses, while its eye beneath them glows bright red aloft over its coil and its dust-coloured neck swells up as it hisses continuously, 180 when in the violence of its wrath it fastens death upon wayfarers who meet it. It has four fangs, their underside hollow, hooked, and long, rooted in its jaws, containing poison, and at their base a covering of membranes hides them. Thence it belches forth poison unassuageable on a body. Be they no friends of mine whose heads these monsters assail. For no bite appears on the flesh, no deadly swelling with inflammation, but the man dies without pain, and a slumberous lethargy brings life's end.
190 Now the ichneumon alone escapes unharmed the asp's onset, both when it comes to fight and when it breaks on the ground all the baneful eggs which the deadly serpent is brooding, as it shakes them out from their membranes by biting them and crushes them in its destroying teeth. The form of this snake-tracking creature is that of the puny marten which seeks the destruction of domestic fowls, snatching them from their perches as they sleep, where they roost upon a beam or foster their feeble chicks, keeping them warm beneath their breast. 200 But when amid Egypt's rush-grown water-meadows they join with the wriggling asps in a fearsome struggle, forthwith the Ichneumon leaps into the river, strikes the slimy bottom with its paws, and rolling its small body smears its limbs at once with the mud, against the time when the Dog-Star's heat has dried its fur and made it so that no fang may rend it. And then it either springs upon the frightful head of the reptile with the flickering tongue and bites it, or seizing it by the tail, sends it rolling into the weedy river.
You would do well to mark the various forms of the viper. It may be long, it may be short; 210 for so Europe and Asia breed them, but you will not find them alike. Thus, in Europe they are smaller, and above the tip of their nostrils they are horned and white, those, that is, beneath the mountains of Sciron and the Pambonian steeps, Rhype, and the hill of Corax and hoary Aselenus; whereas Asia breeds snakes a fathom long and even more, such as are about rugged Bucarterus or are contained within the strong headland of Aesagea and in Cercaphus. The front of their heads is flat, and at the trailing end of its coil 220 the creature wriggles a stunted tail which is abundantly rough with dry scales. And this way and that through the brakes it strays with sluggish coil. But every male viper is seen to have a pointed head. In length he is sometimes larger, sometimes short, and in breadth of belly he is slimmer, while his tail stretches tapering away, and may be flattened towards the end of its trailing length or rubbed smooth of scales. But the eyes in his face turn blood- red when he is angered, and as his forked tongue flickers rapidly, he lashes the end of his tail. 230 Wayfarers call him the snaky Cocytus. Two fangs in his upper jaw, as they spit poison, leave their mark upon the skin, but of the female always more than two, for she lays hold with her whole mouth, and you can easily observe that the jaws have opened wide about the flesh. And from the wound she makes there oozes a discharge like oil or, it may be, bloody or colourless, while the skin around starts up into a painful lump, often greenish, now crimson, or again of livid aspect. At other times it engenders a mass of fluid, and about the wound small pimples 240 like slight blisters rise flabbily from the skin, which looks scorched. And all around spread ulcers, some at a distance, others by the wound, emitting a dark blue poison; and over the whole body the piercing bane eats its way with its acute inflammation; and in the throat and about the uvula retchings following fast upon one another convulse the victim. The body is oppressed also with failures of sense in every part, and forthwith in the limbs and loins is seated a burdening, dangerous weakness, and heavy darkness settles in the head. Meantime the sufferer 250 at one moment has his throat parched with dry thirst, often too he is seized with cold from the finger-tips, while all over his frame an eruption with wintry rage lies heavy upon him. And again a man often turns yellow all over his body and vomits up the bile that lies upon his stomach, while a moist sweat, colder than the falling snow, envelops his limbs. In some cases his colour is that of sombre lead, in others his hue is murky, or again it is like flowers of copper.
You would do well also to learn of the crafty cerastes, who attacks like the male viper, which he resembles in equality of size. 260 True, the viper is hornless, whereas the cerastes boasts sometimes four horns sometimes two, and his dust-coloured skin is rough, and it is his habit to sleep in the sand or in the ruts down a road. The viper writhing himself darts swiftly forward on a straight course with the long winding of his belly, whereas the cerastes rolls on with clumsy movements of his middle, meandering on a crooked path with his scaly back, like to the dinghy of a merchantman dipping its whole side in the brine when the wind is contrary, 270 as it forces its way to windward when driven back by the south-westerly gale. When the cerastes bites, the disfiguring wound turns callous all around like a wart, and livid blisters like drops of rain move round about the bite, dimly discernible to the eye. True, the man in whom the deadly cerastes strikes his mischief-working fang goes through less acute pain, but nine suns of suffering does he behold. And in either groin and the hams the trouble festers persistent ever, while his skin has a livid appearance. 280 And from their suffering little strength is left in the joints of those afflicted, and with difficulty do they escape death.
Next I will tell you what marks the blood-letting snake, which always sleeps in rocky ascents, making a small, rough lair under a hedge. There it has its lurking-place when it has gorged its fill. It equals a footprint in length, but as to breadth it dwindles tapering from the fiery head down. At times it is of a sooty hue, or again a reddish brown. It narrows moderately at the neck, and its tail is sharply compressed 290 and stretches flattened from the middle onward. In its forehead beneath its snow-white horns are planted two eyes, of which the irises are somewhat like those of locusts, and on high rises terrible its devouring head. And with an oblique and halting movement it ever steers its little body on its brief journeys from the middle of the back like the cerastes, scraping its belly over the earth, and with its scaly body it makes a slight rustling as though crawling through a heap of straw. But when first it bites, a swelling of dark, unhealthy hue rises, and a sore pain freezes the heart, 300 and the stomach's content turned to water gushes out, while on the first night after, blood wells from the nostrils and throat and ears, freshly infected with the bile-like venom; urine escapes all bloody; wounds on the limbs break open, hastened by the destruction of the skin. May no female blood-letter ever inject its venom into you! For when it has bitten, all together the gums swell from the very bottom, and from the finger nails the blood drips unstaunchable, while the teeth, clammy with gore, become loose.
If the tale be true, Bane-Helen coming from Troy was angered with this species 310 when her company beached their vessel by the tumultuous Nile as they fled before the dread onset of the north wind, what time she beheld Canobus, the helmsman, swooning on the sands of Thonis; for as he slept a female blood-letter, on which he had pressed, struck him in the neck and belched forth its deadly poison into him, turning his rest to ruin. Therefore Helen crushed the middle of its trailing shape, breaking the ligatures of the back about the spine, so that the backbone started from its body. From that day forward the blood-letter and the crooked-roving cerastes alone of snakes move haltingly, oppressed by their injury.
