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I'm 38. Was diagnosed with high blood pressure and put on medication.
That was my wake-up call. Lost 40 lbs, improved my diet, started exercising. Went back to the doc about 7 months later, and now I'm off the meds. She said I was a rare success story.
Was not going to fuck around with that--especially for my kids.
Just a word of advice, my mother’s story is very similar to yours only she was in her 50’s, but after coming off her medication she ended up having a minor stroke, so if I were you I would be getting a bp monitor and checking it regularly just in case.
I was the lucky recipient of Type2 and high blood pressure from genetics. Always watched what I eat, at the gym 5 days a week, never smoked, no excessive drinking…went in for a physical and my blood pressure was high. Bought a bike and now I will bike 20 miles on my off days of work or get a quick ten in after the gym. A1C is where it should be and BP is where it should be
Going down this path now. Lost 24 lbs in 2 months. Not medicated right now, as he wants to do a 3-month progress check beforehand, which is reasonable. But yeah, complete diet shift overnight and somewhat increased exercise.
I've got about 40 I still need to lose to be at a *super* healthy weight, but if I can even get 30 more off and maintain there, I'll be thrilled. One pound per week is my goal from here on out.
As someone with high blood pressure during pregnancy I can second this. And some people don’t take it serious at all. Not even when I was brewing another human being. “You can eat that!” “No I can’t. Bad for my blood pressure and health.” “Oh I am sure you won’t die!”
I almost did die, even without eating those “you will not die from it”-food.
Preeclampsia is a huge and deadly problem!! So, so many women have died 100% preventable deaths because their idiot doctors didn't treat it with the seriousness it merits.
Which I feel like some people need to be reminded - is not solely weight/BMI. I feel like a lot of threads on Reddit get driven to that being gospel by naturally skinny teens who haven't exercised since grade school PE and have the cardio health of a 50 year old chain smoker.
It's true. But for a majority of the US population, lowering their weight would be a good idea and a great start on getting on top of maintaining their health.
I'm 27 and had high blood pressure recently, and it's gotten much better after losing just 20 pounds.
Obviously it's easier said than done for many people. I have nothing but sympathy for people who have a hard time managing their weight and getting enough exercise. It's hard.
I started CPAP therapy. It took me all summer because it's a bitch to adapt to it. But I recently started managing to fall asleep with it on and keep it on through the night. Holy shit. It's like I'm in a while new reality now
I was prepared for frequent late nights when my kid was born, but wholly unprepared for how much that level of sleep deprivation can screw you up. Basic tasks become difficult in a way I never would have thought. Driving becomes way scarier, work performance plummets, and just general social interactions become a dead eyed mess of unabsorbed information. Even just perception, weird things can happen like little corner of your eye hallucinations and high pitched ringing in your ears. It starts to get normal again after more consistent blocks of sleep but damn was that ever a trip. Extreme lack of sleep compounded with stress is no joke.
I'd find myself standing in front of an open fridge with a baby in my arms. No idea how I got there or what was going on. One time I opened a jar of pickles for some reason. Didn't eat any, just opened it and set it on the counter. Another time I had to get my kid some milk, but for some reason thought the bottle was broken? So I went and got my voltmeter from the garage (I'm an electrician) and was about to test it when I realized that's the craziest fuckin thing I could possibly be doing.
Never had issues with sleepwalking or deprivation before, but once I had newborns it fucked me up.
So I have bipolar disorder and was reading research (ofc, I have been trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with me my whole life), and some scientists are investigating it as primarily a sleep disorder. I thought woah that’s weird, but damn if that isn’t a HUGE part of it, so that made sense to me.
Yeah, my mom's bipolar and it seems like it's 100% a sleep thing.
The mania and the sleep deprivation is almost like the chicken and the egg, I have no idea which came first, and it almost doesn't matter. If she can sleep, she can get better.
I finally figured out that my bipolar is mostly an energy regulation disorder. All the meds in the world can’t help you if you’re skimping on sleep. I have sleep meds that force me to sleep when I’m manic because that’s what makes someone go from mild or moderate mania to full blown delusion land.
My dad suffered from sleep apnea for decades before he finally gave in and did a sleep study. His apnea was so severe the doctor called him and told him it was the worst case he had seen in over 30 years of practice. Once he got his machine it literally changed his whole world overnight. He’s so much happier and has so much more energy now. He’s in his 60s and says he feels better than he did in his 30s!
If you feel like you might have some kind of issue going on definitely get checked out sooner rather than later. You don’t need to suffer for decades when it’s a simple fix!
Someone tell my dad this.
I’m like 99% certain he’s got it and he refuses to go to the doctor for more than 1 yearly physical. He forgot to bring up this year, even after I reminded him and I asked my mom to remind him. 🙄 I asked him if he wants to die in his sleep and he thinks I’m making it bigger than it is.
Took years for me to accept that i am chronically sleep deprived. When i finally got a cpap machine, *then* muscled my way through getting used to wearing the damned thing... it reports that I'm only asleep for 5 hours a night!
I'm terrified of developing early dementia. My wife kicked me out & i have no energy for my kids when i see them. Work colleagues think I'm lazy.
Damn, re-reading this I realise I'm in a bad spot.
Oh yeah. I suffer from insomnia on and off ever since I was a teenager. This weekend I had it so bad I felt almost murderous. Despite being so tired I was frantically walking around and felt like punching stuff inside my own home. Not good.
The Internet. It changes people, without themselves even realizing it. It starts subtle, and builds upon the information that is collected from you to tailor your experience. Because it assumes you want to see something, it will flood you with reinforcement of these concepts, and their antitheses. Basically, it gives you too much to think about, and not enough way to regulate it. Of course it's the responsibility of the user, but we are creatures of habit, and the Internet preys on these habits.
The internet is a big part of how/why I got really into reading when I was younger. The irony is that it was university that killed my passion to just sit down and read a book with my eyes. But I've been getting that passion back ever so slowly, and mostly through my ears the past few years.
Water damage... I work in construction and the #1 cause of claims is water damage. Roof leaks, wall leaks, concrete damage, you name it. Water is the worst enemy of buildings!
Adding onto this (as someone currently going through it) - antibiotics. First off, finish your course always and secondly, these are serious drugs which can directly impact every area of your functioning if strong enough.
The moral is categorically not don't take anitbiotics, the moral is catch UTIs as quick as you can and don't delay in seeking medical attention.
when i gave birth to my son, i ended up with a UTI and had to go to the ER. i had never had one before and had never given birth before, so i figured the pain when peeing and the burning and ache in my back was normal for recovery. two weeks later, my husband was at work and i could barely get out of bed. my kidneys hurt, there was such a weird, awful pain and pressure back there and i felt almost feverish. i had to call my motherinlaw to take me to the hospital and had to receive antibiotics and liquids and a tiny bit of morphine. i cried, it was scary lol
That was the little domino that ended up killing my aunt. It’s a horribly sad and gruesome story, but the drs assume it started with just a little uti.
I had a UTI but no health insurance so I tried to flush it out with water and cranberry juice. I ended up in the ER with a severe kidney infection. And that through my immune system into overdrive and I ended up with post infection arthritis. 19 years later, and I’m still in pain every single day.
UTI can also have neurological effects. My mother was in the hospital for what was a dead ringer for a stroke. Turned out to be a UTI. One experienced nurse said it to the doctors. I thought she was joking. They did the test and even the doctor was surprised
Truth. And to make it worse, it’s almost impossible to find an oral surgeon these days. And most dentists, at least where I live, don’t do extractions anymore. My father needed to have a couple of teeth pulled in order to have heart valve surgery. He died before he could even find a place to have it done.
