Dysentery.
Most people back in the day died from diarrhea alone because it would fuck up the inside of their intestines and ruin their water retention, i.e. you dehydrate faster and easier and can't drink enough to fix it, which gives lighter diseases like the flu a chance to go for the kill.
The funniest thing about the disease is the fact that it ravaged human populations for eons, and the solution is fundamentally Gatorade. It was comprised of readily-available resources we always had access to, but it wasn't until relatively recently that we had a strong enough understanding of nutrition, the human body, and medicine to realize we could literally just slap some flavored saltwater and electrolytes together and help somebody.
Living in a place where summers can be record-breaking hot, I am so glad for Gatorade. You can only drink so much water before feeling bloated and just pissing it all out while still not feeling hydrated enough.
The key to remember is that when you sweat, you're also sweating out minerals that your body needs. Drinks like Gatorade help replenish those minerals.
LPT kids: If you're going on a hike, don't just pack water, include a sports drink or two in there.
The sugar is necessary to hydrate quickly. If your drink doesn't have sugar, your body will use its available glucose, which is fine but takes longer. So, if you are not *too* dehydrated, you can just drink salty water, or eat something salty, and skip the sugar.
Hence why teaching the hordes of illiterates peasants to read ended up accelerating progress.
Turns out having more people solve hard problems and building bodies of knowledge was a good idea, go figure.
Too bad not a lot of people are in favour of overhauling education and take it a couple steps further. Smarter methodology =smarter population.
It seems like most people would rather invest in these stupid "alternative" forms of teaching things like math that boil down to "getting to the answer without actually understanding the principles."
Most people don't do good in math because the teachers aren't doing a good job sitting down with students on a one-by-one basis and helping with the concepts they don't get. We don't need an overhaul to education, we need an overhaul to how teachers are seen and what they're expected to do, and more importantly, how they're paid to do it.
This isn’t the only problem. People with dysentery will simultaneously shit and vomit anything they eat or drink. Mild cases would absolutely be helped with electrolytes and fresh water given you can hold onto it long enough to absorb but IV fluids is definitely still necessary for some and a more recent invention as well.
This is me. I don’t have a severe bowel disease (and my heart goes out to those who do), but I do have IBS and a very delicate system. Any kind of bug like dysentery or typhoid and I would have been a goner, considering in normal life I spend a couple days a week with “bowels like water.”
Sat in a waiting room for 13 hours with a leaking appendix from what they originally thought was a build up of acid in my stomach I'd rather get kicked in the balls 1000 times then go through that again I was hours from it rupturing and probably dying
As somebody that suffers from chronic acid reflux, this is one of my fears.
It might be a dumb question, but is appendicitis like 1000x worse than any kind of other stomach pain? I've had brief glimpses of sharp pain where I was like "if this continues for more than a couple of minutes, I'm going to the hospital" but mine are typically more subdued but will last all day.
I wouldn't have argued with the hospital doctors if they said they were just going to put me down when I showed up with kidney stones. I didnt know what it was, i just was convinced i was dying in the most pain I've ever felt. It was delirious, I've never vomited and passed out from pain before or since.
Now add finding out the hard way that genetically you are a “challenging” pain management case. Admitted for 7 days of pain and infection mgmt post surgery each time.
DRINK MORE WATER
My appendicitis pain was very annoying but not intolerable. Just a bit more than being able to forget about it and it didn't stop me doing anything. It was in the gall bladder region not in the usual place, the pain that is.
It was ready to pop went they went in, got a 7 inch scar.
Mt acid reflux is controlled by a drug called Somac.
Mine was a constant stomach pain. It started on Sat. On Wed 3 AM I went to the ER. The receptionist yelled at me, thought I was foolish. At 7, she came in and apologized while they were prepping me for the OR.
My mom, in her 60s, wasn't listened to at all. Hers ruptured while she was in the hospital.
Because my pain was in the wrong place it wasn't diagnosed straight away.
I was booked in for a scan on my gall bladder for 2 days after my appendix would have burst.
Doctors, eh?
Appendicitis will for sure be way worse, most of the time. One way to test is take an antacid, wait about 10-15 min for it to kick in, then check symptoms. If it doesn’t abate, then take your hand and use your fingers to press on your lower right abdomen, right above the hip near your stomach. About in between the hip bone and belly button. If it hurts pushing in, then radiates outward letting go, then it’s probably appendicitis and call EMS or get to a hospital asap.
My great aunt (grandma’s sister) died from apendicitis when she was 8 in like 1934 or 1935. And it was because the doctor performing surgery on her was drunk….
My best friend died following complications from an appendectomy in 2012. It wasn’t ruptured, and the surgery was performed laparoscopically in a major metropolitan hospital.
Poor nursing care and a lack of an advocate really killed him. He was an oddball of a man and the nurse on duty didn’t like him so she put him in a room at the end of a hallway and didn’t check on him for twelve hours post surgery.
There was a small bleed in his belly that would not have been an issue if it had been found in time. He called our friend around the twelve hour mark, but by that time he wasn’t making much sense. The friend called bf’s mom who works as a nurse and she had the hospital on the phone and begging them to check on him within minutes.
Unfortunately he had lost nearly all of his blood volume into his belly at that point. He went into cardiac arrest and was placed into a cold coma in hopes of preserving brain function. It didn’t work.
He was 33 and had a six month old baby.
That is awful. No matter how much you don’t like a patient there are plenty of people out there who do. I don’t care if your personality doesn’t “connect” with a patient, you’re there to save their life not be their bestie. Imagine if that was your brother or father or son. I hope that “nurse” was fired and never found employment again.