320 You would do well to recognise the form of the sepedon, which in other respects resembles the blood-letter in appearance, but it steers a straightforward path; moreover it is almost without horns, and its colour, like that of a carpet, is spread over a rough surface. Its head is heavy, but its tail appears short as it moves, for it curls the end like the rest of its body. Truly the wound of the sepedon is deadly and agonising, and its black, destroying poison pervades the entire body: upon the parched skin everywhere the hair withers and is dispersed like the down of a thistle when it is rubbed. 330 For from the head and the brows of the man who has been bitten the hairs break off and from the eyelids the dark lashes perish, while round spots bespeckle his limbs and leprous eruptions swiftly spread a chalk-like rash.
Again, the form of the dipsas will always resemble that of a small viper; yet death will come quicker to those whom this grim snake assails. Its thin tail, darkish throughout, grows blacker from the end forward. From its bite the heart is inflamed utterly, and in the fever the dry lips shrivel with parching thirst. 340 Meanwhile the victim, bowed like a bull over a stream, absorbs with gaping mouth drink past measuring, until his belly bursts his navel, spilling the too heavy load. Now there is a tale of ancient days current among men how, when the first-born seed of Cronus became lord of heaven, he apportioned to his brothers severally their illustrious realms, and in his wisdom bestowed upon mortals youth, honouring them because they had denounced the fire-stealer. The fools, they got no good of their imprudence: for, being sluggards and growing weary, they entrusted the gift to an ass for carriage, 350 and the beast, his throat burning with thirst, ran off skittishly....

I feel like I’ve run out of all exposures to do. I have spent the last year in intense OCD recovery, 3ish hours of exposures a day. I can look at throw up and my heart rate doesn’t increase at all, I can watch videos of people throwing up and feel very minimal anxiety. Despite this, I cannot stop thinking about throw up, at some points it’s not even anxiety it’s just thinking about it and I can’t stop thinking about it. I have also done physical exposures such as sticking a popsicle stick down my throat to gag . I just can’t stop thinking about vomiting and I’m not sure how to combat this. I also did rumination exposures but I have absolutely no control over my thoughts and every thought felt very forced. Has anyone else experienced this? I have been afraid of throw up literally since birth and it feels wrong to feel neutral about it? I don’t know how to challenge this

Mix for the patient a draught of well-dried navel-figs from a flourishing tree in wine three years old; or you might also crush them together with a mallet, 350 dissolve them over a fire, and give as an antidote to his sickness. And when he recovers his appetite give him again his fill of this honey-sweet drink, sometimes adding milk to the mixture; or else cast in and mix with wine the dry fruit of the date-palm or wild pears that have long been dried, or the fruit of the common pear, or of the cordate pear, or sometimes myrtle-berries; or let him even, like a new-born child, put his lips to the nipple, and calf-like draw a draught from the breast, even as a new-born calf fresh from the womb, butting the udder, forces out the quickening flow from the teat. 360 Or else you may give him his fill of some warm and greasy drink and compel him to vomit unwilling though he be, forcing him with your fingers or with a feather; or cut and twist from papyrus a curved throat-tickler.
But if fresh milk turn cheesy in the hollow of a man's stomach, then, as it collects, suffocation overcomes him. Give him three draughts, one of vinegar between two of grape-syrup, and purge his costive bowels. Or further, grate into a draught the root of silphium from Libya, or else some of its gum, and administer it dissolved in vinegar. 370 Or again, you may add to the mixture dispersive lye or a fresh-blooming sprig of Cretan thyme. Sometimes the clustered fruit of the eucnemus well-steeped in wine is a help. Also a drink of curd, they say, disperses the clots; so too the green leaves of mint mixed either with a draught of honey or with an astringent one of vinegar.
Consider now the thorn-apple, whose aspect and whose taste upon the lips are like milk. At once unwonted retchings agitate the throat of the drinker, and by reason of the pain at the mouth of his stomach 380 he either vomits up his food stained with blood, or else he voids it, foul and fill of mucus, from his bowels, like one suffering from the spasms of dysentery. Sometimes worn out with the parching struggle his limbs give way and he falls to the ground, yet has no wish to moisten his dry mouth.
You must either administer draughts of milk, or else perhaps grape-syrup, slightly warmed and mixed with it in his cup. Moreover the flesh from the plump breast of a sleek fowl, softened on the fire and eaten, can be a help; so too is gruel if swallowed by the bowlful; 390 also the creatures which beneath the roaring of the rocky sea ever feed about the weed-clad crags: some of these he should devour raw, others boiled, many of them after broiling over a fire; but dishes of sea-snails or of the purple limpet, of crayfish and pinna and of the brown sea-urchin will be far more helpful, and scallops; neither . . . the trumpet-shell or sea-squirts that revel in the seaweed.
Let not the hateful draught of pharicum escape your memory - for you are not ignorant of it: it causes grievous suffering in the jaws. Know that to the taste it is like spikenard; but it sends men reeling 400 or sometimes out of their senses, and in a single day it can easily kill a strong man.
Now you may either weigh out and administer some of the purse-like root of the fair-flowering mountain nard which the headlands of Cilicia nourish by the brimming Cestrus, or else well-ground Cretan alexanders. Take also the iris itself and the head of the lily, abhorred of Aphrodite, seeing that it was her rival for colour; wherefore in the midst of its petals she attached a thing of shame to vex it, making to grow there the shocking yard of an ass. 410 Or else you may shave his head, and having cut the hair from the roots with a keen-edged razor, take it, and after heating along with it fresh barley-meal and the dry leaves of rue, which in its feeding the caterpillar is quickest to spoil, soak in vinegar and plaster thickly about his temples.
Let no man in ignorance fill his belly with henbane, as men often do in error, or as children who, having lately put aside their swaddling-clothes and head-bindings, and their perilous crawling on all fours, and walking now upright with no anxious nurse at hand, 420 chew its sprays of baleful flowers through witlessness, since they are just bringing to light the incisor teeth in their jaws, at which time itching assails their swollen gums.
Give the patient either pure milk to drink as a remedy or else fenugreek, which is grown for fodder and puts forth curving horns amid its windswept leaves - a great boon when it floats in common oil. Or else you should give him dried nettle seed, or even the raw leaves of the nettle itself in plenty to suck, or chicory and garden-cress and what they call perseum, 430 and besides these, mustard and radishes in plenty, and mingled with them slender spring onions. A head of garlic with well-grown cloves just taken in a drink also averts disaster.
Learn further that when men drink the tears of the poppy, whose seeds are in a head, they fall fast asleep ; for their extremities are chilled; their eyes do not open but are bound quite motionless by their eyelids. With the exhaustion an odorous sweat bathes all the body, turns the cheeks pale, and causes the lips to swell; the bonds of the jaw are relaxed, 440 and through the throat the laboured breath passes faint and chill. And often either the livid nail or wrinkled nostril is a harbinger of death; sometimes too the sunken eyes.