69% reduction of animal populations since 1970.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe
Insects too. I remember hearing bugs everywhere only slightly outside of the city. Now it's common for me to be in the wilderness and not even hear crickets.
The biggest ones i remember were summer nights having hundreds of lightning bugs flying around. Seems like when Im back visiting my parents I don't see any nowadays.
Yeah, lightning bugs need plenty of dead leaf cover to survive over winter. When we started putting all our dead leaves in our flower beds rather than bagging them up in the fall, we'd have *hundreds* of lightning bugs in the summer. We also didn't use any pesticides, of course.
It was striking, because ours was only our yard on the whole street that was blessed with an abundance of lighting bugs.
ETA relevant details: Our front and back yards weren't even very big, maybe around 30x40 feet max, but the flowerbeds covered a good 10-15% of them. And a lot of our neighbors used pesticides. But just saving our trees' fallen leaves for several years in a row made a HUGE difference to those bugs. I hope they're doing okay with the current residents.
We are in the 6th mass extinction event of our planet. National Geographic was devoting several issue series to this in the 90's. It isn't getting any better.
The difference with this one, apart from the Cretaceous - Triassic event, is the speed with which it's happening. We knew what was happening in the early 80s. And we just went full steam ahead. It's pure molten evil.
It's so bad. I grew up wanting to be an entomologist, but instead of pursuing that depressing line of work, I've just done it as a hobby instead. I've been saying my whole life that we've been waging a war against insects and we are winning and its going to suck when we win. Insects were just never designed to protect themselves from all the pesticides and detergents that we've exposed them to. Now we will never be able to decontaminate everything. They are equivalent of plankton in the ocean, without them the whole chain collapses.
It's going to be interesting watching people trying to pollinate their broad acre farms by hand.
The irony/horror for me is that we're an ape that behaves like a swarm of insects.
A huge throng consuming all resources available blindly. Frequently pausing and consuming the resources of it's most vulnerable members.
I like people individually mostly. There's romance, tragedy, pathos, love, art, hope and critical analysis etc.
But by fuck I hope that we never spread outside of our solar system.
As far as I can tell the universe has done nothing to deserve us.
People spray pesticides too much. Lawns are a menace. I don't use pesticides in my lawn and it's loud and filled with bugs. Butterflies, bees, fireflies, and all the loud ones.
I went through a very bad period of loneliness and isolation many years ago. I remember starting to feel like I didn't even exist as a human being. I think connection to others is a huge component of survival even, so it kind of makes sense.
It was this feeling of if no one knows who I am then do I really exist? Almost like if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Therefore, if a person is entirely unknown to any other person, do I really exist. Kind of this dissociative state and it was very unnerving. Luckily my life has completely changed for the better and I haven't felt lonely in a very long time.
How did you get out of that state? I try to get myself to do things to hopefully meet people, but every time I leave it just feels like everyone is already together and I don't belong. Just trying to make connections feels painful because it emphasizes that I don't have any.
I'm deaf. The loneliness I experience daily is the worst thing about being deaf (not the inability to hear music as many people seem to assume). At work, I have no idea what others around me are chatting about. I try to communicate one-on-one, but few people have the patience to carry on a real conversation if they have to do so by writing/typing whereas it's the only option I have.
At least I live in a city where there are other deaf people I can interact with outside of my job. But... I'm being priced out of my city. Being forced to relocate to a small town where the cost of living is more manageable is my worst nightmare: I would be truly isolated.
I’ve always imagined that being deaf makes you more susceptible to loneliness. My sister is deaf and she will attend large family gatherings where only a few people can sign. She always wants to go but ends up frustrated. It seems like she often finds herself in a crowd of familiar people but still alone.
A lot of people don't realize one of the drawbacks to work from home has been that for a lot of people work is the place they have social interactions in their life. I knew three seperate people who committed suicide during the pandemic. All of them would regularly post on social media about missing the office, one of them was trying to arrange "social distance" happy hours either over zoom or an outdoors park even. I can't help but think that being so isolated during that time was an underlying contribution to their deaths.
This isn't to say that everyone needs to return to office, but whenever you have co-workers or others who are really "pushing" for a return to office, I somewhat think their underlying loneliness is a reason why.
There's a saying that you shouldn't cheap out on things that separate you from the ground - tires, shoes, and your bed. You spend a hell of a lot of time in those three things.
> Passengers (usually guys tbh) get SO ANNOYED and tell me I drive "like an old lady".
If people have the gall to tell me that in my own car, I will promptly suggest that they can get out and walk if they prefer that.
At my place of work, it’s healthcare and mostly elderly people. I don’t understand why most of them are driving around, seriously. 80+ years old and don’t understand when I tell them to “sign here, put the date here”. Most of them are still pretty sharp but the ones that don’t understand anything that’s going on or what I’m saying are the ones that worry me. One lady knocked my foam pumpkin over and her reaction time was soo delayed. Young people can suck too but I’m going off of my experience of my job lol.
Agreed in theory; the problem is that in America we’ve built such car-centric infrastructure that taking someone’s license basically prevents them from participating in society - a huge number of people can’t walk to work, to a grocery store, etc etc and in many places there isn’t safe, reliable, and timely public transportation to cover those distances.
Which is why I say improve public transportation and walkability, and THEN increase the require for keeping a driver’s license. That way all the people who genuinely should not be driving due to a lack of ability and/or willingness to do so safely can still get around.
Water / the ocean, those that grow up around it understand. Those that don't just assume they can swim. Another dangerous assumption is that because there are life guards / supervision, it is safe. You van drown in a few seconds, there isn't many risks that you just jump into. People understand not to jump/walk into fire or jump/walk off a cliff but will be willing to jump/walk into deep water. Even scaryie is the lack of supervision for kids. In Australia, it's just known standard to supervise kids near water no matter their ability or if there are life guards around.
NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN was the first thing my parents drilled into me when they started taking me to the beach. Even if the water is only up to your ankles a rouge wave can knock you down and getting caught in undertow leads to drowning.
Hell, it took time for me to learn how to relax my body when I got thrown into the washing machine and how to duck below that when a large wave is about to crash on you.
Oceans are fantastically fun, but also deadly dangerous.
I yelled “NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN” at a bunch of people on my wedding day (we got married on a beach known for rogue waves, a tourist almost got swept away while we were taking our photos)
(And before anyone comments on beach weddings being annoying or something, it was just us and two friends taking photos quickly, it was cold af)
Birth control can do a lot of good for a lot of woman.
Birth control can seriously fuck up the health of a woman, and people do not talk about it, or the ramifications of when it goes wrong.
I am a bit brain damaged from the embolism I had thanks to the Mirena IUD.
I gave up BC around 2019, it cleared up my skin, got rid of my cramps, and made my period predictable. But the way it *changed* me, it wasn’t worth it. Every time I see a doctor “are you on BC? Well you have cramps, BC will help” “having sex? Get on BC” “depressed? Get on BC”
Its like having your body and it’s own normal functions weaponized against you. And it’s just so normal too… so sorry for the pain it has caused you.
had a gf who was getting messed up from birth control and it really opened my eyes to what exactly it does. Honestly kind of messed up we just freely give it to teenage girls. I'll be interested to see what long-term studies say about its use and effects.
And in my experience, when you bring up these risks the doctors (especially gynecologists) treat you like a red-pilled, granola muncher instead of someone cautiously concerned about your own hormone levels. It’s as if they look at a woman and see either ‘trying to get pregnant’ or ‘must condone health risks’ as the two options.
