I am still a little under the weather, but I am on the mend. I am still tired and my mental state has been a little fragile, but I do think I am starting to get past this latest burnout.

To try to explain what's been going on with me...

In short... I have an auto immune disorder, I think anyway. My immune system attacks my skin, joints, stomach lining, and gut. And maybe my thyroid too because those issues get way worse when I am flaring up. Everything slows down and I become fatigued, sluggish, and severely brain fogged.

The treatment for the auto-immune bullshit is, surprisingly..... Worms.

Lab grown porcine whipworms, to be exact. Trichurus Suis. They are HIGHLY effective and help way more than I ever thought they would. They allowed me to function and feel normal.

But they are expensive and I couldn't afford them so when my last dose died out and they weren't there to modulate my immune system, everything started coming back and getting steadily worse over the months until it got so bad that I was constantly dehydrated, barely eating, and could do nothing but sleep. With the physical decline came mental decline. My health tanked, hard. I was sore, miserable, and losing hope due to the constant suffering.

I was able to finally order a dose of the worms due to some of my characters selling, and I am already noticing an improvement. More energy, less itchy, less ache in my joints, and I can actually eat food and retain fluids now.

Basically, the logic behind purchasing the worm eggs is based on a scientific theory known as the Hygiene Theory. Humans evolved side by side with numerous intestinal parasites for millions of years. Our immune systems adapted to them, and ended up needing them to help keep it from becoming overactive. But people aren't exposed to helminths anymore in first world countries and we don't have those organisms within moderating our immune system. With nothing else to attack, it turns against our own body, which causes first world people to be far more likely to develop auto-immune disorders and allergies.

This is where helminths, mostly harmless intestinal parasites, come in. They can produce numerous different chemicals naturally that help suppress and calm the immune system without depressing it so much that it ceases to function. In short, you can still fight off sickness just fine, but the worms stop it from attacking itself. These chemicals change in real time as the immune system adapts to them, basically keeping everything steady and calm.

Trichurus Suis, the species I use, is not able to reproduce in the human gut and has minimal side effects. I get a little gassy for a week, but don't notice anything else other than maybe a couple days of mild cramping. Which is honestly far less painful than the constant bloating cramps I got 24\7 with my condition. It's an incredibly easy to control population of tiny worms living inside my digestive tract, that will never grow out of control because they simply are unable to. They are not at all infectious in humans, and are perfectly safe because they are lab grown in controlled sanitary conditions. Consequently, this makes them a bit expensive because of everything that goes into insuring they are viable, clean, controlled, and not contaminated by anything else.

It's gonna take a while for them to fully take effect, but I am feeling a lot better than I was before.

I am still too burnt out to trust myself to produce satisfactory quality artwork, so I am going to take a little more downtime to finish recovering.

I should be back in action soon! Anyway, that's it for the moment. I am so sorry for the delays! But I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.