health Archive

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Diseased to Meet You: Six Badass-Sounding Conditions You Probably Don’t Want

By
Trevor Macomber
– April 26, 2012

Reading the discomforting announcement that the first case of Mad Cow Disease in six years has just reared its large, cud-chewing head in a dairy cow in central California, I was reminded of the following joke from my high school days:

Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. The first cow looks at the second one and says, “Hey, aren’t you worried about mad cow disease?” The second cow looks back at him and says, “Why should I be? I’m a helicopter!” [crickets]

After reading the article though, I also couldn’t help but think, man, “mad cow disease.” Now that’s a pretty badass-sounding affliction. Hell, even the bowtie-rockin’ scientific name — bovine spongiform encephalopathy — has a tattoos-and-tequila poetry to it. Then again, compared to some of the following diseases I came across while researching this article, “mad cow” is actually a bit of a featherweight on the scale of awesomely terrifying maladies, starting with:

Devil’s grip (a.k.a. epidemic pleurodynia)

They say that idle hands are the devil’s workshop, but apparently a bored Beelzebub will take any part of you it can get its forked mitts on, since Devil’s grip — caused by Group B coxsackieviruses — can evolve from a “headache, nausea and vomiting, and sore throat” to “severe, stabbing [chest] pain” in a brief period of time for an unfortunate few. Despite the name, however, the infection usually goes away on its own after a couple of days, regardless of how much holy water you ingest during that time.

But what would happen if the devil in all of us attempted to exit our bodies a little too carelessly? Might I suggest a Mephistophelean case of:

Exploding head syndrome (a.k.a. — oh, that’s the actual name?)

Well, no, I won’t suggest it. That was just a cheap literary ploy since EHS has nothing to do with Devil’s grip — or physical afflictions of any kind, for that matter. In fact, out of all the diseases on this list, it’s probably the one you’d be most likely to volunteer to contract just to be able to say you had it. According to the American Sleep Association, “Exploding head syndrome is a rare and relatively undocumented parasomnia event in which the subject experiences a loud bang in their head similar to a bomb exploding, a gun going off, a clash of cymbals or any other form of loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside the head.” Fortunately, despite having perhaps the most violent name in medicine, “exploding head syndrome is not dangerous” and “has no elements of pain, swelling or any other physical trait associated with it.”

Thankfully, our next ailment doesn’t have any pain associated with it either. Unless you count psychological pain, in which case, depending on your emotional constitution, all bets are off:

Human Werewolf Syndrome (a.k.a. Hypertrichosis)

In its congenital form, human werewolf syndrome is caused by an extremely rare genetic mutation that presents at birth, leaving its unlucky constituents wolflike in their incredible hairiness from an extremely early age. However, it can also be acquired after birth in various ways, including from “the side effects of drugs, associations with cancer, and possible links with eating disorders.”

Formerly the near-exclusive province of carnival sideshows, the hypertrichotic among us have received significantly more constructive attention in recent years thanks to articles like the one published by the Daily Mail last February about the Sangli sisters of India (see video above) and a Guiness World Record being awarded to Supatra Sasuphan of Thailand for achieving the coveted title of world’s hariest girl. (Okay, so maybe not all of the attention is constructive. Then again, Supatra says that she is “delighted after her new-found fame helped her become one of the most popular girls in school,” so what the hell do I know?)

From the benign (if beleaguering) to the very, very scary, we come to:

Toxic Shock Syndrome (a.k.a. Staphylococcal…toxic shock syndrome)

I’ll admit it: there’s no gussying this one up. Toxic shock syndrome is as bad as it sounds — maybe worse, considering that it “may be deadly in up to 50% of cases [and] the condition may return in those that survive.”

And fellas, don’t think you’re off the hook just because you remember reading once that toxic shock was a lady-parts problem caused by faulty tampons or whatever, since in reality,

Although the earliest cases of toxic shock syndrome involved women who were using tampons during their periods (menstruation), today less than half of current cases are associated with such events. Toxic shock syndrome can also occur with skin infections, burns, and after surgery. The condition can also affect children, postmenopausal women, and men.