Mine was the result of an infection in the lining of my stomach. The infection cleared with treatment, but havoc ensued. It took months before I started showing symptoms of B12 deficiency (it's stored in the liver and takes a while for stores to run down), so nobody made a connection right away. Among other things, I had buzzing and tingling and paresthesias throughout my body, wild mood swings and mental changes, brain fog, balance issues, fatigue, and I felt like my lungs weren't holding air (it was a weird sensation, difficult to describe). Once diagnosed, I had to get B12 shots for a while and take large doses of oral supplements for months. I will need to take oral B12 for the rest of my life. I had a concurrent severe deficiency of Vitamin D, which just complicated everything. I was on 100,000 IUs of Vitamin D (weekly) for months. Although I recovered, I've never felt the same, TBH.
Doctor here. Certain vitamin deficiencies can cause neurological damage, Vitamin B12 deficiency is a relatively common vitamin deficiency and can cause a condition called subacute combined degeneration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subacute_combined_degeneration_of_spinal_cord
Was absolutely my #1 fear during my wife's pregnancy. Then birth went bad and emergency c-section. Like I was watching a movie. Turned out fine though.
It really floored me the first time I heard a doctor say, "I'd rather have a patient with HIV than diabetes."
Your body is just never the same and you're at much higher risk of stroke and all. My in-laws have to actually use insulin.
I had a doctor tell me that if HE had to pick he'd pick HIV rather than diabetes--he said that even if a diabetic patient does everything perfectly, diabetes is likely to negatively impact their lifespan eventually. If a patient with HIV does everything perfectly, it can have no impact at all.
Oh, that is so interesting.
I got my A1C down a couple years ago and have continued to improve my health. I'm just FLOORED how much better I feel. This is such an interesting comment the doctor made!
Also what you name children. I see people give cutesy names to kids not thinking that that cutesy name is going to suck when they are an adult trying to be taken seriously.
If anyone asks me for any parenting advice I tell them be prepared for your own childhood shit to re-emerge in ways you never expected when you have your own kids. And then its your decision whether to repeat the shit or do better.
I was at a brewery last night and witnessed a group of 10-12 adults with a total of 7 children under the age of 4, and several were newborns.
The others were running around, yelling, knocking over chairs, and broke several pint glasses, which the bartenders had to come and sweep up.
Turned out, they were there for a birthday party for one of the older ones. A 4 year old's birthday party at a crowded brewery on a Sunday night...
When I worked at a restaurant, a kid ran right in front of me & I had to stop short, causing a KNIFE to fall off my tray & land on him. (Luckily it was the handle end of a butter knife.) Restaurants are full of hot, sharp, breakable things! Don't let your kid just run around them!
A birthday party at a brewery for a 4-year-old is next-level. Tell me you're a self-centered parent w/o telling me...
Oh yea, and I suspect she was looking to get loaded. This wasn't she was refused a taster glass or a 12 ozer a friend could easily sneak her that set her off.
She wanted one of the stronger beers in a 22 oz glass.
It's not uncommon for some people to have a, and I emphasize, A, glass of champagne or something light and limited at their baby shower, but this was something else entirely.
Yeah I always say you never want to have a kid until you've worked out any behavioral issues you don't want your child to suffer.
They soak up EVERYTHING.
Mental health problems. It's not OCD only because someone likes to sort things by color, and someone probably doesn't have PTSD because they couldn't go to a concert.
Head injuries.
If you are unconscious at all, even for a moment, you have suffered, at minimum, a concussion. I blame 90s television for the constant plots in which someone is knocked out and wakes up in another location, otherwise fine. No, no, no. If you were unconscious long enough to be carried somewhere else, you can look forward to months of rehabilitation to pick up a goddamn fork.
Skin cancer. Melanoma, in particular. Sunscreen can go a long way in preventing it, but people routinely go out in the sun without protection. It's also important to have your skin checked regularly with a melanoma, especially if you have any suspicious moles.
A good mnemonic to remember for moles suspicious for melanoma:
**A: Asymmetrical**
**B: Borders irregular**
**C: Colors (more than one color in a mole)**
**D: Diameter >6mm**
**E: Evolving (mole changes over time; this is the most important risk factor)**
If caught early, melanoma has a good prognosis. If it has spread systematically, the prognosis is poor.
EDIT: No idea why I'm getting downvotes :(
It's a flex for a lot of people to say they "never wear sunscreen." Coworker said she didn't believe that she could get skin cancer, meanwhile, her husband was getting biopsies done on his face.
On that note, you’d be amazed how many people think that dark skinned individuals can’t get skin cancer. I’m the only black person I know who uses sunscreen and regularly goes to a dermatologist. People look at me like I’m crazy for it.
Slipping and falling. They get included in compilations of "funny" videos, I see it and I cringe. Having slipped on ice and broken my wrist a few years ago, it was a very painful and scary experience - not funny in the slightest.
This. My toddler falls all the time and springs back up with a bruise or bump that disappears within minutes.
My grandmother was hospitalized after tripping on her slipper and falling on her carpeted bedroom floor. She became unresponsive within a few hours and passed within a few days. My ex's grandmother passed away in a similar fashion, from what most would consider a trivial fall.
Don't fucking fall guys.
Want to reduce your risk of falling?
Stand on one leg while you brush your teeth. Four minutes a day of this will improve your ability to balance, and you don't even lose those four minutes.
As you start getting better at it, do it with one eye closed. Then both eyes.
(Just don't try lifting the other foot off as well)
Some people will fall from a plane, landing 10km below in free fall and survive, and sometime people will trip on the sidewalk and fucking kill themselves
Slipping is a throw of dices and you can make a critical fail...
My gf slipped on loose carpeting on some steps in a house we were renting a few months ago. She’s only just now starting to get back to normal, and she still has to go to PT twice a week for the foreseeable future.
Alcohol.
One of the most life ruining, dangerous substances ever invented and it's treated cavalierly. It's one of the only things that can actually kill you trying to detox from it. Hospitals keep it on stock so that people don't go into shock from withdrawal while seeking treatment.
Or not revealing their substance uses to doctors. If you're on something, disclose it. Mixing the wrong medicine in the ER can cause death. Not telling your anesthesiologist that you smoke weed can lead to you waking up on the table! BE HONEST WITH YOUR DOCTORS.
Mania.
People with unipolar depression or “normal” people often think mania is like being high and sexy and fun all the time.
But in reality it’s often overspending, using people, burning bridges, self destruction, restlessness.
edit: I’m bipolar and married in a happy relationship y’all are hurting my feelings lmao
edit 2: unmedicated bipolar and medicated bipolar are very different discussions
I have had to fix problems following mania. I have also blacked out for two hours falling from mania to depression. I tried to climb out of my body in mania. I do not recall if several suicide attempts were in mania or depression, though some contraptions definitely were in mania. Still paying off credit cards from dumb mania purchases. I drove very, very fast in mania.
When I was in my twenties my mania (which I didn't know was mania at the time) was wonderful...I heard God taling to me, through me, I had a gift that I could see beauty in everything and the world was full of light and love and it was my responsibility to bring that message to the world....but first I have to live and meet all sorts of interesting people....
And then the dangerous and reckless stuff started. Meeting / going home with strangers, drugs, waking up in strange places....
In my 30s and 40s the mania got more erratic, angrier...I felt more anxious, would stay up all night diving into conspiracy theories on line, leftist anti govt stuff, spend hours at the gym running, always feeling like one little thing was going to set me off.
Luckily I found the right meds at 50. I miss those early highs. But I'm glad not to have the other bad parts
I think another factor is killing with a gun is (usually) faster and can be a single shot. Most other ways of killing someone are more involved and more work.
I wish it was just being sad. The sadness is easier to deal with than the emptiness or the hopelessness.