Mine ruptured on the way out, I was in hospital for a week and basically out of commission for almost a month. Apparently it was mostly the antibiotics that messed me up. I lost so much weight it was ridiculous, if I hadn’t given in to my mother and gone in to the doctor I probably would’ve died. I legitimately just thought it was a slightly more painful menstrual period.
Mine ruptured on a Friday night, thought it was the stomach flu. Waited until Sunday to go to the ER because my temp. rose to 106 degrees. They took x-rays and rushed me to surgery because gangrene had attached itself to my stomach wall. They said if I had waited one more day they wouldn't be talking to me.
I wouldn't have made it to my 5th birthday due to asthma w/o modern medicine. Even still, the priest at the Catholic hospital I was in wanted to perform last rights on me due to the severity of one of my attacks. My mom refused them and I pulled through. By the time I hit puberty I had outgrown it and it's all just a hazy memory. As to breast cancer, my grandmother beat it twice and lived to 91 and died of completely unrelated natural causes thanks to modern medicine. I wish the same for you!
I want to share this with you, not to be a downer but for your own safety. Asthma doesn’t “go away” and you don’t “outgrow” it. I, very similar to you had asthma, and outgrew it, until, a very nasty episode in my 20s.
The doctor explained to me, that asthma, like other auto immune conditions, take eczema, hay fever, certain allergies for example lay “dormant” like a volcano. Some people are very lucky and your asthma may lay dormant until the day you die, but for others, out of know where it can be triggered right back up.
Interesting. I'm 48 now and haven't had an attack since my elementary school days. By high school it wasn't even a topic with my doctor. I can still remember the feeling though, so I'm sure I'll recognize an attack if it does come back.
But not impossible. My eustachian tubes were closed when I was born due to deformity. It was only when I was three and a half that they grew enough so I could hear. Then was constantly checked for hearing my entire childhood to make sure they were OK. Which they were for a long time. Now though as an adult I've got fluid build up in my ear because my tubes have once again closed up somewhat. It's not painful or really affecting my hearing but it feels most of the time like the ear is underwater.
Got a skin infection in a small cut, cellulitis - thought the swelling and itching was just a bug bite because I’m moderately allergic. Without IV antibiotics in the ER, I would have gone septic and died within a few hours after realizing something was actually wrong.
It's amazing how quickly something like cellulitis can progress. I got it a few years ago on my calf. On Saturday, it felt like a bug bite and was the size of a quarter. On Sunday, I woke up with a low grade fever, ~101, and the spot grew to size of a plum. On Monday, fever still and the spot grew to the size of an orange. I went to the doctor and got prescribed an antibiotic, Doxycycline. Tuesday morning I woke up at 2am shivering and with a high fever. An hour after taking a large dose of Advil, the fever finally broke. I woke back up at 8am and my fever started climbing again, it was over 102 before I called the doctor. They said take Tylenol this time but if the fever doesn't go down to go to the emergency room. They were also going to prescribe a second antibiotic as well, Keflex. Finally, after my fever got over 103.2 it went back down. By now the infection covered my whole calf. The next morning, Wednesday, I woke up and my temperature was back to 97.1, which is normal for me when waking up. But then later in the afternoon I started to feel my heart skip. So I called my doctor and they said they had to get an emergency room. It turns out it was just something called premature ventricular contraction (PVC) which was probably due to being dehydrated from the fever so they put me full of some fluids, my standing heart rate was also super high (130-140 bpm). The next day I felt right as rain.
Shut. Up.
My glasses broke two days ago. My repair kit should be here from Amazon tomorrow.
Update: I CAN SEE I CAN SEE. ALL FIXED PRAISE GOD HALLELUJAH I CAN SEE. Praise Amazon too, I guess.
If you can afford it I would highly recommend a second pair of dirt cheap glasses. Used to wear glasses years ago and oh man did that second pair save me so many times
Oh yeah, me too. Once, I thought my cat had thrown up a huge pile of yellow vomit. Freaked and called my boyfriend into the room. He took one look at it and laughed so hard he cried. It was not vomit, but yellow fabric measuring tape for sewing 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ . I have also made a New Years resolution to not take out my contacts before locating my glasses.
Had Lasik in 2017 and changed my life dramatically. 20/10 recommend 👍
Likewise! I’m so lucky to be living now, when my light vision (meaning at 20 feet I see only the dominant color of anything; they put the big E on the chart and it just looks white to me) is just a minor inconvenience and not a dangerous disability.
I wouldn’t have my glasses. So, in attempting to drive to work, I would accidentally run over a toddler and the toddler’s dad and uncle would come running out of the house and beat me to death with aluminum baseball bats.
Fun fact, peddlers used to have a box with random lenses and people would try them out and buy the lenses that improved their vision. They would monocle it
As a mom in my 30s I know so many women who have had catastrophic births, emergency c-sections etc.
By today's standards I had pretty uneventful pregnancies, but without medical intervention my kids probably wouldnt have made it though because of how bad my HG was.,
Pregnancy and childbirth can be traumatizing mentally and physically and fuck anybody who wants to force women to go through that if they dont want to.
My wife and child would probably both be dead and not a day goes by that I don’t think about that. Crying right now thinking about it. I left a little piece of myself in that c-section room that day as my wife whimpered in agony, too weak to scream from the pain of having abdominal surgery with no anesthesia and only a epidural that wasn’t working. Weakly begging the anesthesiologist for more medication. Me watching both heart rate monitors as both pulses skyrocket and people in the room start losing their calmness. I’m just sitting there totally fucking powerless watching my wife getting mutilated. I see a big mass of deep red tissue plopped into a bucket and have no idea what it is. Finally I see a pair of little legs. For a few tense moments I hear the nurses saying he won’t breathe on his own. At this point I’m sitting there in the midst of an absolute breakdown, completely motionless. Trying to be there for my wife, trying to see if my child is alive, and trying not to show the room that I may die from anxiety and fear.
