*cough**splutter* Please list your minor or otherwise ailments here.

[biscuitsandtea]

i've got manic depression, and related bits and bobs that go hand in hand with
my bipolar.

a heart mumur,

and today found out ive got a middle ear and throat infections, to go with my chest cold.

fun times.


hope the throat and testicles clear up, previous posters.

[Cupid Stunt]

I've got an ear infection.  An ear infection!  Like I'm EIGHT, or something.  It woke me at 4am and has been hurting like a bastard ever since.  The doctor has given me antibiotics and a spray that absolutely honks.  I feel like a complete failure as a woman.  You can't imagine, say, Halle Berry having a smelly ear, can you?

[Banana Woofwoof]

Ach, don't beat yourself up.  I lost the hearing in my right ear last month and it still hasn't come back.  I'm waiting...

I'm worried I have MS now as my mum has it and the right side of my body keeps seizing up and going numb.  Yesterday I couldn't move my facial muscles properly.  Arg.

[niat]

The hearing thing could just be wax. I had very muffled hearing in one ear and had it syringed and hearing was miraculously back to normal. The lump of wax that came out was about the size of a ping pong ball. Nice.

I have no tips regarding the MS. Sorry.

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

I've got an itchy back after lying on the grass at lunchtime.

[niat]

I hate that! What causes it? Nasty chemicals in the grass?

[SetToStun]

Severe chlorophyll alergy, I believe. The only solution is to have your back amputated. You'll get over it.

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

I think it's just a reaction to grass pollen, like hayfever but on your skin.

[Milo]

It's probably just from having damp things pressing on you.

[BadLieutenant]

Oh, that reminds me, the hayfever season is coming. Better stock up on Piriton and eye-drops. Fucking summer.

[Milo]

My left nostril keeps getting full of dried blood. Probably nose cancer.

[BadLieutenant]

STOP PICKING IT.

[Banana Woofwoof]

My left nostril keeps getting full of dried blood. Probably nose cancer.

Minger.

EAT EAT EAT!

[Milo]

EAT EAT EAT!

Of course. What else am I going to do, wipe it on the sofa?

[Banana Woofwoof]

That would be a waste.  Bloody snot is tastiest.

[Milo]

So you're saying that my bleeding nostril is actually a blessing? Y'know, you might be right.

[Oscar]

Could you train a blood sucking bat to hang about sucking from your nostril? That would be great.

I have Mushy Brain Syndrome* since a horse bashed my head against the desert which means that every so often I forget how to speak or move and have to try and signal with my eyes to whoever is panicking around me “Don’t worry I’m absolutely fine, but could you scratch my nose please? It’s driving me nuts”.
I’ve also been declared officially thick as mud when it comes to taking in visual and verbal information (although it’s far worse some times than others), which means that I can’t understand familiar films like Men in Black 2 anymore, can’t even watch X Men cartoons (the pictures don’t make any sense) and am currently attempting to read Dan Brown because it’s written for idiots.
Oddly it turns out that speaking and understanding speech use entirely different bits of brain as do reading and writing, which means I can often write, but not be able to read what I’ve just written and can have no clue what someone is saying to me, but be able to explain that clearly.
If anyone clever can explain any of this to me, then that would be great, everyone in the NHS is so insistently vague and slow.

*Doctors keep misdiagnosing and rediagnosing me so I'm sticking with something everyone can understand.

[Milo]

Very severe epilepsy is sometimes treated (usually effectively) by cutting a connection between the two sides of the brain. This has one of the effects that you describe, gnatt, in that a person could be given a cup, could know it's a cup but not be able to make the link and say, "This is a cup".

So I'd guess that your head bashing has severed various connections about the place. Or made them fragile or sommat. Neuroscience is absurdly complicated and isn't really my thing. Could be similar to migraines - I believe they are caused by changes in blood flow and occur for various reasons. A brain with delicate connections could lose connections in response to such changes and cause what you describe. Or it could be more akin to an epileptic state.

Or we can wait until someone who really knows what they are on about comes along.

[Cupid Stunt]

AAAAAAAAAAARGH my fucking ear is KILLING ME.  I don't think I have a particularly low pain threshold, but this is getting ridiculous now.  I can't go through the whole night like this waiting for the spray and antibiotics to kick in.  The question is, should I have a drink?  Does alcohol badly affect antibiotics?  The contra-indications leaflet doesn't mention it anywhere, can't find anything conclusive online, but the very back of my mind keeps saying "Don't drink on antibiotics!".  But I am in SUCH PAIN, I can't help thinking a bit of wine (alright, a lot of wine) is the only way I'll sleep tonight.  To drink or not to drink?