Of all these symptoms you must not be afraid, but devote yourself entirely to succour, filling the failing man with boiling-hot wine and grape-syrup. Or else make haste to break in pieces the labour of the bee of Hymettus. (Bees were born from the carcase of a calf that had fallen dead in the glades, and there in some hollow oak they first, maybe, united to build their nest, and then, bethinking themselves of work, 450 wrought round it in Demeter's honour their many-celled combs, as with their feet they gathered thyme and flowering heath.) There are times when, prizing open his dog-teeth, or into his drooping jaws, you should squeeze with a tuft of fleecy wool some fresh, fragrant rose-oil or iris-oil or again oil of the sleek olive; and let him drain a thick flock saturated with it. And forthwith rouse him with slaps on either cheek, or else by shouting, or again by shaking him as he sleeps, in order that the swooning man may dispel the fatal drowsiness and may then vomit, ridding himself of the grievous affliction. 460 And dip cloths first in wine and then in warm oil, and rub and chafe his chilled limbs with the liquid; or again, mix them in a bath-tub and dip his body in it, and at once immerse him in the hot bath and so thaw his blood and soften his taut, dry skin.
Also you should learn to know the dire and fateful drink of the deadly sea-hare, offspring of the waves of the pebbly sea. Its odour is that of fishes' scales and of the water in which they have been scoured; its taste is fishy like that of rotten fish, or of unwashed when scales taint the dish. 470 A sordid creature with its slim tentacles, it resembles the new-born young of the calamary or of the octopus or the fugitive cuttlefish, which stains the sea black with its gall directly it perceives the fisherman's crafty assault. Over the limbs of the poisoned spreads the dusky pallor of jaundice, and piecemeal their flesh melts away and dwindles, and food is utterly loathsome. At times the surface of the flesh swells and grows puffy about the ankles; the eyes are swollen, and as it were luxuriant blossoms settle upon the cheeks. For there follows a scantier flow of urine, which is sometimes red, 480 at others still more bloody in colour. Then the sight of every fish is hateful to his eyes and in his disgust he loathes food from the sea.
Give the patient a sufficient draught of Phocian hellebore or the gum of new-grown scammony in order that he may void both the draught and the filth of the evil fish; or else he should milk a she-ass and drink the milk, or he should dissolve smooth-skinned sprigs of the mallow in a pot. Then again he is given an obol's weight of cedar pitch ; or else let him eat his fill of the scarlet fruit of the pomegranate, the Cretan kind, 490 the wine-red, and the sort they call Promenean, also that from Aegina, and all those which partition hard, red grains into sections by a covering like a spider's web. Or else you should squeeze the flesh of grapes through a strainer, like olives oozing beneath the presses.
But if a man whose throat is constrained by parching thirst fall on his knees and draw water from a stream like a bull, parting with his hand the delicate, moss-like plants, then, approaching eagerly along with the water there rushes upon him in its desire for food the blood-loving leech, 500 long flaccid and yearning for gore. Or when a man's eyes are shrouded beneath dark night, and without thinking he drinks from a pitcher, tipping it up and pressing his lips to its, the creature floating on the surface of the water passes down his throat. At the point to which first the stream drives and collects them, the leeches fasten on in numbers and suck the body's blood, settling now at the entrance where the breath always gathers to pour through the narrow pharynx, and sometimes one clings about the mouths of the stomach inflicting pain, 510 and swallows a fresh repast.
You should administer to the patient a draught of vinegar mixed in his cup, and sometimes with it snow to eat, or ice fresh frozen by the north winds. Or you should dig up some moist, brackish soil and brew therewith a turbid potion to give him strength; or draw actual salt water, and either warm it at once beneath the late summer sun or heat it steadily over a fire. Or else you should give him rock salt in plenty or the salt flakes which a salter ever gathers 520 as they settle at the bottom when he mingles water with water.
Let not the evil ferment of the soil injure a man; it will often swell up in his chest, at other times it will choke him, when it is fostered over the viper's coil deep in its lair, sucking up the monster's venom and the noxious breath from its mouth. This is the evil ferment which they call Fungi in general, for to different kinds different names have been assigned.
Now do you cut of either the head of a cabbage with its coats of leaves or the green fronds of rue, and administer them. Or else crumble the bloom of copper that has had long use, 530 or ashes of the vine in vinegar. Sometimes grate the root of bindweed or some soda into an infusion of vinegar, or a leaf of the cress which grows in garden-plots; and citron too, and the biting mustard. You should also reduce to ashes in the fire the lees of wine or the droppings of the domestic fowl, and then let the man thrust his hand hard down his throat and vomit up the deadly poison.
But if hurt come from a draught, hard to cure, of the sorcerer's lizard, slippery-skinned and utterly reckless, which they call the salamander, and which not even a fierce flame can harm, 540 then on a sudden the base of the tongue is inflamed and then the victims are overcome with chill, and a fearful trembling burdens and loosens their joints. They stagger and crawl upon all fours like an infant, for the faculties of the mind are utterly blunted, and livid weals spreading thick over the skin blotch the extremities as the poison is diffused.
Give the sufferer frequent doses of the tears stripped from the pine-tree mingled with the bee's rich produce; or boil down the leaves of the budding ground-pine together with the cones which the pine puts forth. 550 And sometimes mix the nettle's seed with the finely ground meal of bitter vetch, and dry them. Sometimes too you should sprinkle cooked nettles with crumbling barley-groats, dress well in oil, and force the patient to eat in plenty even against his will. Again, pine-resin and the sacred produce of the bee and the root of all-heal and the delicate eggs of the tortoise are curative when you mix them on a hot fire; curative too the flesh of a hog abounding in fat when boiled down together with the limbs of the sea-turtle which swims at large with weak flippers; or else with those of the mountain tortoise that feeds on tree-medick, the creature 560 that Hermes the Gracious endowed with a voice though voiceless, for he separated the chequered shell from the flesh and extended two arms from its edges. Further, either you should bend to your service the tadpoles' impudent parents and eryngo roots with them, or you should throw into a pot a sufficient quantity of scammony and cook it. With these fee the sick man to satiety, and though he be near to death, you will save him.