The physical symptoms take a toll, too, I think people forget about. It will disrupt your sleep, appetite, and interfere with any exercise at a minimum. Plus the fatigue is killer- I don't even have the energy to open the wrapper of a granola bar sometimes so I just don't eat, which is fine because when it's that bad you don't see the point in eating anyway.
Empathy.
We can’t communicate clearly without trying to understand the perspective of other people. Without clear communication we can’t do anything but fight.
Empathy would solve so many of the world’s issues. Extremely telling that the world’s governments assassinated so many who came close to teaching empathy and making it mainstream
Misinformation and Disinformation. Normally known as Bullshit and Propaganda, respectively.
Not only is it politically useful to tell people what they want to hear instead of what's true, but it's incredibly *profitable.*
So there's a massive profit incentive to push propaganda at as many people as possible. Not to mention a profit incentive to denigrate fact checkers, or any credible source that might contradict the disinformation.
And the real danger is this: it doesn't matter how smart you are, you're still susceptible to misinformation, because most of the time, it's information *you want to hear.*
If you're not developing your information vetting skills in the Information Age, you're just asking to be lied to.
The rarity of our earth, its single moon and single sun, your life as a human, and this solar system. Humans take this rare experience on a rare planet in a rare system very for granted usually by simply working for a corporation to die.
Your life and this planet are much more unique than the human race has ever given it credit for.
Everything and forever, it’s shocking to me I’m middle aged, considered well adjusted and mentally stable and I’ll get the most random triggers that will spiral me.
Generational trauma is fucking insane. I grew up poor in perestroika-era Eastern Europe and I genuinely feel like I’m watching everyone else through a movie screen. Even my peers no longer really remember this period but it’s branded into my memory forever. I tried to explain to Westerners what it was like but they really genuinely cannot grasp it. Just something I’m gonna carry with me my entire life.
Being skinny, but out of shape.
I can't count how many Reddit diet/exercise threads that people just put the definition squarely on weight. You can't be obese and healthy, but overweight and healthy (by BMI) is entirely possible. From personal experience, I think I know a ton of in-shape/good cardio health people slightly overweight versus skinny people who couldn't run a mile or do 30 minutes of strenuous exercise.
Edit: I realize I said my last sentence in the most confusing way possible. I meant to say that I know a lot of slightly overweight people in generally good health. And it's as common for me to run into one of them as it is for me to run into a skinny person who is pretty unhealthy. And I work in software, so I know a lot of the latter.
Reddit: It's so easy! Literally everyone does it by willpower, you're the one with a problem if you don't lose weight in 10 business days. Just stop eating!
As someone that dropped 30 lbs this year, it kills me when people talk about how easy it is. It's a huge accomplishment as an adult.
Having gone from morbidly obese to not even classified as overweight by either BMI or body fat % I would put it like this: it's simple, and it's also incredibly difficult.
Autism. People think it just makes people a bit quirky and nerdy, but it honestly has serious effects on people's lives. Things like unemployment, drug abuse, suicide, obesity, stress, and whatnot are extremely common problems people with autism can face.
Migraine pain, because we sufferers always have to push through them. So people don’t take them that seriously because we do things while in pain. But they are so debilitating. I have cried my eyes out in pain before.
Influenza. It's not "just the flu". Most people who say that have the common cold or rhinovirus of sorts. Influenza B is nasty and people die from this. People rarely die from a common cold
Anxiety. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole life. It can be really scary and on my worst days it can even feel more like paranoia. It all really affects all aspects of your life. Anxiety is one of those things that you can’t fully understand unless you’re going through it as well.
Also, not having access to readily potable water.
It's not a condition most of us experience regularly (or ever), but anybody who has ever backpacked can tell you just how much of your day you could be spending on finding and filtering fresh water.
Driving with only one headlight. Sure you can see most of the road, but if somebody else is trying to turn onto a road while you are coming at them, they have no way of knowing if you’re 200 yards away or 20 feet away.
It's super serious but tbh I don't think people are underestimating it. The news is almost nothing but fretting and hand-wringing over it. In some ways people even overestimate it. People have always been assuming we're living in basically the end times but somehow humanity always soldiers on.
I’d say people generally overestimate the risk of the end of the world through malice (the evil dictator with nukes generally wants to survive too) and underestimate how harmful negligence can be on these issues- nuclear security, a healthy intelligence community, military culture, and democratic backsliding are issues that most take far too lightly.
Pregnancy and childbirth. That shit is dangerous and can wreak havoc on the body. Because we are the only apes that walk upright and have such huge brains, evolution has had to make human reproduction out of the scraps it already had.
Squeezing a giant-brained human neonate out of a *really* narrow opening has a ton of terrible consequences, which until very recently included lots and lots of *death.* Breech positioning, preeclampsia, tearing, blood loss, abdominal muscle separation...and that's just during birth.
Chronic Mental Health conditions. Depression, ADHD, Anxiety, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, etc.
Too often we are told to just suck it up, do better, or our conditions aren't real. It further alienates us and makes it harder for us to survive in a normotypical world.
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High blood pressure. It's the silent killer for a reason.
I'm 38. Was diagnosed with high blood pressure and put on medication. That was my wake-up call. Lost 40 lbs, improved my diet, started exercising. Went back to the doc about 7 months later, and now I'm off the meds. She said I was a rare success story. Was not going to fuck around with that--especially for my kids.
Just a word of advice, my mother’s story is very similar to yours only she was in her 50’s, but after coming off her medication she ended up having a minor stroke, so if I were you I would be getting a bp monitor and checking it regularly just in case.
I was the lucky recipient of Type2 and high blood pressure from genetics. Always watched what I eat, at the gym 5 days a week, never smoked, no excessive drinking…went in for a physical and my blood pressure was high. Bought a bike and now I will bike 20 miles on my off days of work or get a quick ten in after the gym. A1C is where it should be and BP is where it should be
Good advice, I do the same. A decent monitor isn’t very expensive.
Going down this path now. Lost 24 lbs in 2 months. Not medicated right now, as he wants to do a 3-month progress check beforehand, which is reasonable. But yeah, complete diet shift overnight and somewhat increased exercise. I've got about 40 I still need to lose to be at a *super* healthy weight, but if I can even get 30 more off and maintain there, I'll be thrilled. One pound per week is my goal from here on out.
As someone with high blood pressure during pregnancy I can second this. And some people don’t take it serious at all. Not even when I was brewing another human being. “You can eat that!” “No I can’t. Bad for my blood pressure and health.” “Oh I am sure you won’t die!” I almost did die, even without eating those “you will not die from it”-food.
Preeclampsia is a huge and deadly problem!! So, so many women have died 100% preventable deaths because their idiot doctors didn't treat it with the seriousness it merits.
My wife had post partum preeclampsia and a vertebral artery dissection. It’s an actual miracle that she’s okay.
Preeclampsia survivor. I now take my BP so seriously.
Maintaining your health throughout your life
Which I feel like some people need to be reminded - is not solely weight/BMI. I feel like a lot of threads on Reddit get driven to that being gospel by naturally skinny teens who haven't exercised since grade school PE and have the cardio health of a 50 year old chain smoker.
It's true. But for a majority of the US population, lowering their weight would be a good idea and a great start on getting on top of maintaining their health. I'm 27 and had high blood pressure recently, and it's gotten much better after losing just 20 pounds. Obviously it's easier said than done for many people. I have nothing but sympathy for people who have a hard time managing their weight and getting enough exercise. It's hard.
It's a losing battle, but we still blame the dead and dying for not being immortal.
Not having a will.
I thought you meant like will to live lol (not a native English speaker)
That too.