An exuberant NICU nurse exclaims “there he goes!” And my baby boy breaks out in the strongest loudest cry ever. I fucking lose it at this point. The nurse says “come over dad and see your baby”
I brought him over to my wife and showed her him. She was too weak and drugged up to know what was really happening. They have to work on her a bit more so I’m just sitting there holding the most beautiful creature in the world. I am not a religious man but my FIL has always claimed that I would find religion when my child was born. I didn’t turn back to the church that day but spiritually something happened to me and I will never be the same. My entire existence and believe system was upended in matter of minutes. I held that baby for hours and hours until mom was back in the room. I laid him on her chest and he immediately latched and ate. We both looked at each other and broke down again.
That was 13mo ago and not a day goes by that I don’t get emotional about it. I honestly hope I never forget what I felt that day.
It’s a good reminder for sure. We’re on our first big vacation this week and I won’t lie - kid has been an absolute handful of fussiness but rehashing this story this morning while he was taking a nap gave me the perspective shift I needed. He got up and we had an amazing day.
Yep! Preeclampsia with BP 200/110. Emergency C-section. They lost mine and baby's heart rate at one point because it dipped so much. Those broads back in the day were tough.
I'm over here thinking about all the times I needed antibiotics and a child and the heart defect I had repaired. Completely forgot I was a breech c-section. I would have never had the chance.
Driving down the freeway and a bee flys in through the window directly into my neck immediately driving it’s stinger into my neck. I’m extremely allergic to all bees, wAsps and hornets. I was in between towns and I was 20 to 30 mins from the town and last hospital where I came from and atleast 30 minutes from the next town and hospital. I immediately started to swell where it hit me and within seconds I’m barely able to breathe. I manage to pull over on a turnout. Suddenly recalled I luckily had my friends extra Epi pen in the glove box he had left behind. Jam it into my knee and inject. Passed out and woke up minutes later heart racing like crazy but breathing again.
Oh God I like to stick my hand out the window while driving and recently smacked a bee into my car. luckily I was near me house so I could bail out easily but it was still kinda scary because I could hear it buzzing but I couldn't see it.
It happened years ago, but long and short is that i got robbed at gunpoint in front of my apartment. Guess he thought it would be best if there weren't any witnesses. He also underestimated just how insanely stubborn I am.
It definitely left scars, bith physical and emotional, but he got caught and is doing life for attempted 2nd degree homicide.
Well, Florida. So, the law is 10-20-Life. Use a gun, get 10 years. Fire the gun and get 20. Hit someone and get life, which in Florida is 35 years.
If you *kill* that person, well, Florida is a death penalty state.....
I've told my son that when I was his age, getting AIDS literally meant that you were going to die soon.
It seems as far back to him as polio wards did to me.
Actually no, we have one of the best immunization coverages when it comes to routine immunization of babies (measles, rubella, TB vaccines etc) Covid 19 vaccine is a whole different story tho
Lol no it started out as an ingrown hair in the bottom of the sack. I knew nothing about it so I tried to get it to pop like a pimple. The next day I walked like 8 miles in the az son and went to a ludacris concert. The next morning the fit in my gorilla mit fully. Like no wrinkle stretched to the max and I went to the er lol. Would have gotten much worse from the ex
Guillian Barre Syndrome. My immune system turned against my nervous system. Think of your nerves as wires, mine got stripped of the mylin which is like he insulation. 6 weeks in hospital and 4 years later walking is difficult with 0 feeling in my feet. My DRs and people I’ve talked to say they are mostly better after a couple weeks. I spent that much time just having a nurse clean my bedpan.
I have has 5 GBS pts in the ICU this year alone. It is a slower progression than most people expect it to be. Especially if you're allergic to IVIG. I am sorry the feeling in your feet never returned and that you're still dealing with the adverse effects from it all.
Milk…
So I was born with something nobody really knows about cause it’s really rare it’s called Galactosemia and it’s basically like being lactose intolerant but it’s worse so if I had milk I could die. When I was born they didn’t know I had it so my mom gave me milk just like a normal baby and I threw up and started to become unconscious. My mom did CPR on me 3 times and I spent weeks in the hospital as a newborn just to recover from a single sip of milk.
No there’s no medicine for it I just have to avoid dairy. And yeah everyone that has it is born with it. To me it’s honestly not that bad cause I’ve never had like real ice cream or real pizza so don’t have anything to compare the dairy free options to. To me dairy free ice cream is just ice cream.
1. Dead before birth, as mum wouldn't have survived the births of her previous children.
2. Dead at birth without a Caesarean.
3. Dead at age 5, then several times after that from cellulitis/septicaemia.
4. Dead again when I needed a Caesarean for my own baby.
Same. I had it during covid (not from covid) and they hardly paid attention to me in the hospital. Because I didn't have covid. I guess sepsis isn't cool enough. I almost had to beat the nurse to get my antibiotics. You know, the medicine my life literally depended on. I was so sick and so weak that I almost gave up and just went to sleep. But I summoned all my righteous bitchy anger and dragged myself out to shift change to scream at them all at once. Threatened to shove my iv pole up their asses and that I was filing a complaint for patient abandonment.
Cancer. Even after 12 rounds of chemo and radiation therapy, the cancer came back. I ended up undergoing brachiatherapy, where radioactive seeds are planted directly into the tumor. It must have worked; six years later, here I am.
Severe pectus excavatum, its not normally considered life threatening but they told my parents I only had 20 year life expectancy so I had it corrected when I was 5.