[Milo]

What are the antibiotics? I can look up what the British National Formulary says.

[Cupid Stunt]

It's just Amoxicillin, 500mg 3 times a day.

I would be ever so grateful.
(Owwww)

[Milo]

Nowt listed for interactions or cautions for alcohol with Amoxicillin.

NOTE: Followed at own risk. If you die or your ears explode, no taking it out on me.

[Cupid Stunt]

Nowt listed for interactions or cautions for alcohol with Amoxicillin.

I could kiss you.  *pops cork*

NOTE: Followed at own risk. If you die or your ears explode, no taking it out on me.

I think if my ears exploded it would be a BLESSED RELIEF.  Plus I could sell my healthcarescare story to the tabloids, if this happens I will cut you in.

[Oscar]

So I'd guess that your head bashing has severed various connections about the place. Or made them fragile or sommat. Neuroscience is absurdly complicated and isn't really my thing. Could be similar to migraines - I believe they are caused by changes in blood flow and occur for various reasons. A brain with delicate connections could lose connections in response to such changes and cause what you describe. Or it could be more akin to an epileptic state.
 

Thank you Roving Internet Dr Milo, a doctor has previously said that damaged connections between left and right brain is a possibility, I'm not good at switching thinking ie from reading to listening or from talking to trying to open a bloody door.
I had an EEG a few weeks ago and no epileptic fit, so that should be fine.

[Milo]

Tis certainly an interesting case. Must be strange how different actions are compartmentalised like that and you have to switch 'modes'. Wonder if you'll find it changes over time as different parts of your brain adapt to the new arrangement of things. How long ago did it happen?

Sorry if I'm being nosy. I nearly went into Neuroscience, see, as it's absolutely fascinating but I don't think I'm smart enough for it.

[Oscar]

Always happy to rattle on about myself. It happened a year and a half ago and I think it's changed a few times. At the moment I have a lot of trouble understanding people and reading instructions, but haven't had trouble moving for few weeks (although I get very slow sometimes and slur my words, but I think that's just exhaustion).
At some point soon I'm supposed to get CBT which I think will teach me to use my brain differently or more effectively or something. Somebody once explained it as a method of rerouting thinking processes so that they avoid the damaged bits of brain. I have no clue if that makes sense though.

I find it all interesting too, I never really thought about how the brain works before - for example, I was confused that cartoons were so difficult to watch, I thought they'd be easy, but in the end figured that to watch cartoons actually takes quite a complicated process of translation (especially if the cartoon is unfamiliar) the brain has to work out what each 2D simplified image represents and how the different objects interact. Occasionally the same confusion happens with real live images, so I can think that this is a car and that's a road and there's the shop I'm walking to, but by the time I've worked all that out cars are screeching to a stop and people are shouting hysterically.

[Banana Woofwoof]

I am really shitting it now that I have lung cancer.  I've smoked since I was 15 and my mum smoked my whole life.  I keep getting out of breath and my voice has started to go weird.  And I can't stop coughing.

Argh.

[Still Not George]

Back to the "minor ailments" side of things... constant faint dizziness, almost a "buzzing" sensation in my head, weak knees, and hot flushes. Oh, and occasional nausea.

Flu, then...

[ccab]

I am really shitting it now that I have lung cancer.  I've smoked since I was 15 and my mum smoked my whole life.  I keep getting out of breath and my voice has started to go weird.  And I can't stop coughing.

Argh.

No... it sounds more like either aggressive tuberculosis or (more likely) streptopneumonia. If it's the latter, ever larger chunks of lung will soon begin appearing in your mouth each time you cough. Ironically, your best option is to continue smoking - quite soon, the sticky tar will be the only thing holding your lungs together.

Best of luck!

[Small Man Big Horse]

The top halves of my little finger and the finger next to it on my right hand have been strangely numb and occasionally tingley for the past four or five days. I googled the symptoms and I could either have something called Syringomyelia, which sounds horrible, Ulnar Nerve Compression, or "hand problems". http://www.patient.co.uk/leaflets/numbness_or_tingling_in_fourth_and_fifth_fingers.htm

Or it could just be one of those strange things which happens sometimes and will go away in a week or so. That's my hopeful diagnosis of the situation anyway.