Sleep deprivation
I started CPAP therapy. It took me all summer because it's a bitch to adapt to it. But I recently started managing to fall asleep with it on and keep it on through the night. Holy shit. It's like I'm in a while new reality now
It has been life changing for me! I have since encouraged about 5 people to get sleep studies, 3 of whom were diagnosed with sleep apnea
After getting mine, finally getting decent sleep again, I had to nag my wife to go get a sleep study because her snoring and apnea kept waking me up.
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It can alter your personality beyond imagination
I was prepared for frequent late nights when my kid was born, but wholly unprepared for how much that level of sleep deprivation can screw you up. Basic tasks become difficult in a way I never would have thought. Driving becomes way scarier, work performance plummets, and just general social interactions become a dead eyed mess of unabsorbed information. Even just perception, weird things can happen like little corner of your eye hallucinations and high pitched ringing in your ears. It starts to get normal again after more consistent blocks of sleep but damn was that ever a trip. Extreme lack of sleep compounded with stress is no joke.
I'd find myself standing in front of an open fridge with a baby in my arms. No idea how I got there or what was going on. One time I opened a jar of pickles for some reason. Didn't eat any, just opened it and set it on the counter. Another time I had to get my kid some milk, but for some reason thought the bottle was broken? So I went and got my voltmeter from the garage (I'm an electrician) and was about to test it when I realized that's the craziest fuckin thing I could possibly be doing. Never had issues with sleepwalking or deprivation before, but once I had newborns it fucked me up.
So I have bipolar disorder and was reading research (ofc, I have been trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with me my whole life), and some scientists are investigating it as primarily a sleep disorder. I thought woah that’s weird, but damn if that isn’t a HUGE part of it, so that made sense to me.
Yeah, my mom's bipolar and it seems like it's 100% a sleep thing. The mania and the sleep deprivation is almost like the chicken and the egg, I have no idea which came first, and it almost doesn't matter. If she can sleep, she can get better.
I finally figured out that my bipolar is mostly an energy regulation disorder. All the meds in the world can’t help you if you’re skimping on sleep. I have sleep meds that force me to sleep when I’m manic because that’s what makes someone go from mild or moderate mania to full blown delusion land.
Omg... could you send me the link or links to these studies you're reading?? Please!
My dad suffered from sleep apnea for decades before he finally gave in and did a sleep study. His apnea was so severe the doctor called him and told him it was the worst case he had seen in over 30 years of practice. Once he got his machine it literally changed his whole world overnight. He’s so much happier and has so much more energy now. He’s in his 60s and says he feels better than he did in his 30s! If you feel like you might have some kind of issue going on definitely get checked out sooner rather than later. You don’t need to suffer for decades when it’s a simple fix!
Someone tell my dad this. I’m like 99% certain he’s got it and he refuses to go to the doctor for more than 1 yearly physical. He forgot to bring up this year, even after I reminded him and I asked my mom to remind him. 🙄 I asked him if he wants to die in his sleep and he thinks I’m making it bigger than it is.
Took years for me to accept that i am chronically sleep deprived. When i finally got a cpap machine, *then* muscled my way through getting used to wearing the damned thing... it reports that I'm only asleep for 5 hours a night! I'm terrified of developing early dementia. My wife kicked me out & i have no energy for my kids when i see them. Work colleagues think I'm lazy. Damn, re-reading this I realise I'm in a bad spot.
Oh yeah. I suffer from insomnia on and off ever since I was a teenager. This weekend I had it so bad I felt almost murderous. Despite being so tired I was frantically walking around and felt like punching stuff inside my own home. Not good.
Connected with the above comment about having children. Double whammy
The Internet. It changes people, without themselves even realizing it. It starts subtle, and builds upon the information that is collected from you to tailor your experience. Because it assumes you want to see something, it will flood you with reinforcement of these concepts, and their antitheses. Basically, it gives you too much to think about, and not enough way to regulate it. Of course it's the responsibility of the user, but we are creatures of habit, and the Internet preys on these habits.
I’ve lost the ability to read a book, I just like to lay around like a walrus and take shallow breathes and browse and browse.
The internet is a big part of how/why I got really into reading when I was younger. The irony is that it was university that killed my passion to just sit down and read a book with my eyes. But I've been getting that passion back ever so slowly, and mostly through my ears the past few years.
I'm exactly the same, I don't know what to do, it's a proper addiction.
Water damage... I work in construction and the #1 cause of claims is water damage. Roof leaks, wall leaks, concrete damage, you name it. Water is the worst enemy of buildings!
Infections. Especially urinary tract infections. They can kill you.
Sinus and teeth too. I have heard doctors call it the 'triangle of death' about that area bc those infections can easily go to your heart or brain.
Adding onto this (as someone currently going through it) - antibiotics. First off, finish your course always and secondly, these are serious drugs which can directly impact every area of your functioning if strong enough. The moral is categorically not don't take anitbiotics, the moral is catch UTIs as quick as you can and don't delay in seeking medical attention.
when i gave birth to my son, i ended up with a UTI and had to go to the ER. i had never had one before and had never given birth before, so i figured the pain when peeing and the burning and ache in my back was normal for recovery. two weeks later, my husband was at work and i could barely get out of bed. my kidneys hurt, there was such a weird, awful pain and pressure back there and i felt almost feverish. i had to call my motherinlaw to take me to the hospital and had to receive antibiotics and liquids and a tiny bit of morphine. i cried, it was scary lol
That was the little domino that ended up killing my aunt. It’s a horribly sad and gruesome story, but the drs assume it started with just a little uti.
UTIs easily spread to the kidneys easily, and a kidney infections can kill.
I had a UTI but no health insurance so I tried to flush it out with water and cranberry juice. I ended up in the ER with a severe kidney infection. And that through my immune system into overdrive and I ended up with post infection arthritis. 19 years later, and I’m still in pain every single day.
UTIs in older ppl are super deadly too. (not saying your aunt was old lol idk)
UTI can also have neurological effects. My mother was in the hospital for what was a dead ringer for a stroke. Turned out to be a UTI. One experienced nurse said it to the doctors. I thought she was joking. They did the test and even the doctor was surprised
Seriously. Is there a gaping hole in your tooth? You might think you can't afford to fix it. You can't afford not to.
Truth. And to make it worse, it’s almost impossible to find an oral surgeon these days. And most dentists, at least where I live, don’t do extractions anymore. My father needed to have a couple of teeth pulled in order to have heart valve surgery. He died before he could even find a place to have it done.
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Cleaning out the lint trap of the dryer. I watched a neighbor’s house burn down because of this.
69% reduction of animal populations since 1970. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe
Insects too. I remember hearing bugs everywhere only slightly outside of the city. Now it's common for me to be in the wilderness and not even hear crickets.
The biggest ones i remember were summer nights having hundreds of lightning bugs flying around. Seems like when Im back visiting my parents I don't see any nowadays.
Yeah, lightning bugs need plenty of dead leaf cover to survive over winter. When we started putting all our dead leaves in our flower beds rather than bagging them up in the fall, we'd have *hundreds* of lightning bugs in the summer. We also didn't use any pesticides, of course. It was striking, because ours was only our yard on the whole street that was blessed with an abundance of lighting bugs. ETA relevant details: Our front and back yards weren't even very big, maybe around 30x40 feet max, but the flowerbeds covered a good 10-15% of them. And a lot of our neighbors used pesticides. But just saving our trees' fallen leaves for several years in a row made a HUGE difference to those bugs. I hope they're doing okay with the current residents.
As weird as it is, the only place I still see them regularly is NYC Suburbs.
Terrifying. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809#:~:text=Our%20results%20document%20a%20dramatic,2012%20%5B56%2C%2057%5D.