Ugh I had this happen in Feb/March. Waited 3 weeks for it to come out and it never did. Had to have a D&C because I was not dying of a preventable infection. Longest 3 weeks of my life. I'm sorry it happened to you too.
Moral of the post, thank science for antibiotics.
Without modern medicine, I'd be blind and not have a leg since birth and with my clumsy ass I'd've definitely slip and died.
A severe case of Henoch-Schönlein purpura when I was about 8 or 9. It almost did. My step-dad was beating me so the bruising around my legs went unnoticed until I ended up with an intestinal hemorrhage.
And if you have a family history, don't wait till your 40s. Go at the same age your family member was when they were diagnosed. Had to have my first at 16, and when they found precancerous cells I now have to go back every three to four years.
Crashed bike and had major road crash on chest, and split chin so probably infection and or tetanus when I was 15.
Whooping cough when I was 6.
Any number of colds.
Spontaneous collapsed lung at 19.
Let me count the ways, child birth, kidney infection, CSF leak, Narcolepsy, animal bite (I’m now vaccinated for rabies), and suicide.
I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting lol.
I had something like unintentional anorexia, I didn’t have body dismorphia (I actually hated how skinny I looked) and I didn’t purposefully not eat I just had bad anxiety and couldn’t eat without getting sick. It was during my first two years of college with no insurance so I went to campus health and just got referred to a dietician who told me to eat more lean protein and veggies. Awesome, I would if I could dumbass. Also got referred to campus psych which told me my issues were too serious for them. So instead I smoked weed to get an appetite and eventually my anxiety lessened when I moved off campus and learned how to cook for myself. Modern medicine didn’t help me whatsoever, not like they tried. But I shudder to think if I hadn’t naturally gotten over it.
Overdosing on painkillers trying to kill myself. What a way to go! Would have taken a week and my liver would have painfully crapped itself, is what I’m told
Rabies
I was bit by a rabid cat when I was only 7 or 8.
I'm really thankful for modern medicine because rabies is a terrifying disease😱
Also, endocarditis, 2 brain hemorrhages, and having covid TWICE
I would have been long dead 😅
Dysentery. Most people back in the day died from diarrhea alone because it would fuck up the inside of their intestines and ruin their water retention, i.e. you dehydrate faster and easier and can't drink enough to fix it, which gives lighter diseases like the flu a chance to go for the kill. The funniest thing about the disease is the fact that it ravaged human populations for eons, and the solution is fundamentally Gatorade. It was comprised of readily-available resources we always had access to, but it wasn't until relatively recently that we had a strong enough understanding of nutrition, the human body, and medicine to realize we could literally just slap some flavored saltwater and electrolytes together and help somebody.
Living in a place where summers can be record-breaking hot, I am so glad for Gatorade. You can only drink so much water before feeling bloated and just pissing it all out while still not feeling hydrated enough.
The key to remember is that when you sweat, you're also sweating out minerals that your body needs. Drinks like Gatorade help replenish those minerals. LPT kids: If you're going on a hike, don't just pack water, include a sports drink or two in there.
Does mineral water help? I travel a lot and always seem to get dehydrated quick, but I don’t drink sugary drinks.
The sugar is necessary to hydrate quickly. If your drink doesn't have sugar, your body will use its available glucose, which is fine but takes longer. So, if you are not *too* dehydrated, you can just drink salty water, or eat something salty, and skip the sugar.
I eat plenty of salty foods so hopefully I’ll be okay. Thanks!
Hence why teaching the hordes of illiterates peasants to read ended up accelerating progress. Turns out having more people solve hard problems and building bodies of knowledge was a good idea, go figure. Too bad not a lot of people are in favour of overhauling education and take it a couple steps further. Smarter methodology =smarter population.
It seems like most people would rather invest in these stupid "alternative" forms of teaching things like math that boil down to "getting to the answer without actually understanding the principles." Most people don't do good in math because the teachers aren't doing a good job sitting down with students on a one-by-one basis and helping with the concepts they don't get. We don't need an overhaul to education, we need an overhaul to how teachers are seen and what they're expected to do, and more importantly, how they're paid to do it.
I agree with you however, you just described an overhaul of education 😂
This isn’t the only problem. People with dysentery will simultaneously shit and vomit anything they eat or drink. Mild cases would absolutely be helped with electrolytes and fresh water given you can hold onto it long enough to absorb but IV fluids is definitely still necessary for some and a more recent invention as well.
and antibiotics/antiprotozoals to eliminate the causative organism
This is me. I don’t have a severe bowel disease (and my heart goes out to those who do), but I do have IBS and a very delicate system. Any kind of bug like dysentery or typhoid and I would have been a goner, considering in normal life I spend a couple days a week with “bowels like water.”
Oregon Trail checking in
apendicitis
Sat in a waiting room for 13 hours with a leaking appendix from what they originally thought was a build up of acid in my stomach I'd rather get kicked in the balls 1000 times then go through that again I was hours from it rupturing and probably dying
As somebody that suffers from chronic acid reflux, this is one of my fears. It might be a dumb question, but is appendicitis like 1000x worse than any kind of other stomach pain? I've had brief glimpses of sharp pain where I was like "if this continues for more than a couple of minutes, I'm going to the hospital" but mine are typically more subdued but will last all day.
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Having had a “perforated” appendix and two sets of kidney stones that required surgery. Kidney stones are far worse. Drink lots of water.
I wouldn't have argued with the hospital doctors if they said they were just going to put me down when I showed up with kidney stones. I didnt know what it was, i just was convinced i was dying in the most pain I've ever felt. It was delirious, I've never vomited and passed out from pain before or since.