If a man imbibe a draught from the sun-loving toad or from the dumb and green-hued toad which in the springtime cling to the bushes, sleek, and licking up the dew, 570 one of them, the sun-lover, induces a pallor like fustic and causes swellings in the limbs while the breath issues continually in long gasps and forced, and smells foul at the mouth. Whereas the voiceless one that frequents the reeds sometimes diffuses the yellowness of boxwood over the limbs, 580 and sometimes bedews the mouth with a flow of bile. Sometimes too a man suffers from heart-burn, and persistent hiccups convulse him. And it causes the seed, now of man now of woman, to drip on, and often scattering it over their limbs it renders it infertile. But you should give the patient the flesh of a frog boiled or roasted; sometimes pitch which you have mixed with sweet wine. And the spleen of the deadly toad averts the grievous oppression - the vocal toad of the fen, which cries on the sedge , the first harbinger of delightful spring. Further, for such patients you should sometimes pour out wine in abundance, cup after cup, and induce the man to vomit, reluctant though he be; or else heat over a fire a big-bellied vessel and keep the sick man always warm, and let him sweat profusely. Also you should clip and mix with wine the roots of tall-growing reeds which are nourished by the toads' native marsh, 590 where as tiny creatures they swim about with their feet, or roots of the life loving galingale, female and male; and dry the man's body by ceaseless exercise, keeping him from all food and drink, and exhaust his limbs.
Also do not neglect litharge, which brings suffering when its hateful burden sinks into the stomach and wind circulates and rumbles about the mid navel, as in a violent colic which overpowers men, smiting them with sudden pains. The victim's flow of urine fails; then the limbs swell 600 and the skin has the appearance of lead.
Give the patient either a double obol's weight of myrrh or a fresh infusion of sage, or else cut him hypericum from the hills, or sprigs of hyssop, or again a spray of the wild fig and seed of celery from the Isthmus, beneath which the sons of Sisyphus buried the youthful Melicertes, slain by the sea, and established games. Or else you should roast pepper along with rue and grate them into wine, and so rescue him from deadly sickness. You should also give him fresh buds of henna, or the firstling fruit of the pomegranate 610 with the flower still upon it.
[See that you do not pluck the dangerous, pine-like yew of Oeta: it is the giver of lamentable death, and only a copious draught of unmixed wine can bring instant help when it chokes the pharynx and the narrow passage of a man's throat.]
[Some remedies medicinal for a man against noxious fungi Nicander in fact set down in his book, but in addition to these the myrtle whose twigs Dictynna abhors, and which Hera of the Imbrasus alone receives not for her garland, 620 seeing that it adorned the Cyprian queen on mount Ida, when the goddesses were roused to compete in beauty with one another - from this in some watered glade take as a healing boon the scarlet fruit that waxes and is warmed with the wintry rays of the sun, and pounding them with a pestle strain the juice over fine linen or with a rush sieve and administer a cup containing a cyathus - or more, for a larger dose is serviceable since this draught is not harmful to men - for that is in fact sufficient cure if you drink it.]
And now hereafter you will treasure the memory of Nicander the singer, 630 and observe the command of Zeus, Protector of Friendships.

NICANDER, 'ALEXIPHARMACA' The Greek text of the 'Alexipharmaca' can be found on the Poesia Latina website.
Even though the peoples from whom you and I, Protagoras, have derived our births did not set up the walls of their strong towers side by side in Asia, and a great space separates us, yet I can easily instruct you in the remedies for those draughts of poison which attack men and bring them low. You indeed have made your home by the tempestuous sea beneath bossy Arctus, where are the caverns of Lobrinian Rhea and the place of the secret rites of Attes; while I dwell where the sons of the far-famed 10 Creusa divided among themselves the richest portion of the mainland, settling by the tripods of Apollo in Clarus.
You must, to be sure, learn of the aconite, bitter as gall, deadly in the mouth, which the banks of Acheron put forth. There is the abyss of the Wise Counsellor {Hades} whence few escape, and there the towns of Priolas fell crashing in ruins.
All the drinker's jaws and the roof of his mouth and his gums are constricted by the bitter draught, as it wraps itself about the top of the chest, crushing with evil choking the man in the throes of heartburn. The top of the belly is gripped with pain - 20 the swelling, open mouth of the lower stomach, which some call the 'heart' of the digestive vessel, others the 'receiver' of the stomach - and the gate is closed immediately upon the beginning of the intestines where a man's food in all its abundance is carried in. And all the while from his streaming eyes drips the moisture; and his belly sore shaken vainly throws up wind, and much of it settles below about his mid-navel; and in his head is a grievous weight, and there ensues a rapid throbbing beneath his temples, and with his eyes he sees things double, like a man at night overcome with unmixed wine. 30 And as when the Silens, the nurses of the horned Dionysus, crushed the wild grapes, and having for the first time fortified their spirits with the foaming drink, were confused in their sight and on reeling feet rushed madly about the hill of Nysa, even so is the sight of these men darkened beneath the weight of evil doom. This plant men call also Mouse-bane, for it utterly destroys troublesome, nibbling mice ; but some call it Leopard's-choke, since cowherds and goatherds with it contrive the death of those great beasts 40 amid the glades of Ida in the vale of Phalacra. Again they name it Woman-killer and Crayfish. And the deadly aconite flourishes amid the Aconaean mountains.
For one so poisoned gypsum to the weight of a handful will perhaps be a protection, if you draw thereto tawny wine in due measure with the gypsum reduced to fine powder - let it be a full cotyle of wine - and add stalks of wormwood, cutting them from the shrub, or of bright green horehound which they call Honeyleaf; administer also a shoot of the herbaceous, evergreen spurge-olive and rue, quenching in vinegar and honey 50 a red-hot lump of metal between the jaws of the fire-tongs, or dross of iron which the flame of the fire has separated within the melting-pot in the furnace; or sometimes just after warming in the fire a lump of gold or silver you should plunge it in the turbid draught. Or again you should take leaves, half a handful's weight, of the ground pine; or a dry sprig of pot marjoram from the hills, or cut a fresh spray of field basil, and cover them in four cyathi of honey-sweet wine. Or you may take some broth, still meaty and undiluted, made from a domestic fowl 60 when the forcible glow of the fire beneath the pot reduces the body to pieces. Also you should render down the fresh meat of an ox abounding in fat and satisfy the stomach to its full capacity with the soup. Again, sometimes you should pour the juice of balsam into some drops of milk from a young girl, or else into water, until the patient discharges from his throat the undigested food. Sometimes too you should cut out the curd from the stomach of the nimble beast that sleeps open-eyed {hare}, or of a fawn, and give it mixed in wine; at other times cast the roots of the purple mulberry into the hollow of a mortar, 70 bray them mingled with wine, and give them boiled in the labours of the bee. Thus may you ward off loathsome sickness though it threaten to master a man, and he may once again walk on unfaltering feet.
In the second place consider the hateful brew compounded with gleaming, deadly white lead whose fresh colour is like milk which foams all over when you milk it rich in the springtime into the deep pails. Over the victim's jaws and in the grooves of the gums is plastered an astringent froth, and the furrow of the tongue turns rough on either side, 80 and the depth of the throat grows somewhat dry, and from the pernicious venom follows a dry retching and hawking, for this is severe; meanwhile his spirit sickens and he is worn out with mortal suffering. His body too grows chill, while sometimes his eyes behold strange illusions or else he drowses; nor can he bestir his limbs as heretofore, and he succumbs to the overmastering fatigue.