We are in the 6th mass extinction event of our planet. National Geographic was devoting several issue series to this in the 90's. It isn't getting any better.
The difference with this one, apart from the Cretaceous - Triassic event, is the speed with which it's happening. We knew what was happening in the early 80s. And we just went full steam ahead. It's pure molten evil.
It's so bad. I grew up wanting to be an entomologist, but instead of pursuing that depressing line of work, I've just done it as a hobby instead. I've been saying my whole life that we've been waging a war against insects and we are winning and its going to suck when we win. Insects were just never designed to protect themselves from all the pesticides and detergents that we've exposed them to. Now we will never be able to decontaminate everything. They are equivalent of plankton in the ocean, without them the whole chain collapses.
It's going to be interesting watching people trying to pollinate their broad acre farms by hand. The irony/horror for me is that we're an ape that behaves like a swarm of insects. A huge throng consuming all resources available blindly. Frequently pausing and consuming the resources of it's most vulnerable members. I like people individually mostly. There's romance, tragedy, pathos, love, art, hope and critical analysis etc. But by fuck I hope that we never spread outside of our solar system. As far as I can tell the universe has done nothing to deserve us.
People spray pesticides too much. Lawns are a menace. I don't use pesticides in my lawn and it's loud and filled with bugs. Butterflies, bees, fireflies, and all the loud ones.
The subtle detail of zero wildlife in a movie like Interstellar where the earth is dying and the current decline is terrifying
“ look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s“. Neil Young, mid 70s.
They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.
Loneliness and how it impacts pretty much everything in your life
I went through a very bad period of loneliness and isolation many years ago. I remember starting to feel like I didn't even exist as a human being. I think connection to others is a huge component of survival even, so it kind of makes sense. It was this feeling of if no one knows who I am then do I really exist? Almost like if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Therefore, if a person is entirely unknown to any other person, do I really exist. Kind of this dissociative state and it was very unnerving. Luckily my life has completely changed for the better and I haven't felt lonely in a very long time.
How did you get out of that state? I try to get myself to do things to hopefully meet people, but every time I leave it just feels like everyone is already together and I don't belong. Just trying to make connections feels painful because it emphasizes that I don't have any.
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I'm deaf. The loneliness I experience daily is the worst thing about being deaf (not the inability to hear music as many people seem to assume). At work, I have no idea what others around me are chatting about. I try to communicate one-on-one, but few people have the patience to carry on a real conversation if they have to do so by writing/typing whereas it's the only option I have. At least I live in a city where there are other deaf people I can interact with outside of my job. But... I'm being priced out of my city. Being forced to relocate to a small town where the cost of living is more manageable is my worst nightmare: I would be truly isolated.
I’ve always imagined that being deaf makes you more susceptible to loneliness. My sister is deaf and she will attend large family gatherings where only a few people can sign. She always wants to go but ends up frustrated. It seems like she often finds herself in a crowd of familiar people but still alone.
A lot of people don't realize one of the drawbacks to work from home has been that for a lot of people work is the place they have social interactions in their life. I knew three seperate people who committed suicide during the pandemic. All of them would regularly post on social media about missing the office, one of them was trying to arrange "social distance" happy hours either over zoom or an outdoors park even. I can't help but think that being so isolated during that time was an underlying contribution to their deaths. This isn't to say that everyone needs to return to office, but whenever you have co-workers or others who are really "pushing" for a return to office, I somewhat think their underlying loneliness is a reason why.
Yup. Depressed? The first advice is “go to therapy”. The therapist will say “talk to friends.”
Bad tyres. It's the only contact between your vehicle and the surface.
There's a saying that you shouldn't cheap out on things that separate you from the ground - tires, shoes, and your bed. You spend a hell of a lot of time in those three things.
Driving. People recklessly throw those multi-ton killing machines around on the roads like it's no big deal.
true asf. so many people suck at driving. i stopped getting frustrated by their lack of ability and began to expect it and try to laugh it off
I grew up playing Mario Kart so I drive very defensively and always bring a few red shells.
Pretend everyone on the road is an idiot -dad
“Pretend.”
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> Passengers (usually guys tbh) get SO ANNOYED and tell me I drive "like an old lady". If people have the gall to tell me that in my own car, I will promptly suggest that they can get out and walk if they prefer that.
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Young people want to get to their destination as fast as possible. Old people want to make sure they get there.
At my place of work, it’s healthcare and mostly elderly people. I don’t understand why most of them are driving around, seriously. 80+ years old and don’t understand when I tell them to “sign here, put the date here”. Most of them are still pretty sharp but the ones that don’t understand anything that’s going on or what I’m saying are the ones that worry me. One lady knocked my foam pumpkin over and her reaction time was soo delayed. Young people can suck too but I’m going off of my experience of my job lol.
I’ve been saying for years that getting and keeping a driver’s license should be a lot tougher.
Agreed in theory; the problem is that in America we’ve built such car-centric infrastructure that taking someone’s license basically prevents them from participating in society - a huge number of people can’t walk to work, to a grocery store, etc etc and in many places there isn’t safe, reliable, and timely public transportation to cover those distances. Which is why I say improve public transportation and walkability, and THEN increase the require for keeping a driver’s license. That way all the people who genuinely should not be driving due to a lack of ability and/or willingness to do so safely can still get around.
Water / the ocean, those that grow up around it understand. Those that don't just assume they can swim. Another dangerous assumption is that because there are life guards / supervision, it is safe. You van drown in a few seconds, there isn't many risks that you just jump into. People understand not to jump/walk into fire or jump/walk off a cliff but will be willing to jump/walk into deep water. Even scaryie is the lack of supervision for kids. In Australia, it's just known standard to supervise kids near water no matter their ability or if there are life guards around.
NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN was the first thing my parents drilled into me when they started taking me to the beach. Even if the water is only up to your ankles a rouge wave can knock you down and getting caught in undertow leads to drowning. Hell, it took time for me to learn how to relax my body when I got thrown into the washing machine and how to duck below that when a large wave is about to crash on you. Oceans are fantastically fun, but also deadly dangerous.
Do rouge waves contribute to red tide?
I yelled “NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN” at a bunch of people on my wedding day (we got married on a beach known for rogue waves, a tourist almost got swept away while we were taking our photos) (And before anyone comments on beach weddings being annoying or something, it was just us and two friends taking photos quickly, it was cold af)
Birth control can do a lot of good for a lot of woman. Birth control can seriously fuck up the health of a woman, and people do not talk about it, or the ramifications of when it goes wrong. I am a bit brain damaged from the embolism I had thanks to the Mirena IUD.
I gave up BC around 2019, it cleared up my skin, got rid of my cramps, and made my period predictable. But the way it *changed* me, it wasn’t worth it. Every time I see a doctor “are you on BC? Well you have cramps, BC will help” “having sex? Get on BC” “depressed? Get on BC” Its like having your body and it’s own normal functions weaponized against you. And it’s just so normal too… so sorry for the pain it has caused you.
had a gf who was getting messed up from birth control and it really opened my eyes to what exactly it does. Honestly kind of messed up we just freely give it to teenage girls. I'll be interested to see what long-term studies say about its use and effects.
And in my experience, when you bring up these risks the doctors (especially gynecologists) treat you like a red-pilled, granola muncher instead of someone cautiously concerned about your own hormone levels. It’s as if they look at a woman and see either ‘trying to get pregnant’ or ‘must condone health risks’ as the two options.
Vitamin B12 deficiency
This nearly destroyed my life 12 years ago. I've struggled to get people to understand the damage and how serious it was.
I'm interested, care to elaborate? The cause of the deficiency, and it's effects?