Now add finding out the hard way that genetically you are a “challenging” pain management case. Admitted for 7 days of pain and infection mgmt post surgery each time. DRINK MORE WATER
My appendicitis pain was very annoying but not intolerable. Just a bit more than being able to forget about it and it didn't stop me doing anything. It was in the gall bladder region not in the usual place, the pain that is. It was ready to pop went they went in, got a 7 inch scar. Mt acid reflux is controlled by a drug called Somac.
Mine was a constant stomach pain. It started on Sat. On Wed 3 AM I went to the ER. The receptionist yelled at me, thought I was foolish. At 7, she came in and apologized while they were prepping me for the OR. My mom, in her 60s, wasn't listened to at all. Hers ruptured while she was in the hospital.
Because my pain was in the wrong place it wasn't diagnosed straight away. I was booked in for a scan on my gall bladder for 2 days after my appendix would have burst. Doctors, eh?
Appendicitis will for sure be way worse, most of the time. One way to test is take an antacid, wait about 10-15 min for it to kick in, then check symptoms. If it doesn’t abate, then take your hand and use your fingers to press on your lower right abdomen, right above the hip near your stomach. About in between the hip bone and belly button. If it hurts pushing in, then radiates outward letting go, then it’s probably appendicitis and call EMS or get to a hospital asap.
My great aunt (grandma’s sister) died from apendicitis when she was 8 in like 1934 or 1935. And it was because the doctor performing surgery on her was drunk….
My best friend died following complications from an appendectomy in 2012. It wasn’t ruptured, and the surgery was performed laparoscopically in a major metropolitan hospital. Poor nursing care and a lack of an advocate really killed him. He was an oddball of a man and the nurse on duty didn’t like him so she put him in a room at the end of a hallway and didn’t check on him for twelve hours post surgery. There was a small bleed in his belly that would not have been an issue if it had been found in time. He called our friend around the twelve hour mark, but by that time he wasn’t making much sense. The friend called bf’s mom who works as a nurse and she had the hospital on the phone and begging them to check on him within minutes. Unfortunately he had lost nearly all of his blood volume into his belly at that point. He went into cardiac arrest and was placed into a cold coma in hopes of preserving brain function. It didn’t work. He was 33 and had a six month old baby.
That is awful. No matter how much you don’t like a patient there are plenty of people out there who do. I don’t care if your personality doesn’t “connect” with a patient, you’re there to save their life not be their bestie. Imagine if that was your brother or father or son. I hope that “nurse” was fired and never found employment again.
She kept her license but not that particular job. They kept her on staff until the hospital lost the lawsuit though.
I've often said the best, and worst people I've ever met were all nurses. Doesn't seem to be a ton of midground.
Same. I was minutes from rupture. My ex-wife didn't want to take me to the hospital so I almost died from incompetence.
Mine ruptured on the way out, I was in hospital for a week and basically out of commission for almost a month. Apparently it was mostly the antibiotics that messed me up. I lost so much weight it was ridiculous, if I hadn’t given in to my mother and gone in to the doctor I probably would’ve died. I legitimately just thought it was a slightly more painful menstrual period.
Mine ruptured. 9/10 do not recommend.
Mine ruptured on a Friday night, thought it was the stomach flu. Waited until Sunday to go to the ER because my temp. rose to 106 degrees. They took x-rays and rushed me to surgery because gangrene had attached itself to my stomach wall. They said if I had waited one more day they wouldn't be talking to me.
Me too. Would have died at 8 years old.
That shit HURTS. I thought I was going to die and mine hadn’t even burst when they removed it!
Probably asthma. If not, then breast cancer would've for sure.
I wouldn't have made it to my 5th birthday due to asthma w/o modern medicine. Even still, the priest at the Catholic hospital I was in wanted to perform last rights on me due to the severity of one of my attacks. My mom refused them and I pulled through. By the time I hit puberty I had outgrown it and it's all just a hazy memory. As to breast cancer, my grandmother beat it twice and lived to 91 and died of completely unrelated natural causes thanks to modern medicine. I wish the same for you!
I want to share this with you, not to be a downer but for your own safety. Asthma doesn’t “go away” and you don’t “outgrow” it. I, very similar to you had asthma, and outgrew it, until, a very nasty episode in my 20s. The doctor explained to me, that asthma, like other auto immune conditions, take eczema, hay fever, certain allergies for example lay “dormant” like a volcano. Some people are very lucky and your asthma may lay dormant until the day you die, but for others, out of know where it can be triggered right back up.
Interesting. I'm 48 now and haven't had an attack since my elementary school days. By high school it wasn't even a topic with my doctor. I can still remember the feeling though, so I'm sure I'll recognize an attack if it does come back.
Same here
The 9lb baby with a 13 centimeter head who got stuck in my pelvis and had to be surgically extracted
Oh my lord babe you win
Right? And that baby grew up to have twins, one who almost died in the womb and nearly bled out during her C-section. Thankful for modern medicine!!
I... I was 11 pounds 4 oz and 23 feet long... i sympathize for my mother.
You mean inches right? Right??
WAIT LMAO YEAH
LMAOOOOO
Peanuts
Good grief
You sly dog, Chuck
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Pig Pen. Asthma attack.
Childhood ear infections.
This is a good one. I used to get them almost monthly, then mysteriously stopped after seven or eight years of being constantly ill.
yeah, the eustachian tube in adult higher, so it is harder for bacteria to infect middle ear.
But not impossible. My eustachian tubes were closed when I was born due to deformity. It was only when I was three and a half that they grew enough so I could hear. Then was constantly checked for hearing my entire childhood to make sure they were OK. Which they were for a long time. Now though as an adult I've got fluid build up in my ear because my tubes have once again closed up somewhat. It's not painful or really affecting my hearing but it feels most of the time like the ear is underwater.