Give the patient at once a cupful of oil of the Premadia- or Orchis- or Myrtle- olive, so that the stomach being lubricated may void the evil drug; 90 or else you may readily milk the udder's swelling teat and give it him; but skim the oily surface from the draught. And you may infuse sprigs or leaves of the mallow in fresh sap and dose the sufferer with as much as he can take. Or again pound sesame seeds and administer them also in wine; or else heat and cleanse in water the ashes of vine twigs, and strain the lye through the interstices of a newly woven basket, for this will retain the sediment. Moreover if you rub down the hard stones of the persea in gleaming olive oil, they will ward off injury - 100 the persea which once on a time Perseus, when his feet bore him from the land of Cepheus and he had cut off the teeming head of Medusa with his falchion, readily made to grow in the fields of Mycenae (it was a recent gift of Cepheus) on the spot where the scabbard-chape of his falchion fell, beneath the topmost summit of Melanthis, where a Nymph revealed to the son of Zeus the famed spring of Langeia. Or else you should break up in roasted barley the sap which congeals upon the frankincense bushes of Gerrha; also as helpful you should dissolve in warm water the tears from the walnut-tree or from the plum or those which ever drip in plenty on the elm-twigs, 110 and drops of gum, so that he may vomit up part of the poison, and part render wholesome as he yields to the hot water when the sweat moistens his body. And again he might sate himself with a meal which he has taken or with strong wine and so escape an inglorious death.
When a liquid smells of the corn-eating blister-beetle, that is to say, like liquid pitch, refuse it, for on the nostrils it weighs like pitch and in the mouth like freshly eaten berries of the juniper. Sometimes in a weak infusion these creatures produce a biting sensation upon the lips, 120 or again deep down about the mouth of the stomach; at other times the middle of the belly or the bladder is gnawed and seized with griping pains, while discomfort attacks men where the cartilage of the chest rests over the hollow of the stomach. And the victims are distressed in themselves: swooning delusions hold in bondage what is human in them, and the victim is brought down unexpectedly by pain, like the freshly scattered thistledown which roams the air and is fluttered by every breeze.
At times administer to the patient doses of pennyroyal mixed with river water, making a posset of them in a mug. 130 This was the rich draught of the fasting Deo; once with this did Deo moisten her throat in the city of Hippothoōn by reason of the unchecked speech of Thracian Iambe. At other times take from your pot and mix with the round seeds of flax a rich draught brewed from the head of a hog or of a lamb or from the horned head of a goat which you have but lately cut off, or even, maybe, from a goose, and give it until the man is sick; and let him by tickling his throat stir up in the gullet below the entire mass of polluted food still undigested. At times you should draw the fresh milk of a sheep in a clyster-pipe, 140 administer a clyster and so empty the useless faeces from the bowel. At another time a draught of creamy milk will help the sufferer; or you should lop the green tendrils of the vine when they are fresh-burdened with leaves and chop them up in grape-syrup; or take from crumbling soil the ever sting-shaped roots of scorpius and steep in the bees' produce. The plant grows high like asphodel but sheds its stalks when withered. Also you should take four drachmas' weight of Parthenian earth which Phyllis brings forth under her mountain-spurs, 150 the snow-white earth of the Imbrasus which a horned lamb first revealed to the Chesiad Nymphs beneath the rush-grown river-banks of snowcapped Cercetes. Or brew a drink of boiled-down must of twice that quantity, and into it shred some sprigs of rue, kneading the herbs with rose-oil, or sometimes soak it in iris-oil, which has often cured an illness.
If however a man thoughtlessly taste from loathsome cups a draught, deadly and hard to remedy, of coriander, the victims are struck with madness 160 and utter wild and vulgar words like lunatics, and like crazy Bacchanals bawl shrill songs in frenzy of the mind unabashed. To such a case you should administer a cupful of hedanian wine, 'Pramnian', unmixed, just as it gushed from the vat. Or cast a cupful of salt into water and let it dissolve. Or else you should empty the fragile egg of a chicken and mix with it the sea-foam upon which the swift petrel feeds. It is with this that it sustains life, and also meets its doom, when the fishermen's destructive children assail with their tricks the swimming fowl; and it falls into the boys' hands as it chases the fresh and whitening surge of foam. 170 Do you also draw from the bitter, violet-hued sea - the sea, which, with fire too, the Earth-Shaker has enslaved to the winds. For fire is vanquished by hostile blasts: the undying fire and the expanse of waters tremble before the north-west winds; though the unruly sea, swift to anger, lords it over ships and over the men who perish in it, while to the rule of the abhorred fire the forest is obedient. Again, common oil mingled with wine or a drink of grape-syrup mixed with snow will stay the pain, 180 what time the reapers with their pruning-hooks lop the heavy, wrinkled vintage of the hedanian and the psithian vine and crush it, while with a humming sound bees and the tree-wasp, wasps and buzzers from the hills fall upon the grapes and feast their fill of sweetness, and the mischievous fox ravages the richer clusters.
Take note too of the noxious draught which is hemlock, for this drink assuredly looses disaster upon the head bringing the darkness of night: the eyes roll, and men roam the streets with tottering steps and crawling upon their hands; 190 a terrible choking blocks the lower throat and the narrow passage of the windpipe; the extremities grow cold; and in the limbs the stout arteries are contracted; for a short while the victim draws breath like one swooning, and his spirit beholds Hades.
Give the patient his fill of oil or of unmixed wine until he vomit up the evil, painful poison ; or prepare and insert a clyster ; or else give him draughts of unmixed wine, or cut and bring him twigs of sweet bay or bay of Tempe 200 (this was the first plant to crown the Delphian locks of Phoebus) ; or else pound some pepper with nettle seeds and administer them, or again infuse wine with the bitter juice of silphium. Sometimes you may offer him a measure of scented iris-oil and silphium shredded in with gleaming oil. Also give him a draught of honey-sweet grape-syrup, and a foaming vessel of milk which you have slightly warmed over the fire.
There are even means of promptly averting the oppression caused by deadly arrow-poison, when a man is overcome with anguish from drinking it. First, his tongue begins to thicken from the root 210 and weighs upon the lips which are heavy and swollen about the mouth; he suffers from a dry expectoration, and his gums break open from the base. Often too his heart is smitten with palpitations, and it is his fate that all his wits are stunned and overthrown by the evil poison; and he makes bleating noises, babbling endlessly in his frenzy; often too in his distress he cries aloud even as one whose head, the body's master, has just been cut off with the sword; or as the acolyte with her tray of offerings, Rhea's priestess, appearing in the public highways on the ninth day of the month, raises a great shout with her voice, while the people tremble 220 as they hearken to the horrible yelling of the votary of Ida. Even so the man in his frenzy of mind bellows and howls incoherently, and as he glances sidelong like a bull, he whets his white teeth and foams at the jaws.