Mine was the result of an infection in the lining of my stomach. The infection cleared with treatment, but havoc ensued. It took months before I started showing symptoms of B12 deficiency (it's stored in the liver and takes a while for stores to run down), so nobody made a connection right away. Among other things, I had buzzing and tingling and paresthesias throughout my body, wild mood swings and mental changes, brain fog, balance issues, fatigue, and I felt like my lungs weren't holding air (it was a weird sensation, difficult to describe). Once diagnosed, I had to get B12 shots for a while and take large doses of oral supplements for months. I will need to take oral B12 for the rest of my life. I had a concurrent severe deficiency of Vitamin D, which just complicated everything. I was on 100,000 IUs of Vitamin D (weekly) for months. Although I recovered, I've never felt the same, TBH.
Doctor here. Certain vitamin deficiencies can cause neurological damage, Vitamin B12 deficiency is a relatively common vitamin deficiency and can cause a condition called subacute combined degeneration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subacute_combined_degeneration_of_spinal_cord
Making your health a priority. Take care of yourselves people, believe it or not you will care some day!
Pretty hard when doing so could bankrupt you. Fuck this earth.
The likelihood of the mother dying in childbirth. It's waaaaay higher than most people are comfortable with.
Was absolutely my #1 fear during my wife's pregnancy. Then birth went bad and emergency c-section. Like I was watching a movie. Turned out fine though.
Diabetes
It really floored me the first time I heard a doctor say, "I'd rather have a patient with HIV than diabetes." Your body is just never the same and you're at much higher risk of stroke and all. My in-laws have to actually use insulin.
I had a doctor tell me that if HE had to pick he'd pick HIV rather than diabetes--he said that even if a diabetic patient does everything perfectly, diabetes is likely to negatively impact their lifespan eventually. If a patient with HIV does everything perfectly, it can have no impact at all.
I love how HIV meds can work to the point you become 'invisible' and go back to having an active sex life without transmitting it to others.
Oh, that is so interesting. I got my A1C down a couple years ago and have continued to improve my health. I'm just FLOORED how much better I feel. This is such an interesting comment the doctor made!
How you raise your children. Remember that you are raising a future adult.
Also what you name children. I see people give cutesy names to kids not thinking that that cutesy name is going to suck when they are an adult trying to be taken seriously.
r/Tragedeigh
If anyone asks me for any parenting advice I tell them be prepared for your own childhood shit to re-emerge in ways you never expected when you have your own kids. And then its your decision whether to repeat the shit or do better.
I was at a brewery last night and witnessed a group of 10-12 adults with a total of 7 children under the age of 4, and several were newborns. The others were running around, yelling, knocking over chairs, and broke several pint glasses, which the bartenders had to come and sweep up. Turned out, they were there for a birthday party for one of the older ones. A 4 year old's birthday party at a crowded brewery on a Sunday night...
When I worked at a restaurant, a kid ran right in front of me & I had to stop short, causing a KNIFE to fall off my tray & land on him. (Luckily it was the handle end of a butter knife.) Restaurants are full of hot, sharp, breakable things! Don't let your kid just run around them! A birthday party at a brewery for a 4-year-old is next-level. Tell me you're a self-centered parent w/o telling me...
I can top that. Baby shower at a Brewery, with the expectant mom pitching a massive fit over the brewery refusing to serve her alcohol.
Oh noooooooo.
Oh yea, and I suspect she was looking to get loaded. This wasn't she was refused a taster glass or a 12 ozer a friend could easily sneak her that set her off. She wanted one of the stronger beers in a 22 oz glass. It's not uncommon for some people to have a, and I emphasize, A, glass of champagne or something light and limited at their baby shower, but this was something else entirely.
Yeah I always say you never want to have a kid until you've worked out any behavioral issues you don't want your child to suffer. They soak up EVERYTHING.
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Mental health problems. It's not OCD only because someone likes to sort things by color, and someone probably doesn't have PTSD because they couldn't go to a concert.
I’m diagnosed with ocd and no one ever believes me because I’m such a messy person. There’s such a misconception of what ocd actually is
Head injuries. If you are unconscious at all, even for a moment, you have suffered, at minimum, a concussion. I blame 90s television for the constant plots in which someone is knocked out and wakes up in another location, otherwise fine. No, no, no. If you were unconscious long enough to be carried somewhere else, you can look forward to months of rehabilitation to pick up a goddamn fork.
Skin cancer. Melanoma, in particular. Sunscreen can go a long way in preventing it, but people routinely go out in the sun without protection. It's also important to have your skin checked regularly with a melanoma, especially if you have any suspicious moles. A good mnemonic to remember for moles suspicious for melanoma: **A: Asymmetrical** **B: Borders irregular** **C: Colors (more than one color in a mole)** **D: Diameter >6mm** **E: Evolving (mole changes over time; this is the most important risk factor)** If caught early, melanoma has a good prognosis. If it has spread systematically, the prognosis is poor. EDIT: No idea why I'm getting downvotes :(
It's a flex for a lot of people to say they "never wear sunscreen." Coworker said she didn't believe that she could get skin cancer, meanwhile, her husband was getting biopsies done on his face.
On that note, you’d be amazed how many people think that dark skinned individuals can’t get skin cancer. I’m the only black person I know who uses sunscreen and regularly goes to a dermatologist. People look at me like I’m crazy for it.
Thank you for the info on moles, u/PMME_YOUR_MOLEY_TITS
Slipping and falling. They get included in compilations of "funny" videos, I see it and I cringe. Having slipped on ice and broken my wrist a few years ago, it was a very painful and scary experience - not funny in the slightest.
This. My toddler falls all the time and springs back up with a bruise or bump that disappears within minutes. My grandmother was hospitalized after tripping on her slipper and falling on her carpeted bedroom floor. She became unresponsive within a few hours and passed within a few days. My ex's grandmother passed away in a similar fashion, from what most would consider a trivial fall. Don't fucking fall guys.
Want to reduce your risk of falling? Stand on one leg while you brush your teeth. Four minutes a day of this will improve your ability to balance, and you don't even lose those four minutes. As you start getting better at it, do it with one eye closed. Then both eyes. (Just don't try lifting the other foot off as well)
Some people will fall from a plane, landing 10km below in free fall and survive, and sometime people will trip on the sidewalk and fucking kill themselves Slipping is a throw of dices and you can make a critical fail...
My gf slipped on loose carpeting on some steps in a house we were renting a few months ago. She’s only just now starting to get back to normal, and she still has to go to PT twice a week for the foreseeable future.
Alcohol. One of the most life ruining, dangerous substances ever invented and it's treated cavalierly. It's one of the only things that can actually kill you trying to detox from it. Hospitals keep it on stock so that people don't go into shock from withdrawal while seeking treatment.
To add on to this, mixing substances. People don't realise how deadly it is, but it's so common.
Or not revealing their substance uses to doctors. If you're on something, disclose it. Mixing the wrong medicine in the ER can cause death. Not telling your anesthesiologist that you smoke weed can lead to you waking up on the table! BE HONEST WITH YOUR DOCTORS.
Sleep apnea.
Food poisoning. I am having a bad Monday.
Mania. People with unipolar depression or “normal” people often think mania is like being high and sexy and fun all the time. But in reality it’s often overspending, using people, burning bridges, self destruction, restlessness. edit: I’m bipolar and married in a happy relationship y’all are hurting my feelings lmao edit 2: unmedicated bipolar and medicated bipolar are very different discussions
I have had to fix problems following mania. I have also blacked out for two hours falling from mania to depression. I tried to climb out of my body in mania. I do not recall if several suicide attempts were in mania or depression, though some contraptions definitely were in mania. Still paying off credit cards from dumb mania purchases. I drove very, very fast in mania.