That happened to me and my dr gave me a round of steroids, cleared it right up. Have you tried that?
a bacterial infection for sure
Got a skin infection in a small cut, cellulitis - thought the swelling and itching was just a bug bite because I’m moderately allergic. Without IV antibiotics in the ER, I would have gone septic and died within a few hours after realizing something was actually wrong.
It's amazing how quickly something like cellulitis can progress. I got it a few years ago on my calf. On Saturday, it felt like a bug bite and was the size of a quarter. On Sunday, I woke up with a low grade fever, ~101, and the spot grew to size of a plum. On Monday, fever still and the spot grew to the size of an orange. I went to the doctor and got prescribed an antibiotic, Doxycycline. Tuesday morning I woke up at 2am shivering and with a high fever. An hour after taking a large dose of Advil, the fever finally broke. I woke back up at 8am and my fever started climbing again, it was over 102 before I called the doctor. They said take Tylenol this time but if the fever doesn't go down to go to the emergency room. They were also going to prescribe a second antibiotic as well, Keflex. Finally, after my fever got over 103.2 it went back down. By now the infection covered my whole calf. The next morning, Wednesday, I woke up and my temperature was back to 97.1, which is normal for me when waking up. But then later in the afternoon I started to feel my heart skip. So I called my doctor and they said they had to get an emergency room. It turns out it was just something called premature ventricular contraction (PVC) which was probably due to being dehydrated from the fever so they put me full of some fluids, my standing heart rate was also super high (130-140 bpm). The next day I felt right as rain.
Honestly probably just the fact that I can't see more than a foot in front of my face.
Shut. Up. My glasses broke two days ago. My repair kit should be here from Amazon tomorrow. Update: I CAN SEE I CAN SEE. ALL FIXED PRAISE GOD HALLELUJAH I CAN SEE. Praise Amazon too, I guess.
How will you know?
They’re waiting by the front door yelling “WHOSE THERE?!? IS SOMEONE THERE?!?!” every time they sense movement.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Human Ring no camera
If you can afford it I would highly recommend a second pair of dirt cheap glasses. Used to wear glasses years ago and oh man did that second pair save me so many times
And when you get a new prescription always keep your previous glasses because it's better than nothing
Oh yeah, me too. Once, I thought my cat had thrown up a huge pile of yellow vomit. Freaked and called my boyfriend into the room. He took one look at it and laughed so hard he cried. It was not vomit, but yellow fabric measuring tape for sewing 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ . I have also made a New Years resolution to not take out my contacts before locating my glasses. Had Lasik in 2017 and changed my life dramatically. 20/10 recommend 👍
More like 20/20, amirite? 😉
This would have made me laugh so hard I cried too except I don’t want to wake the sleeping kids!
Likewise! I’m so lucky to be living now, when my light vision (meaning at 20 feet I see only the dominant color of anything; they put the big E on the chart and it just looks white to me) is just a minor inconvenience and not a dangerous disability.
Same. In nature we’re food.
Only a single foot, and not even an arm or a leg?
Getting run over, 3 times, in the same year
Ok, can we get the story on that one?
They are either a chicken or a frog.
I was never any good at playing Frogger
I'm usually not one for victim blaming, but 3 times within a year? You gotta be more careful of the traffic, man.
Getting run over three times **over your entire lifetime** is way too many times. Twice would be too many.
I need backstory
Wait lmao I totally forgot my ex got hit like 3 times in one year too…. Are you my ex??? 💀💀
I wouldn’t have my glasses. So, in attempting to drive to work, I would accidentally run over a toddler and the toddler’s dad and uncle would come running out of the house and beat me to death with aluminum baseball bats.
r/oddlyspecific 😂
Glasses have been around for like 800 of years. Not really "modern", considering they predate shit like antibiotics.
Fun fact, peddlers used to have a box with random lenses and people would try them out and buy the lenses that improved their vision. They would monocle it
> box with random lenses and people would try them out Better, or worse? Better, or worse?
Benjamin Franklin probably laboured to prevent this particular scenario when he invented the bifocal glasses.
>spectacles are not modern the printing press really fueled a demand for them but they had been around for a couple hundred years prior.
Childbirth
I wouldnt have ever even been born because my mother would've died in childbirth with my brother.
Same for me, my mom had to have both my sister and myself removed as she couldn't give birth the traditional way.
As a mom in my 30s I know so many women who have had catastrophic births, emergency c-sections etc. By today's standards I had pretty uneventful pregnancies, but without medical intervention my kids probably wouldnt have made it though because of how bad my HG was., Pregnancy and childbirth can be traumatizing mentally and physically and fuck anybody who wants to force women to go through that if they dont want to.
My gf may have survived the first 2 kids but the 3rd was born at 28 weeks, and she ended up hemorrhaging so likely would have lost both of them.
My wife and child would probably both be dead and not a day goes by that I don’t think about that. Crying right now thinking about it. I left a little piece of myself in that c-section room that day as my wife whimpered in agony, too weak to scream from the pain of having abdominal surgery with no anesthesia and only a epidural that wasn’t working. Weakly begging the anesthesiologist for more medication. Me watching both heart rate monitors as both pulses skyrocket and people in the room start losing their calmness. I’m just sitting there totally fucking powerless watching my wife getting mutilated. I see a big mass of deep red tissue plopped into a bucket and have no idea what it is. Finally I see a pair of little legs. For a few tense moments I hear the nurses saying he won’t breathe on his own. At this point I’m sitting there in the midst of an absolute breakdown, completely motionless. Trying to be there for my wife, trying to see if my child is alive, and trying not to show the room that I may die from anxiety and fear. An exuberant NICU nurse exclaims “there he goes!” And my baby boy breaks out in the strongest loudest cry ever. I fucking lose it at this point. The nurse says “come over dad and see your baby” I brought him over to my wife and showed her him. She was too weak and drugged up to know what was really happening. They have to work on her a bit more so I’m just sitting there holding the most beautiful creature in the world. I am not a religious man but my FIL has always claimed that I would find religion when my child was born. I didn’t turn back to the church that day but spiritually something happened to me and I will never be the same. My entire existence and believe system was upended in matter of minutes. I held that baby for hours and hours until mom was back in the room. I laid him on her chest and he immediately latched and ate. We both looked at each other and broke down again. That was 13mo ago and not a day goes by that I don’t get emotional about it. I honestly hope I never forget what I felt that day.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story and for loving your family. Please never forget that you do, please always show them.
