u/mokutou

I’m looking to make tonkotsu from scratch in the near future, and for that I need pork bones. I’d like to get pork knuckle bones if possible, and maybe trotters. However I have no idea where to get any pork bones of any type. Most grocery stores get their meats pre-cut/pre-packaged, and even groceries with a meat counter don’t get bones or trotters. Is there *any* place in Morgantown I can get stuff like that, or am I stuck driving to an out of town butcher? Bonus if they also have beef bones so I could attempt pho sometime.

I just need to rant about how medicine leaves pregnant women out to dry in favor of the fetus they have chosen to carry. I am having a flare up of an old shoulder injury, likely due to the relaxin hormone. I had the same thing happen in my first pregnancy, right at the tail end of my first trimester. The pain was awful and Tylenol didn’t touch it. A visit to urgent care resulted in the PA saying since I was pregnant, I was pretty much out of luck, and to try more Tylenol, ice, and maybe lidocaine patches. I called the Obstetrician’s office about it, and the OB advised taking ibuprofen only when nothing else worked (and nothing did), and only at the minimum dose necessary to get relief. It resolved with that after a couple weeks.

Well, the flare up this time was many, many times worse. I tried Tylenol, lidocaine patches, heat, cold, heat and cold, TENS unit, massage, double dose of unisom to just knock me out, a leftover Flexiril, you name it, I tried it. I couldn’t lay down without writhing in agony, and tried sleeping upright but couldn’t nod off. I ended up only sleeping a collective six hours over four days. I was starting to see shadows in my peripheral vision, and I was delirious and desperate. An urgent care doc took sympathy and gave me a shot of Toradol and did a course of steroids, which provided relief for about a week, but after that the ache came back. I was afraid of going through the excruciating pain again, of being unable to sleep for days because of it. I scheduled myself for physical therapy and reached out to the OB office for guidance on short term pain/inflammation management, as I was unsure about doing another round of Toradol/steroids and whether it was okay to do so in the first trimester.

But none of this matters, apparently, because the fact that I’m pregnant overrides everything. I had to explain to three different medical staffers at the OB office that Tylenol doesn’t work. Heat or cold doesn’t work. It’s all inflammation that’s causing the pain. Physical therapy is scheduled for four days from now, but what do I do until then? This isn’t just a sore shoulder, it’s affecting my sleep and my ability to function on a daily basis. Each and every time I get punted to a nurse or an NP, who gives me the boilerplate response of “Tylenol, ice, and rest.” Even when I tell them I’ve already tried it, the response doesn’t change. I get some sympathetic noises and “well only Tylenol is approved so just try that.” I’ve expressly said that I understand that there are some risks with the next tier of treatment, and I want to minimize that risk and do it under a physician’s supervision, which is why I consulted the office. No dice, just the same response. Since I haven’t seen an obstetrician yet, none are assigned to me and thus cannot weigh in as they are technically not my doctor. So basically I’m left to suffer.

I’ve taken the very minimum amount of ibuprofen to take the edge off, to make it bearable so I can sleep, because what other options do I have?? I wish I knew but I can’t get anyone to help me. They see “pregnant” first over the real, live, suffering person carrying the pregnancy. I get that obstetrics is a high liability, highly litigated specialty, but fuck, I’m not just a vessel for a fetus. My wellbeing matters. Why am I an afterthought??

Thank god I will not be having more kids after this because I’m tired of being treated this way.