You must even bind him fast with twisted ropes and make him drunk with wine, with gentle force filling him to satiety even against his will; then force his gnashing teeth apart in order that under your mastering hand he may vomit up the deadly stuff. Or divide up and boil till soft over a bright fire the young gosling of a free-feeding goose; 230 you should also give him the wild fruit of the rough-barked apple-tree grown upon the hills after cutting off the inedible parts; or even those kinds that pertain to the fields, such as the spring seasons bring forth for girls to sport with; or again pear-quinces, or else the famed fruit of the grim Cydon, which Cretan torrents have fostered. Or sometimes, after sufficiently pounding all these with a mallet, you should soak them in water and then throw in some fresh and fragrant pennyroyal and stir in together with apple-pips. Also you may soak up some fragrant rose-oil or iris-oil into wool 240 and let it drip into his parted lips. Yet hardly may a man after countless sufferings at the end of many days launch with safety his unsteady steps, while his startled gaze roams this way and that. This is the poison with which the nomads of Gerrha and they who plough their fields by the river Euphrates smear their brazen arrow-heads. And the wounds, quite past healing, blacken the flesh, for the stinging poison of the Hydra eats its way in, while the skin, turning putrid with the infection, breaks into open sores.
But if a man taste the loathsome fire of Colchian Medea, 250 the notorious meadow-saffron, an incurable itching assails : his lips all over as he moistens them, such as comes upon those whose skin is defiled with the snow-white juice of the fig-tree or by the stinging nettle or by the many-coated head of the squill, which fearfully inflames the flesh of children. But if he retain the poison, there settles in his gullet a pain which at first eats into it and presently lacerates it from below with desperate retching as he disgorges the poison from his throat; and at the same time the belly also voids the polluted scourings, even as a carver pours off the turbid water in which the meat was washed.
260 Now sometimes you should cut and administer the crinkled leaves of the oak, or else those of the Valonia oak together with the acorns; or you should draw fresh milk in a pail and then let the man swallow his fill of the milk after retaining it in his mouth. At times to be sure shoots of knot-grass will help, or else the roots boiled in milk. You should also infuse vine-tendrils in water, or equally well shoots of bramble which you have chopped. Further, you should strip the green hulls of a well-grown chestnut-tree that cover the thin-skinned nut 270 where the dry husk encloses the inner flesh of the nut so hard to peel which the land of Castanea brings forth. You may suitably extract the inmost pith of the giant fennel which received the spoils of Prometheus's thieving, and at the same time throw in a quantity of leaves of the evergreen tufted thyme and of the berries of the styptic myrtle; or you might perhaps soak the rind of the chamaeleon-thistle, 280 which has a smell like that of basil . The furrow of the victim's tongue grows rough at the base and inflamed from below, and his heart wanders within him. In his frenzy he gnaws his tongue with his dog-teeth, for at times his madness overmasters his wits, while the stomach blinds with wanton obstruction the two channels of liquid and solid food, and rumbles with the wind it has penned within, which circulating in a confined track often seems like the thunder of stormy Olympus, or again like the wicked roaring of the sea 290 as it booms beneath rocky cliffs. Distressed though he is, despite his efforts scarce can the wind escape upward; yet medicinal draughts can at once make him void egg-shaped stools, like the shell-less lumps which the free-feeding fowl, when brooding her warlike chicks, sometimes under stress of recent blows drops from her belly in their membranes ; sometimes under stress of sickness she will cast out her ill-fated offspring upon the earth.
The familiar astringent draught of wormwood steeped in freshly pressed grape-syrup will check his pain; 300 sometimes too you may cut up the resin of the terebinth-tree, or else the tears of the Corsican pine, or again of the Aleppo pine which makes moan on the spot where Phoebus stripped the skin from the limbs of Marsyas; and the tree, lamenting in the glens his far-famed fate, alone utters her passionate plaint unceasingly. Give him also plenty of the flowers of the bright hulwort, fatal to mice, or strip the low-growing shoots of rue, and spikenard, and take also the testicle of the beaver that dwells in the lake; or rub down an obol of silphium with a toothed scraper, or else cut off the same quantity of its gum. 310 Sometimes too he may be given his fill of the wild goat's marjoram, or of milk just curdling in the pail after milking.
But if a man in his folly taste the fresh blood of a bull he falls heavily to the ground in distress, overmastered by pain, when, as it reaches the chest, the blood congeals easily, and, in the hollow of his stomach, clots; the passages are stopped, the breath is straitened within his clogged throat, while, often struggling in convulsions on the ground, he gasps bespattered with foam.
You should cut off for him some juicy wild figs, 320 soak in vinegar, and then mingle the whole with water, stirring together the water and the astringent draught of vinegar; or drain away the burden of his surcharged belly. Also you should strain through a porous bag of fine linen some stirred curd either from a fawn of roe or red deer or from a kid; or again if you take some from the nimble hare you will bring healing and help to the sufferer. Or give him three obols' weight of well-powdered soda, and mix it in a sweet draught of wine; mix too a pound weight with equal parts of silphium and of its gum, 330 and seed of cabbage soaked thoroughly in vinegar. And give him a sprig of flea-bane with its ill-coloured leaves. Or you should bruise some pepper and buds of the bramble-bush; then you will easily dissipate a mass of congealing blood, or break it up if it has lodged in the vessels.
Do not let the agonising drink of the hateful buprestis escape your knowledge; and you should recognise a man overcome by it. In truth, when bitten, its contact with the jaws seems that of soda; it has an evil smell; and all about the mouths of the stomach arise shifting pains; 340 the urine is stopped and the lowest : part of the bladder throbs, while the whole belly is inflated, as when a tympanitic dropsy settles in abundance about the mid navel, and all over the man's limbs the skin is visibly taut. This creature too, I fancy, causes swelling in plump-bellied heifers or calves, whenever they bite it as they graze. For this reason herdsmen name...

Hi! I need help!
I am 11 weeks postpartum and have experienced hives every single day since giving birth (and prior as well). I am currently working with several doctors but they seem to be stumped. Hoping I can get some ideas from this sub to research and bring to them.