I don’t know about you, but after suffering from confusion, diarrhea, general ill-feeling, headaches, high fever, low blood pressure, muscle aches, nausea and vomiting, widespread rashes, seizures, and, ultimately, organ failure, I think I’d pretty much welcome a chance to contract the next illness on our list:

Vampire Disease (a.k.a. Porphyria)

Offered as a possible explanation for the origin myth of vampires since at least 1985, porphyria is a nasty collection of rare, genetic blood disorders whose symptoms do, indeed, sound gnarly enough to spawn an entire subculture of mythical creatures. And no, there’s not a sparkly marbled six-pack among them. Instead,

Extreme cases of the disease can manifest gruesome symptoms where victims accumulate pigments called porphyrins in the skin, bones and teeth. While harmless in the dark, porphyrins become caustic, flesh eating toxins that can cause gruesome facial disfigurement when exposed to the ultraviolet rays of sunshine. Noses and ears can be eaten away with lips exhibiting a red, burned effect until they peel back from the gums that in turn recede, exposing the teeth in an unnatural way with a frightening, fang-like appearance.

The article linked to in the subheader also presents plausible explanations for the porphyria-related origins of other common vampire-y characteristics, including their unfortunate taste for blood and their entirely reasonable aversion to garlic and crucifixes. The less-than-cinematic takeaway here is that the longest-suffering victims of real vampires throughout history appear to be the vampires themselves.

That said, a vampire is a vampire, and there’s only one way to fight an army of the un-undead…and that’s with another army of the un-undead! That’s right, I’m talking about:

Walking Corpse Syndrome (a.k.a. Cotard delusion)

Unlike the victims of porphyria, whose physical symptoms are all too real, for the wannabe zombies suffering from Cotard delusion, it’s all about brains — and I don’t mean dietarily. First described by French neurologist Jules Cotard in 1882, walking corpse syndrome is classified as a “neuropsychiatric disorder” in which a disconnect in the brain leaves people unable to even recognize “their own face; as a result, they come to believe they’re dead.” Moreover, “in advanced cases, they sometimes believe their flesh is beginning to rot or that some of their internal organs or their blood is missing.”

Fortunately, if recognized and treated in time, the delusion is reversible. Not reversible, however? The 19 hours you’re scheduled to spend catching up with The Walking Dead on Netflix this summer before the third season begins this fall.

(crossposted on Motherboard)

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While I’m ruining hamburgers for you…

By
Trevor Macomber
– March 13, 2012

You’ll be pleased to know that there’s yet another concrete reason to decrease your intentional intake of pink slime, since according to a bunch of people with letters after their names,

Increasing consumption of both processed and unprocessed red meat was associated with a greater risk of dying during the study period, data from two large, prospective studies showed.

Through up to 28 years of follow-up, each additional serving of red meat per day was associated with a relative 13% to 20% increased risk of all-cause mortality, with the higher risk attributed to processed meats, according to Frank Hu, MD, PhD, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues.

It was estimated that 9.3% of the deaths in men and 7.6% of the deaths in women could have been prevented by consuming less than half of a serving of red meat (42 grams) per day, roughly equivalent to about one hot dog, the researchers reported online in Archives of Internal Medicine.

However, 77.2% of men and 90.4% of women consumed more than that during the studies.

That last statistic’s a little unexpected, since you tend to associate men with meat-eating and women with, you know, salads and shit (and by “you,” of course, I mean “I,” since I have a 1950′s-level understanding of sexual dynamics), but I think the point is clear: skip the butcher and head to the produce aisle once in awhile, okale?

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Maybe I was simply full of shit when I was a kid

By
Trevor Macomber
– March 6, 2012

I’m only vaguely embarrassed to admit that I wet the bed until a ripe old age when I was younger. I don’t think the condition survived into double digits, but if it didn’t, it came pretty damn close. So after reading today’s…let’s call it “fecally frank” article about bed-wetting in Slate, I had to wonder: maybe my parents were right. Maybe I really was just full of crap at that age.