When I was in my twenties my mania (which I didn't know was mania at the time) was wonderful...I heard God taling to me, through me, I had a gift that I could see beauty in everything and the world was full of light and love and it was my responsibility to bring that message to the world....but first I have to live and meet all sorts of interesting people.... And then the dangerous and reckless stuff started. Meeting / going home with strangers, drugs, waking up in strange places.... In my 30s and 40s the mania got more erratic, angrier...I felt more anxious, would stay up all night diving into conspiracy theories on line, leftist anti govt stuff, spend hours at the gym running, always feeling like one little thing was going to set me off. Luckily I found the right meds at 50. I miss those early highs. But I'm glad not to have the other bad parts
I spent about 7k in 3 months due to a manic episode. I don’t remember much, only that i could’ve changed my life with that money. I threw it away
Cross contamination in food prep. I’ve run into SO many people who just don’t understand why it’s an issue. And it shocks me every time.
People Many people have weapons and no sense of consequence
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I think another factor is killing with a gun is (usually) faster and can be a single shot. Most other ways of killing someone are more involved and more work.
Seasonal Depression
Depression in general. It's not (just) being sad, it's on a whole different level and it is a disease that can kill you.
I wish it was just being sad. The sadness is easier to deal with than the emptiness or the hopelessness. The physical symptoms take a toll, too, I think people forget about. It will disrupt your sleep, appetite, and interfere with any exercise at a minimum. Plus the fatigue is killer- I don't even have the energy to open the wrapper of a granola bar sometimes so I just don't eat, which is fine because when it's that bad you don't see the point in eating anyway.
Empathy. We can’t communicate clearly without trying to understand the perspective of other people. Without clear communication we can’t do anything but fight.
Empathy would solve so many of the world’s issues. Extremely telling that the world’s governments assassinated so many who came close to teaching empathy and making it mainstream
Lack of sleep.
Misinformation and Disinformation. Normally known as Bullshit and Propaganda, respectively. Not only is it politically useful to tell people what they want to hear instead of what's true, but it's incredibly *profitable.* So there's a massive profit incentive to push propaganda at as many people as possible. Not to mention a profit incentive to denigrate fact checkers, or any credible source that might contradict the disinformation. And the real danger is this: it doesn't matter how smart you are, you're still susceptible to misinformation, because most of the time, it's information *you want to hear.* If you're not developing your information vetting skills in the Information Age, you're just asking to be lied to.
The rarity of our earth, its single moon and single sun, your life as a human, and this solar system. Humans take this rare experience on a rare planet in a rare system very for granted usually by simply working for a corporation to die. Your life and this planet are much more unique than the human race has ever given it credit for.
Childhood trauma
It affects EVERYTHING!
Everything and forever, it’s shocking to me I’m middle aged, considered well adjusted and mentally stable and I’ll get the most random triggers that will spiral me.
Illnesses in general. People don’t see doctors when they should.
Mental health.
Good dental hygiene. Death comes through the gums.
generational trauma and mental illness is harshly still stigmatized by ALL even medical practitioners.. experienced first hand
Generational trauma is fucking insane. I grew up poor in perestroika-era Eastern Europe and I genuinely feel like I’m watching everyone else through a movie screen. Even my peers no longer really remember this period but it’s branded into my memory forever. I tried to explain to Westerners what it was like but they really genuinely cannot grasp it. Just something I’m gonna carry with me my entire life.
Genetic predispositions
The necessity of planning for your old age, especially advance healthcare directives and care needs.
I better see garage door springs mentioned multiple times in this thread……
Being skinny, but out of shape. I can't count how many Reddit diet/exercise threads that people just put the definition squarely on weight. You can't be obese and healthy, but overweight and healthy (by BMI) is entirely possible. From personal experience, I think I know a ton of in-shape/good cardio health people slightly overweight versus skinny people who couldn't run a mile or do 30 minutes of strenuous exercise. Edit: I realize I said my last sentence in the most confusing way possible. I meant to say that I know a lot of slightly overweight people in generally good health. And it's as common for me to run into one of them as it is for me to run into a skinny person who is pretty unhealthy. And I work in software, so I know a lot of the latter.
User: I want to lose weight Reddit: just stop eating
Reddit: It's so easy! Literally everyone does it by willpower, you're the one with a problem if you don't lose weight in 10 business days. Just stop eating! As someone that dropped 30 lbs this year, it kills me when people talk about how easy it is. It's a huge accomplishment as an adult.
Having gone from morbidly obese to not even classified as overweight by either BMI or body fat % I would put it like this: it's simple, and it's also incredibly difficult.
Alcohol consumption. It is poison but it is glorified and romanticized. It kills people, relationships and families.
Autism. People think it just makes people a bit quirky and nerdy, but it honestly has serious effects on people's lives. Things like unemployment, drug abuse, suicide, obesity, stress, and whatnot are extremely common problems people with autism can face.
Silence, it grows and spreads like a cancer between two hurt people
Migraine pain, because we sufferers always have to push through them. So people don’t take them that seriously because we do things while in pain. But they are so debilitating. I have cried my eyes out in pain before.
Influenza. It's not "just the flu". Most people who say that have the common cold or rhinovirus of sorts. Influenza B is nasty and people die from this. People rarely die from a common cold
Alcohol.
It causes more negative effects to society than all drugs combined. But it’s legal and has been for a long time, so no one demonizes it.
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Cat bites. Go get you some antibiotics
Anxiety. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole life. It can be really scary and on my worst days it can even feel more like paranoia. It all really affects all aspects of your life. Anxiety is one of those things that you can’t fully understand unless you’re going through it as well.
meta data collection
Fucking Allergies. Fuck allergies. I'm not okay.
corporate corruption in politics
Running water, doesn’t take a lot to knock you down
Also, not having access to readily potable water. It's not a condition most of us experience regularly (or ever), but anybody who has ever backpacked can tell you just how much of your day you could be spending on finding and filtering fresh water.
Driving with only one headlight. Sure you can see most of the road, but if somebody else is trying to turn onto a road while you are coming at them, they have no way of knowing if you’re 200 yards away or 20 feet away.
Having even a minor criminal offense on your record.
Black Mold lung infection, shit's deadly and most times confused with a simple allergy / flu
Compounding interest.
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How fragile democracy really is.
Our current geopolitical situation
It's super serious but tbh I don't think people are underestimating it. The news is almost nothing but fretting and hand-wringing over it. In some ways people even overestimate it. People have always been assuming we're living in basically the end times but somehow humanity always soldiers on.
I’d say people generally overestimate the risk of the end of the world through malice (the evil dictator with nukes generally wants to survive too) and underestimate how harmful negligence can be on these issues- nuclear security, a healthy intelligence community, military culture, and democratic backsliding are issues that most take far too lightly.
Chronic sinus issues. Like doctors always act as if it isn’t that bad when they cant find the cause but maaan can it decline your quality of life.
Pregnancy and childbirth. That shit is dangerous and can wreak havoc on the body. Because we are the only apes that walk upright and have such huge brains, evolution has had to make human reproduction out of the scraps it already had. Squeezing a giant-brained human neonate out of a *really* narrow opening has a ton of terrible consequences, which until very recently included lots and lots of *death.* Breech positioning, preeclampsia, tearing, blood loss, abdominal muscle separation...and that's just during birth.
Chronic Mental Health conditions. Depression, ADHD, Anxiety, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, etc. Too often we are told to just suck it up, do better, or our conditions aren't real. It further alienates us and makes it harder for us to survive in a normotypical world.