Here are some details:
-34yo Caucasian female in USA - had hives during pregnancy; they were itchy and progressed in intensity in the third trimester. They were not as bad as they are now however. - day after giving birth (vaginal with epidural and pitocin), I woke up in the AM with a very swollen face and some hives. Benedryl did not alleviate. In the evening around 9pm, I woke up with a hive/welt inside my mouth/lip. I breastfed my son and went into anaphylaxis; throat was closing and voice was very high pitched. Took epipen, benedryl, and Pepcid. Had a rebound. - have had hives every single day for 11 weeks. They are primarily on my chest, arms, hands, and legs, and sometimes spread to my trunk and face. They usually aren’t very itchy. Only prednisone keeps them temporarily at bay. I do feel generalized pain all over my body now; almost like I can feel the inflammation. - health history includes hashimotos, severe diminished ovarian reserve, gallbladder surgery at 5 weeks gestation, appendix surgery, seasonal and environmental allergies. For many years when I was younger I (per my doctors guidance) did not eat peanuts or tree nuts due to a suspected nut allergy with a similar anaphylactic type reaction. Per my doctors guidance and testing, I now eat nuts. Pregnancy was uncomplicated. Conception was unassisted, however I had gone through 4 prior rounds of IVF on very high hormonal protocols. -exclusively breastfeeding my son
What could this be? My research is pointing me to MCAS or lactation induced hives but could it be something else?

Hi,
I’ve been having on and off cold like symptoms ( congestion and mucus) for the past 2 months. Sometimes my mucus is white and now it’s always yellow. Doctor thinks it’s cause I keep catching colds over and over. My lymph nodes are swollen on my neck and behind ears, I have pressure in my ears/ head but no sinusitis and my throat hurts and I have tonsil stones. I have appetite to eat but I can’t eat cause it feels like mucus is at the back of my throat.
I’m so sick of feeling like this. My anxiety making every thing worse too.. I just want to go back to normal and be healthy :(

I just completed my medical abortion process and I want to share the experience in detail to help any women because I know these threads helped me. My boyfriend and I are 20 year old college students and found out I was pregnant after a failed plan B. We know we are in no place to have a baby and keeping it was never really an option. My parents are very traditional and strict so I had to hide this entire pregnancy and abortion process from them. My boyfriend is not allowed over so I went through it completely alone. I had awful morning sickness, my breasts were VERY swollen and I had a missed period. Once we took a test and found out we scheduled an appointment at planned parenthood. We did it online and got an appointment about a week out. The planned parenthood visit went like this. We arrive, fill out some paperwork and wait to be called to the back. The medical abortion pill was $550 without insurance. Thankfully my boyfriend had money to afford it. If you don’t have the full amount they will let you pay what you can on that date and I believe let you make payments. Once called the back my boyfriend had to stay behind for a few medical questions but they let him in shortly after. I was explained the process of how the take the pills, what to expect, and what was not normal. I was also told nobody has died from this which made me much more comfortable. I then sat up on the chair and the nurse gave me an ultra sound over my stomach with the gel, i just had to pull my pants down a slight bit it was non invasive. We were then asked if we would like to see and have our own copies of the ultrasound, we took them. Seeing the baby did not change our mind about the decision which I was afraid of. After the ultrasound I singed consent and took the first pill. There are 2 pills involved in this process. After taking the first pill (3 pm) I felt nothing. I went out to eat with my boyfriend and spent time with him. I had slight cramping but nothing bad. I then went and picked up my medicine. They prescribed 800 mg of ibuprofen for pain and a nausea medication. The medication only costed about $25 for both. Again I don’t have insurance and I want to include prices for those who don’t ! I went home that night and decided to take the second pill the next day. ( If pill is taken vaginally you can take it immediately or the next 48 hours ) The next day I woke up with my usual morning sickness. I made sure I was not vomiting so I could take my pain medication before taking the second pill. I took my medication for pain at 3:00 pm and waited about 45 minutes for it to kick in. At 3:45 pm I inserted the 4 pills vaginally. There are two ways to take these pills; orally or vaginally. I chose vaginally due to my morning sickness and I didn’t want to throw them up before they could work. The doctor told me whatever way you choose does not affect the likelihood of the abortion being successful. The pills just have to sit in a mucous membrane for 30 minutes and dissolve. Inserting them was easy and not scary I would recommend it if you are vomiting! I then laid in bed and sat on the phone with my boyfriend waiting for it to kick in. I made sure I had thick pads, changed of clothes, a heating pad, ginger ale, iced water, gatorade, and strawberries near by as I was going to be alone. Almost exactly 30 minutes later, I started feeling the cramps. They came on strong and VERY quickly. Right after I began bleeding a little bit. Withing 5 minutes of the first cramp I was laying on the floor in, honestly, excruciating pain. The ibuprofen and nausea medication did not work for me at all during this process I have to be honest.My stomach began to hurt and I vomited soon. I hung up on my boyfriend because the pain was just too bad to talk. I made my way to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I did have bowel movements, not quite diarrhea like some people experience. The cramps at this point were absolutely terrible. They were very strong and came in waves with not much time in between. I genuinely felt like I was incapable of bearing the pain. ( you are) I began to sweat a lot and I was yelling and crying in my bathroom , I didn’t care if my parents found out at this point. The good news is, it only lasted about an hour. I passed only small clots and felt a huge relief. I then went in my bed and shivered and rocked myself to sleep. I was in and out of sleep with cramps but I still slept very well (2 hours). My boyfriend called me and woke me up and it just felt like I had really bad period cramps. I did bleed only small clots so I was worried it didn’t work. I then began to bleed a lot into my pad so I went to the bathroom. This part may be triggering and TMI. When I sat down I peed and it was mostly blood. I then felt my vagina open slightly and I released the baby. I was 6 weeks and the baby was honestly bigger and heavier than I thought. It was the size of a big orange. The embryo was released in the sack, I didn’t see it at all I only felt it luckily. I then laid in bed with cramps for another hour and felt well enough to shower. I also have to note , my friends and I noticed I looked very glowy and healthy after ! It was very odd like releasing the baby made me look normal again. I don’t know if this has happened to anyone else. I took a very hot shower and let myself bleed out the excess with the hot water running on me, this helped a lot. I then went out with my friend to get a sweet treat and I am pretty much back to normal. I am eating, no nausea, slight pain from cramps. I am still bleeding but not much. I hope this helps anyone who is lost or afraid or going through this alone. I did it and honestly couldn’t imagine someone near me while going through that. I do not regret my decision at all as I know it was the right one. Our bodies are amazing you will probably be fine by the next day !

I know this is long and probably TMI so I appreciate any advice I can get!
Last month I was absolutely convinced I had strep. Went in to the doctor, she thought it was strep. Rapid test came back negative, which surprised us all, so they sent it to the real lab to test it again. Negative again. They suggested rest and fluids. Went back in a couple of days later because I still felt like crap and got told it was an upper respiratory infection and prescribed prednisone. Admittedly, I didn’t take the prednisone. I feel like they brush off a lot of my symptoms as an asthma exacerbations and throw prednisone at me unnecessarily. I eventually started feeling better and went on with my life.
Early Saturday morning I started vomiting (thanks, Mr. 3 Year Old for the stomach bug). Thankfully it was short lived but it was violent and almost constant during the less than 4 hours it lasted.