Our culture has two reactions to potty problems: Either these problems represent a parental failure, or they are not actually problems but rather a normal (if bothersome) part of growing up. Parents are led to believe that kids are kids—they get busy playing and forget to go potty. They wet the bed, but that’s normal for their age.

In reality, potty-trained kids should not have accidents any more often than you or I do. And while overnight dryness often happens well after a child is toilet trained, bedwetting at age 6 should not be dismissed with, “You’re a deep sleeper. Be patient—you’ll grow out of it.”

Accidents and bed-wetting have the same root cause: chronically holding poop or pee or both. A rectal poop mass squishes the bladder and messes with its nerves; holding pee thickens the bladder wall, shrinking the bladder’s capacity to hold urine and triggering hiccuplike contractions. The upshot: wet undies and bed sheets.

[...]

Here’s the interesting part: [pediatric kidney specialist Sean] O’Regan noted in his papers that the parents of his patients had no inkling their children were backed up. Yet these kids were so clogged that they could not feel, in their rectums, the presence of balloons inflated to the size of a small cantaloupe.

O’Regan’s research tells you why constipation is so easily missed. Often, the rectum simply expands to compensate, like a squirrel’s cheeks or a snake’s belly. So much poop builds up that even though the child may still poop regularly, she never completely empties. Many severely clogged kids poop two or three times a day. Parents and doctors are fooled into thinking all is well.

Ummm, it goes on. Fascinating, in a gross sort of way.

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Tom can keep smoking in peace now

By
Trevor Macomber
– February 29, 2012

When I first read that the FDA intended to force tobacco companies to paste disgusting pictures of exploding lungs, diarrheatic teeth, and dead pandas (or whatever) on cigarette packages in order to ensure “full disclosure” of their dangers to consumers, I was psyched — not because I thought it had any chance of sticking around very long, but because the uproar it was sure to (and did) cause was every wiseass jester’s moist dream.

Of course, I know jack about retail law and the like, but when cigarette makers challenged the rule, it seemed like they had a pretty legit case. The FDA should be able to compel companies to print truthful statements about their products, and the higher the inherent health risk, the more comprehensive the statements should be. But this rule was so over the top and so outside the norm of what appears on other products, you had to wonder how it their own legal beagles didn’t give it a little more scrutiny.

Sure, cigs really can afflict users with everything that the photos (actually “images of rotting teeth, diseased lungs and other images intended to illustrate the dangers of smoking”) would have demonstrated, but tons of products can fuck you up if you use them to excess. Unless the FDA starts making brewers put pictures of brain-strewn car wrecks on beer bottles, snack food manufacturers put pictures of obese diabetics with missing feet on bags of cookies, and Mountain Dew put pictures of shriveled testicles on its soft drinks, it’s easy to see the terrible precedent this law could have set for what is — whatever its impact on your long-term health prospects — a legal product in this country.

Which is all just long-winded way to introduce the fact that Tom can smoke in peace again, thanks to the

U.S. judge [who] sided with tobacco companies on Wednesday, ruling that regulations requiring large graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging and advertising violate free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution.

[...]

“The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech,” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said.

While educating the public about the dangers of smoking “might be compelling, an interest in simply advocating that the public not purchase a legal product is not,” Leon wrote in a 19-page ruling.

Congratulations, Tommy! A formaldehyde toast to you on this special day.

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This is heartbreaking

By
Trevor Macomber
– February 27, 2012

And this is why the only place a black-and-white view of the world makes sense is in the land of retro Oscar darlings:

(Extra-long excerpt because…well, it’s merited.):

Rick Santorum, Meet My Son

This week my son turned blue, and for 30 terrifying seconds, stopped breathing. Called an “apnea seizure,” this is one stage in the progression of Tay-Sachs, the genetic disease Ronan was born with and will die of, but not before he suffers from these and other kinds of seizures and is finally plunged into a completely vegetative state. Nearly two years old, he is already blind, paralyzed, and increasingly nonresponsive. I expect his death to happen this year, and this week’s seizure only highlighted the fact that it could happen at any moment—while I’m at work, at the hair salon, at the grocery store. I love my son more than any person in the world and his life is of utmost value to me. I don’t regret a single minute of this parenting journey, even though I wake up every morning with my heart breaking, feeling the impending dread of his imminent death. This is one set of absolute truths.