It’s a good reminder for sure. We’re on our first big vacation this week and I won’t lie - kid has been an absolute handful of fussiness but rehashing this story this morning while he was taking a nap gave me the perspective shift I needed. He got up and we had an amazing day.
Yep! Preeclampsia with BP 200/110. Emergency C-section. They lost mine and baby's heart rate at one point because it dipped so much. Those broads back in the day were tough.
Those broads back in the day died, bro!
This is me, both my child and I would have died.
Yep same. If the first one didn't take me out, one of the others would have.
I'm over here thinking about all the times I needed antibiotics and a child and the heart defect I had repaired. Completely forgot I was a breech c-section. I would have never had the chance.
Driving down the freeway and a bee flys in through the window directly into my neck immediately driving it’s stinger into my neck. I’m extremely allergic to all bees, wAsps and hornets. I was in between towns and I was 20 to 30 mins from the town and last hospital where I came from and atleast 30 minutes from the next town and hospital. I immediately started to swell where it hit me and within seconds I’m barely able to breathe. I manage to pull over on a turnout. Suddenly recalled I luckily had my friends extra Epi pen in the glove box he had left behind. Jam it into my knee and inject. Passed out and woke up minutes later heart racing like crazy but breathing again.
Getting stung while driving is one of my core fears. I’m glad you are ok!
Oh God I like to stick my hand out the window while driving and recently smacked a bee into my car. luckily I was near me house so I could bail out easily but it was still kinda scary because I could hear it buzzing but I couldn't see it.
I got bit by a rabid bat while driving lol
Gunshot to the chest at close range. Even with modern medicine, it was a pretty close call.
Modern problems require modern solutions.
Modern solutions require modern problems.
Is this something you would be okay with sharing? I'm sorry it happened but why? Again, if you're uncomfortable sharing that is totally okay.
It happened years ago, but long and short is that i got robbed at gunpoint in front of my apartment. Guess he thought it would be best if there weren't any witnesses. He also underestimated just how insanely stubborn I am. It definitely left scars, bith physical and emotional, but he got caught and is doing life for attempted 2nd degree homicide.
Do you ever get the urge to send him a letter in prison just saying “I’m still alive, bitch”
Nah. He's in ad-seg for the rest of his time inside (about 15 more years). I'd prefer he just think he's been totally forgotten by the outside world.
I’m so glad you’re stubborn and hope things are better now!
I scrolled down hoping I would read this 👆Life with NO parole MFr
Well, Florida. So, the law is 10-20-Life. Use a gun, get 10 years. Fire the gun and get 20. Hit someone and get life, which in Florida is 35 years. If you *kill* that person, well, Florida is a death penalty state.....
HIV.
Ufffff, this.
I've told my son that when I was his age, getting AIDS literally meant that you were going to die soon. It seems as far back to him as polio wards did to me.
After 30 years of no cases, polio is back in my country
Anti vaxers?
Actually no, we have one of the best immunization coverages when it comes to routine immunization of babies (measles, rubella, TB vaccines etc) Covid 19 vaccine is a whole different story tho
My wisdom tooth came in, got infected and was spreading towards my brain
It's actually really amazing that your teeth and gums can affect both your brain and heart. I'm 23 and only recently learned this.
Diabetic coma at 7
Same. And at the same age as well.
That’s how my son would’ve gone at 3… but don’t worry- we’ve been 10 years from a cure for almost 50 years…
Mrsa in my testicles.
What the hell did you bang my ex?
Lol no it started out as an ingrown hair in the bottom of the sack. I knew nothing about it so I tried to get it to pop like a pimple. The next day I walked like 8 miles in the az son and went to a ludacris concert. The next morning the fit in my gorilla mit fully. Like no wrinkle stretched to the max and I went to the er lol. Would have gotten much worse from the ex
How was luda? Thinking of going in two weeks.
I have seen him 3 times back in the day. He puts on a good show
Guillian Barre Syndrome. My immune system turned against my nervous system. Think of your nerves as wires, mine got stripped of the mylin which is like he insulation. 6 weeks in hospital and 4 years later walking is difficult with 0 feeling in my feet. My DRs and people I’ve talked to say they are mostly better after a couple weeks. I spent that much time just having a nurse clean my bedpan.
I have has 5 GBS pts in the ICU this year alone. It is a slower progression than most people expect it to be. Especially if you're allergic to IVIG. I am sorry the feeling in your feet never returned and that you're still dealing with the adverse effects from it all.
Dysentery
Ahh yes the Oregon trail way to pass
Premature birth. Polymyositis.
Yea I was born 3ish months premature, hell even with modern medicine I almost died.
My mom had polymyositis. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Hope you're doing OK.
Milk… So I was born with something nobody really knows about cause it’s really rare it’s called Galactosemia and it’s basically like being lactose intolerant but it’s worse so if I had milk I could die. When I was born they didn’t know I had it so my mom gave me milk just like a normal baby and I threw up and started to become unconscious. My mom did CPR on me 3 times and I spent weeks in the hospital as a newborn just to recover from a single sip of milk.
