Old-Fashioned Illnesses

[AmbrosiaWriter]

I have troubles wrapping my mind around people who just dislike all fruits and veggies - I love fruits and veggies

.

I don't dislike all fruit and veg, I actually enjoy most fruits... it's just most vegetables I cannot stand. The especially bitter ones, like broccoli I can not eat, even if it's covered in sauce. (I can do things like sugar snap peas.)

It's because I'm something called a "Taster." This means that the wiring in my brain to connect it to my taste buds is more similar to our ancestors in the wild. In the wild, bitter, more often than not, means it's poisonous. So when I put some broccoli (or drink beer, BLECK) my brain goes "OMG WHY ARE YOU EATING THIS STOP STOP STOP!"

So it just tastes repulsive to me.

[Andara Bledin]

There is also what I have, pseudogout. Different chemical , same painful trouble.

The difference between fasciitis and gout-like problems is that the gout-like issues occur in the joints, while fasciitis is, by definition, a connective tissue problem.

Also, gout is partially genetic, and I don't believe anyone on either side of my family has ever suffered from it. A few other things, yes, but most of what they've had has been environmental.

^-.-^

[SongsOfDragons]

I don't know about today, but at least in our doctor's surgery I've never seen any posters about vaccines for chicken pox. Unless I'm wrong, seems it's just 'a thing you'll get in childhood' in the UK. I had it when I was four, and there are photos of me dancing buttnaked on my nana's rug covered in Sudocreme *cue sweatdrop*

There are posters about for whooping cough though, and it's all over the news.

When I was about...twelve?...I became quite ill with something, and I think they thought that I might have caught glandular fever (think that's the general UK term for mono) from my cousin who definitely had it. I was off for about three weeks, not really able to eat - until some kind of abcess or huge spot on my soft pallate burst. I legged it to the loo to throw up the bitter ick >.< and then asked my bemused mother for dinner because swallowing was no longer painful, and I was okay after that Still wasn't told at the time what it was, even though I was already reading mum's medical encyclopedia and could probably have understood! The best I can guess is that it might have been something called a 'quinsy' but *shrugs* I don't know, and I've not heard of it anywhere else. So that tale might be on topic there

[Giggle Goose]

My grandfather had scarlet fever as a child and lost his sense of smell. One time there was a gas leak in a grocery store he was at, and the manager had to tell him to get out. Most people left because they could smell it, but he had no idea what was going on

[BrenDAnn]

I had chicken pox as a kid. It came back as a minor case of shingles on the left side of my abdomen a few years ago. Shingles suck. Just saying. As for strep, I had that a few years ago, too, thanks to a stupid CW that came to work with it. As soon as I read up on what it could turn into if left untreated, I had my dad drive me to the ER to get some antibiotics. That was the worst sore throat of my life, by the way. I've been lucky enough, considering I work with the general dimwitted public, not to get any other "old timey" diseases...but I do worry about it from time to time.

[auntiem]

Shingles suck.

You might want to talk to your Dr. and insurance* about getting the Zolster shot (the shingles shot) because I believe - someone with better medical knowladge can correct me - that if you get Shingles you are at greater risk for getting it again.

*only because I'm not sure if the shot is covered under a certain age so your Dr. may have to appeal to the insurance to get it covered for you.

[Andara Bledin]

It's worth noting that according to the CDC, in the US, the vaccine for shingles is licensed for people 60 and over.

Anyone who has had chickenpox is at risk for shingles because they are caused by the same virus. They don't know what causes a person to get shingles, but they do know that the risk goes up as you get older, which is why the vaccine is available for older people.

^-.-^

[Gizmo]

I know people who have had Mono, Shingles, and a friend had Glandular fever when we were teens. I have vague memory in my head about one of my fathers family getting Polio in the 80s but I can't remember.

[Boim]

I don't know about today, but at least in our doctor's surgery I've never seen any posters about vaccines for chicken pox. Unless I'm wrong, seems it's just 'a thing you'll get in childhood' in the UK. I had it when I was four, and there are photos of me dancing buttnaked on my nana's rug covered in Sudocreme *cue sweatdrop*

They only give it in special circumstances in the UK. My boyfriend had the vaccine when he was about 8 he thinks as he has a small hole in his heart and they were hoping he'd catch chicken pox, but he didn't so they decided to vaccinate as they were worried about it damaging his heart.

[Pixilated]

I'm pretty sure I had the usual childhood suspects ... mumps, measles, chicken pox ... which were just accepted as "what kids get" when I was growing up. Several years ago I had a bout of for which I tried self-treatment for several days before finally going to the doctor.

"Oh, that's shingles," sez he.

That's ... what?!? (I couldn't quite believe it because I've heard horror stories of what shingles is like, and this wasn't like that at all. Not remotely painful, for one thing.)

My dear A recently had chicken pox. Despite having had it as a kid, and having had the vaccination. Apparently it can happen, it's just rare.

And it's not just tuberculosis making a comeback: it's antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis .

As in, all the antibiotics which are reasonably safe to use - the penicillin family, the erythomycins, etc - are useless against this one. Instead, they have to use the ones that give horrible side effects. For months on end. Even after you no longer 'feel sick' from TB.
So you feel sick from the antibiotics instead (also from the subtle effects of dying TB bacteria, but most people can't recognise that), and they're expensive antibiotics, so patients who don't 'get it'/understand the danger of antibiotic-resistant illnesses go off the antibiotics, so .... GAH!

<le sigh>

One of the things we are supposed to put on any of our practice prescriptions for antibiotics are the words "UNTIL FINISHED." (As in: take 2 tablets daily until finished.") Besides people wanting antibiotics for every sniffle, you get the folks Seshat mentioned, who stop taking the things as soon as they feel better. So they haven't actually killed off the "bug" -- just weakened it and given its immune system a really good workout -- and voila, suddenly you have a bug that can take a bath in the same antibiotics that used to exterminate it.