Here’s another: If I had known Ronan had Tay-Sachs (I met with two genetic counselors and had every standard prenatal test available to me, including the one for Tay-Sachs, which did not detect my rare mutation, and therefore I waived the test at my CVS procedure), I would have found out what the disease meant for my then unborn child; I would have talked to parents who are raising (and burying) children with this disease, and then I would have had an abortion. Without question and without regret, although this would have been a different kind of loss to mourn and would by no means have been a cavalier or uncomplicated, heartless decision. I’m so grateful that Ronan is my child. I also wish he’d never been born; no person should suffer in this way—daily seizures, blindness, lack of movement, inability to swallow, a devastated brain—with no hope for a cure. Both of these statements are categorically true; neither one is mutually exclusive.

That it is possible to hold this paradox as part of my daily reality points to the reductive and narrow-minded nature of Rick Santorum’s assertions that prenatal testing increases the number of abortions (a this equals that equation), and for this reason, the moral viability or inherent value of these tests should be questioned. Prenatal testing provides information, a value-less act. I maintain that it is a woman’s right to choose what to do with the information that attaches value and meaning, and that this choice is—and must be—directly related to that individual’s experiences. What’s at stake here is not the issue of testing, but the issue of choice. I love Ronan, and I believe it would have been an act of love to abort him, knowing that his life would be primarily one of intense suffering, knowing that his neurologically devastated brain made true quality of life—relationships, thoughts, pleasant physical experiences—impossible.

[...]

The tenor of the current debate frightens me, as it heralds a return to another age when women were not the trustees of decisions made about their own bodies. What I hope for other women is that they have the power to make their own decisions with as much information as it is possible to have, with respect to the specificity and complexity of their own circumstances, according to their own minds and hearts and not the dictates of another person’s worldview. Santorum believes that all life is inherently valuable, no matter how compromised or of what limited quality; that is one view. I believe that we need a more nuanced discussion about what quality of life is, and that it should be a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy when the path of her child’s life is as compromised—and as terrible—as my son’s.

(via)

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Today in American Lady Parts

By
Tom OHare
– February 16, 2012

This picture has been making the rounds on Facebook, from Planned Parenthood:

Planned Parenthood captions: “These are the witnesses testifying on the birth control benefit right now on Capitol Hill. What is wrong with this picture?”

TBogg reminds us of this one, too, from the signing of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act:

Old white Viagra users signing bills on behalf of women’s health. How lovely.

Meanwhile, today in Virginia (via):

Unfortunately, the “fetal personhood” bill wasn’t the only nutty and frightening piece of legislation that Virginia’s House of Delegates passed. Another bill was advanced requiring a woman undergoing an abortion to have a “transvaginal ultrasound” — i.e., to require a doctor to insert a speculum and then an ultrasound probe into a her vagina against her will and reflect that image onscreen. Not only is a bill like this rather rape-y in its forcefulness — and yes, I realize that is a strong statement, and I mean it strongly — but there is no medically necessary reason to do so. And there are no exceptions. Gov. McDonnell has stated his intention to sign the “transvaginal ultrasound” bill if it lands on his desk.

And what’s that “fetal personhood bill” mentioned in the first sentence of that quote? Why, it’s this charming legislation out of Oklahoma, passed by the state Senate this morning. (Edit: no, it’s not, I misread. Yay! There’s another one! But, whatever, no one reads this shitty blog anyway.)

The Oklahoma Senate has overwhelmingly approved an anti-abortion “personhood” bill that declares life begins at conception.

The vote Wednesday upset doctors who fear the proposed law will jeopardize reproductive medicine.

The bill now heads to the House, where it is expected to pass. Republican Gov. Mary Fallin typically won’t comment on pending legislation, but she has described herself as strongly “pro-life.”

What a great day for American women.

Update: Via John Cole, apparently when Teh Womenz take Teh Pill, it gives Teh Menz prostate cancer:

I’ll bet you she didn’t have her children vaccinated. She’s very anti-chemical, after all.