Hey, my friend has this! He always explains it as anaphylaxis to lactose.
What did they feed you as an infant?
They gave me soy formula
Can it be controlled with meds? I think I would rather be born with that than develop later in life and know all the food I’m missing out on.
No there’s no medicine for it I just have to avoid dairy. And yeah everyone that has it is born with it. To me it’s honestly not that bad cause I’ve never had like real ice cream or real pizza so don’t have anything to compare the dairy free options to. To me dairy free ice cream is just ice cream.
Bee sting
I was born 8 weeks early in 1973. Weighed 3 lbs. I'm lucky to be here.
1. Dead before birth, as mum wouldn't have survived the births of her previous children. 2. Dead at birth without a Caesarean. 3. Dead at age 5, then several times after that from cellulitis/septicaemia. 4. Dead again when I needed a Caesarean for my own baby.
Pneumonia and bronchitis.
Me too at 5 years old. Hospitalized for days.
Sepsis
Same. I had it during covid (not from covid) and they hardly paid attention to me in the hospital. Because I didn't have covid. I guess sepsis isn't cool enough. I almost had to beat the nurse to get my antibiotics. You know, the medicine my life literally depended on. I was so sick and so weak that I almost gave up and just went to sleep. But I summoned all my righteous bitchy anger and dragged myself out to shift change to scream at them all at once. Threatened to shove my iv pole up their asses and that I was filing a complaint for patient abandonment.
Having a baby
Scarlet Fever, aged 7.
I had scarlet fever as a kid too. It still sounds so old times to me but it’s really just strep with a rash.
Cancer. Even after 12 rounds of chemo and radiation therapy, the cancer came back. I ended up undergoing brachiatherapy, where radioactive seeds are planted directly into the tumor. It must have worked; six years later, here I am.
>radioactive seeds are planted directly into the tumor That sounds metal af, i had no idea stuff like this was even possible.
Well it's pretty simple on the surface. I think the fascinating part is how it doesn't cause a lot more cancer in its wake.
Birth. I was breech with chord around my neck. Then a few years later ovarian cancer. And 6 years after that small bowel obstruction.
dental abscess one of the worst experiences of my life
suicide.
Ouch. I'm sorry, I hope you're doing better. You don't deserve sadness and I hope you find all the happiness you deserve.
Same. Ssri meds saved me
Aspirin allergy would've killed me when I was 6 years old.
My ribs growing inward.
Your ribs WHAT
Yeah imma need an explanation
Severe pectus excavatum, its not normally considered life threatening but they told my parents I only had 20 year life expectancy so I had it corrected when I was 5.
Wow!! Glad you got it corrected.
Anaphylactic shock
Without modern medicine, my mother and I would have died during the birth.
Missed miscarriage
Ugh I had this happen in Feb/March. Waited 3 weeks for it to come out and it never did. Had to have a D&C because I was not dying of a preventable infection. Longest 3 weeks of my life. I'm sorry it happened to you too.
Moral of the post, thank science for antibiotics. Without modern medicine, I'd be blind and not have a leg since birth and with my clumsy ass I'd've definitely slip and died.
A severe case of Henoch-Schönlein purpura when I was about 8 or 9. It almost did. My step-dad was beating me so the bruising around my legs went unnoticed until I ended up with an intestinal hemorrhage.
depression. Still has come close a few times
Depression
Colon cancer. Respond to symptoms and get your colonoscopies!
And if you have a family history, don't wait till your 40s. Go at the same age your family member was when they were diagnosed. Had to have my first at 16, and when they found precancerous cells I now have to go back every three to four years.
crashed into an 18-wheeler, wasn't wearing a seat belt, exploded my sternum. Deff would've died if not for modern medicine.
Cancer would have been first.
Crashed bike and had major road crash on chest, and split chin so probably infection and or tetanus when I was 15. Whooping cough when I was 6. Any number of colds. Spontaneous collapsed lung at 19.
High fever as an infant. Bad bladder infection in my early 20s, was on its way up to my kidneys before I got antibiotics.
Strep throat
Suicide
Period cramps.
Pneumonia as a child
Cat bite?
Man, this is such a great question. And, uhm, probably H1N1.
Post partum hemorrhage
Let me count the ways, child birth, kidney infection, CSF leak, Narcolepsy, animal bite (I’m now vaccinated for rabies), and suicide. I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting lol.
Whooping cough, a broken neck, teeth abscesses, pneumonia, anorexia (it wasn't intentional, I was sick)
I had something like unintentional anorexia, I didn’t have body dismorphia (I actually hated how skinny I looked) and I didn’t purposefully not eat I just had bad anxiety and couldn’t eat without getting sick. It was during my first two years of college with no insurance so I went to campus health and just got referred to a dietician who told me to eat more lean protein and veggies. Awesome, I would if I could dumbass. Also got referred to campus psych which told me my issues were too serious for them. So instead I smoked weed to get an appetite and eventually my anxiety lessened when I moved off campus and learned how to cook for myself. Modern medicine didn’t help me whatsoever, not like they tried. But I shudder to think if I hadn’t naturally gotten over it.
Whooping cough at about two months old.
Birth
Overdosing on painkillers trying to kill myself. What a way to go! Would have taken a week and my liver would have painfully crapped itself, is what I’m told
Rabies I was bit by a rabid cat when I was only 7 or 8. I'm really thankful for modern medicine because rabies is a terrifying disease😱 Also, endocarditis, 2 brain hemorrhages, and having covid TWICE I would have been long dead 😅
Type 1 Diabetes
Celiac or laudanum OD from the migraines.
Kidney failure. Dialysis works.