I’ve barely had much of a voice since then. Monday I went in and got diagnosed with laryngitis. Once again, prescribed prednisone. I was told that if I didn’t feel better by Wednesday (today) to come back in. I haven’t been miserable. I’ve been mostly functional, gone to work, took care of my kids, household, etc.It hasn’t gotten much worse but not any better. I’m tired but I don’t get enough sleep anyway, I have a headache but I have a basically constant headache. My throat doesn’t hurt so much as it feels like it’s irritated. I went back today because my headache is slightly worse but my ears hurt like a bitch. She diagnosed me with a double ear infection (and they said my ears were fine on Monday) and prescribed me an antibiotic.
Anyway, a little bit ago I cleared my throat and some mucus flew out onto my hand. It was pretty disgusting and looked infected. Is it possible that a URI has sat dormant for the past month and then somehow was “reactivated” from the violent vomiting or just being sick again? Is that insane? I’m just so confused.

Anyone else have a baby with mild reflux? And that ‘mild’ reflux is still causing a lot of headache for you & baby?
My almost 8 week old daughter has shown reflux signs and symptoms since about 3 or 4 weeks old. It’s made feeding her a challenge nearly every day. She’s never been formally diagnosed by her pediatrician, but I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re dealing with. Thankfully, she’s gaining weight really well and has shot up to the 75th percentile compared to her 15th percentile just before a month old. Regardless, she will have these (occasional) projectile spit-ups/vomit that scare me to death because it just keeps pouring out. I would say these happen about 1x each week and the rest of the time it’s just small/normal spit ups. Actually, if we’re lucky, some days she doesn’t spit up at all.
Either way- she acts really fidgety and uncomfortable at times. She makes weird noises all the time. She grunts, strains, gurgles, and sounds like she’s clearing her throat. She sounds congested sometimes. She will randomly cough and sneeze quite often. We have to take frequent breaks during feeds because she’ll start acting like she’s uncomfortable mid-feed. She’s always been a “snacker” and will only eat little amounts at a time before she’s had enough.
She’s never had an issue sleeping on her back, though. In fact, sometimes she enjoys it. We do hold her upright for a bit after feeds but then she’s fine to be put down.
I’ve been eyeing her stools because I know dairy allergies can cause reflux to be worse. I’m not seeing any signs of that, however, I do think she has a sensitive tummy based on how much gas discomfort she has daily.
For those who have babies with reflux, what have you done to help them? Specifically ‘mild’ reflux that isn’t bad enough for medication. Do they eventually grow out of it? It does seem to make her more of a high-maintenance baby and I can’t help but wonder if there’s something we’re not doing that would solve this issue and make her more content.

Yesterday was day 2 and all was going okay drinking water, tried to eat for the first time, some Mac n cheese which I was able to eat. Then it downhill once I went to sleep and was awoken by the urge to purge (projectile vomit). Made it to the bathroom but ended up throwing up 4 separate times that night in total. So my day 3 has been horrible. My throat is way worse than before, I can’t speak at all, I’m scared to eat, and I don’t know why I threw up. I’m a little concerned I threw up and I don’t know if I’m bleeding into my stomach. Unsure if I should tell my doctor ( have someone tell my doctor cause I can’t speak) any thoughts?

I was eating probiotic foods (a few hours after taking the pill) as recommended while taking Clindamycin. Very little side effects of note. This was supposed to treat a swollen tonsil which may be causing the feeling I have been having of food stuck on one side of my throat every time I eat, and of course it did jack shit. I took it for ten days and hoped so bad one day it would improve that. Instead, it did nothing and then when i finished (the 17th), my belly began to bloat so bad I feel like it will pop every time I eat. I'm already on a strict diet because of severe gluten intolerance and gastritis, so it can't be random foods. I'm fucking miserable and don't know what to do. It's not likely gas because there is no pain along with it minus the feeling of my belly severely stretching. I want to scream. The stupid antibiotic that was meant to solve a problem did nothing and instead added another issue.
I missed my probiotic yogurt maybe a few days after finishing the antibiotics, if that's important. I don't know of any vitamins to take that may help restore as everything is supplements I see with little to no testing to share proving they are what they are. That's why I used food not a pill.
Any advice on getting my gut bacteria up to good and stopping this horrid bloating is appreciated. I'm really struggling.

Hi everyone 👋🏼 I need some advice because im losing my mind over this. I’m 25F, about 2 weeks ago I started Wellbutrin an anti depressant almost immediately i got some side effects headaches, dizziness, dry mouth but that all went away after a few days except for a tight sore throat voice hoarseness and post nasal drip it feels like i have dry mucus but i don’t cough up anything, no coughing no wheezing but always feel like i have to clear my throat,it gets worse when i drink coffee, i don’t have trouble swallowing food but it is difficult to swallow saliva, no difficulty breathing ( maybe shortness of breath but i always had that ) globus sensation which i also always had, my throat feels swollen and irritated though, but no pain so far, so im not sure if wellbutrin is to blame. I have severe anxiety, health anxiety being the most severe one, so going to get it checked feels like death sentence already, ill go get it checked if it doesn’t get better but still stressing over it makes my health worse sorry if its long but i would really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and experiences Thank you 🙏🏼

I wanted to come back here and post a thank you. I was in a really dark place last night and knew the place I would have any hope of understanding would be here. The comments, reassurance, validation and community really helped me through. I picked up the medrol dose pack as my throat feels so swollen. Please send prayers haha.
My main pmdd support person is unavailable due to one of her parents passing away. Understandably, she cannot take on my heaviness the way we normally do. Thank you all for taking my heaviness with such grace and compassion.
Thank you all 🥹💕

For the last two months I’ve been struggling with an on and off sore throat. I’ve been on three rounds of antibiotics. My tonsils are swollen, I have red spots on the roof of my mouth, and nasal drip but no congestion. The first thought was strep until I tested negative. Then hand foot and mouth was suspected but I was told it doesn’t last this long + I don’t have spots anywhere else on my body. Today they finally drew blood to test for mono. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this or has any ideas or solutions!!

A year ago right now I was blacked out drunk reading these posts. Had no clue how I was going to do it after relapsing for my 3rd time since admitting I had a problem. Was on my last straw with everything.
Today is day 312 sober. It does get better folks. There’s a million ways to do this. Stay busy.
I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
From sweating the bed, trash can full of trash bags full of vomit, bleeding out of my throat in places I didn’t know you could.
It’s worth it, this is peace.
Sometimes when you’re at your lowest after coming down the highest peak, the mountain in front of you looks impossible to climb. Head down, breathe, embrace the suck, forward. Before you know it you’re on top again looking at the beautiful terrain.
IWNDWYT