Honestly, how any one could align themselves with a party that has decided that declaring war on women is a politically winning strategy is beyond me. I just hope they all get AIDS.

***

Updated by Trevor: Don’t worry, Sean Hannity made sure that more diverse voices on this subject were heard:

(As usual, The Daily Show nails it.)

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President Obama Totally Just Owned a Bunch of Old White Catholic Bishops

By
Tom OHare
– February 10, 2012

Watch this video for a bit of backstory to this stupid controversy, and the “compromise” Obama offered.

So a bunch of old, God-fearing, Catholic Bishop virgins wanted to occupy women’s vaginas and allow religious institutions that objected to providing women with contraception to recuse themselves from the obligation, under the Affordable Care Act, to provide it to their employees. The religious right, ever wary of women being given control over their own bodies, threw a temper tantrum and got it on the news. Everyone was talking about it. How would this wedge issue affect Campaign 2012?

Obama basically says in the above video, “Fuck it, you misogynist twits, if you don’t want to provide contraceptive services to your employees, you don’t have to. But guess what? YOUR INSURANCE PROVIDER DOES IF YOU OPT OUT OF THAT REQUIREMENT. NA-NA-NA-NA-NA, FUCK YOU AND GET THE FUCK OUT! THAT’S THE COMPROMISE! DOMINO, MOTHERFUCKER!” Only with less swear words and more eloquence. Also, sadly, no dominoes.

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Let them die of breast cancer!

By
Tom OHare
– February 1, 2012

The Susan G. Komen Foundation — of breast cancer awareness month and pink ribbons — has decided that, because Planned Parenthood is “being investigated” by some loony out of Florida for spending tax dollars on illegal abortions (lolwhat?), it is no longer a worthy recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for breast examinations. Which means, yay! More women will die of breast cancer! What a terrific way to carry the banner for breast cancer awareness!

I’m going to assume you realize how heinous this is, and I encourage you to follow TBogg’s advice on the matter, which is:

you can make a donation to Planned Parenthood and request a thank you card be sent to

Karen Handel
Senior VP of Fail
c/o Susan G. Komen Foundation
P.O. Box 650309
Dallas, TX 75265-0309

As one of TBogg’s readers points out, in order to ensure that Handel receives a thank you from Planned Parenthood, make sure that you choose to make an “honorary gifting” rather than a “one time donation” while you’re over at PP’s donation page.

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Dear Megan McArdle,

By
Tom OHare
– January 23, 2012

When you said this:

 Is spending $50,000 to give a pancreatic cancer patient an extra 5-9 months of life a wasted expenditure, or a medical advance? On the one hand, 5-9 months isn’t very long.  On the other hand, for a typical pancreatic cancer patient, you’ve doubled their lifespan, which seems like  a very long time indeed.

If we get better cancer treatments–which is what everyone says they want–we’re probably going to be asking those questions a lot.  And either way, we aren’t going to like the answer.

… in your glib, “I’m asking tough questions here, people, because I am Oh-So-Serious” way, you made me wish a rapid death to both of your parents from terminal cancer. Maybe then you’ll understand, oh I dunno, what empathy might feel like.

Because you know what I would’ve really liked instead of my dad dying three months after his diagnosis of metastatic cancer last year? Five to nine more months with him.

Go fuck yourself, McArdle.

(via)
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Seriously?

By
Tom OHare
– December 7, 2011

In what can only be called an astounding move by an Administration that pledged on inauguration day that medical and health decisions would be based on fact not ideology and for which women are a major constituency, today Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overruled a much-awaited decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make emergency contraception (EC) available over-the-counter (OTC) to women of all ages.

Terrible policy from Obama and Sebelius, and for what? The general? Is anyone under the impression that either Newt Gingrich —  a serial philanderer on wife number three — or Mitt Romney — a guy who strapped a dog to his car roof en route to a family vacation — is going to be able to credibly claim some sort of moral high ground in the upcoming election?

Fuck it, I guess if the demographic getting screwed doesn’t vote in high enough numbers, all’s fair in the culture wars. All the more so when it’s election season.

(via Digby)

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