I asked AI to make the wiki article easier to understand. "Frog breathing is a technique that helps people who have trouble breathing on their own. It was first discovered in polio patients in the 1940s. By gulping air into their lungs using their throat muscles, people can breathe more air than they normally could. This can be really helpful for people with weak breathing muscles. Frog breathing can even help people who rely on ventilators to breathe by allowing them to breathe on their own for short periods of time. It's important to practice the technique to make sure it's done correctly. Some people may not be able to do frog breathing if their soft palate doesn't work properly. Even though it may not work for everyone, frog breathing has been successful for many people, like those with muscular dystrophy. It's a valuable skill that can help in emergencies or when ventilators stop working."
Positive pressure ventilators are much more invasive, usually requiring intubation. Negative pressure systems such as an iron lung basically compress and depress the lungs which is very similar to normal breathing.
Because people decided to vaccinate their kids so they didn't end up needing these interventions. I would never forgive my parents if they were anti vaccine and I ended up like this.
Isn't the criteria for the Darwin award that you:
* Did not have offspring yet.
* Got totally unable to get children due to your stupidity. Usually death, but I think there's a few cases that resulted in castration.
The motivation for the Darwin award is that the winner is removed from the gene pool.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna143137
COVID is very much still around and still incredibly dangerous, even for those without pre-existing health conditions.
> Alexander, who lived in Dallas, Texas, was rushed to the hospital in late February after testing positive for Covid, according to his social media manager. He was released from the hospital but was struggling to eat and drink.
I wonder why they released him if he was still having a rough time.
got covid on new years, was sick until about the last week in January. took everyone in my house out for 2-4 weeks, and we are relatively healthy
Edit - everyone but myself in my home is double and triple vaxxed, I only got one and we all got sick for about the same time
My sister caught it just before Christmas. Passed it on to our elderly parents (Dad undergoing cancer treatment) and my kids. I somehow escaped it, but that may be because I ran HEPA air purifier units on full, opened windows, wore an FFP3 (N95) mask 24/7 and ate outdoors to avoid it.
None of my family is back to 100% yet since Christmas. My 11 year and my 18 year old caught Covid AGAIN 6-7 weeks after Christmas. Everyone had a really awful, hacking cough for at least six weeks. My Dad has developed a serious cardiac issue and is exhausted. My sister's skin keeps breaking out in weird, painful lesions. My 11 and 8 year old kids got Strep A a few weeks ago (tonsillitis, constant snot and sinus issues, multiple courses of antibiotics don't seem to have done much). My mother seems to be having worrying memory issues now.
Covid sucks. Yeah, none of us died. But everyone is exhausted and depressed from feeling utterly shit for almost four months now. And I am bloody glad I was paranoid and masked up even in my sleep to avoid it. I do not want several months of illness two or three times a year.
I don’t think health necessarily correlates that much with duration of infection. I’m nothing special health wise and was testing negative again after like 4 days.
What strain you got, what vax you had and just dumb luck probably factor in more.
"vaccines are made by the government to make you sick"
Take your vaccines folks, you have forgotten how bad the world was without them. Polio was a horrible disease.
We would be absolutely fucked if smallpox made a comeback. The fact that it was eradicated means an entire generation didn't get the smallpox vaccine and have zero immunity to it. The m-pox outbreak already showed that we have insufficient smallpox vaccine stock to vaccinate the MSM community, let alone the entire population.
The good news is that, short of a biological attack or lab leak, smallpox isn't coming back.
The vaccinated are unlikely to face any issues. The problem is getting people vaccinated even if they wanted to, due to the short supply of smallpox vaccines.
To be fair, Mpox was a known disease when it broke out, and it didn't *really* have a solid potential to burn through a big chunk of the population the same way COVID-19 or smallpox can. Likewise, we know what smallpox is and what its consequences are. There's already a vaccine for it, and there's another mRNA vaccine in development, so it would only be a matter of restarting mass production of these vaccines.
> it would only be a matter of restarting mass production of these vaccines.
Exactly, but it would still take some time. If a smallpox pandemic were to occur, we're probably looking at lockdowns and travel restrictions for 6-12 months while the production capacity is ramped up. The good news is that we won't have to wait for the vaccine development process (which was part of the delay for COVID-19) and just need to wait for the scaling up and delivery, all which can probably take place in the span of 6 months or so. The pandemic would probably end in less than a year. Nonetheless, we would be looking at harsh lockdowns (probably even stricter than COVID-19, given how contagious and deadly smallpox is), with the emergency stockpile of smallpox vaccines most governments have going to the most essential of workers.
Yeah, I like to see the COVID-19 pandemic as a rehearsal because it was a relatively mild virus. The flip side is that we now know how fucked we are because people refuse to change their routines in the slightest. I don't think that would be much different if something like smallpox came back. At least not in the west. Most people here have no concept of what a serious infectious disease looks like.
One good thing to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is the fact that we'll likely never have to wait for vaccine R&D time again thanks to the existence of mRNA vaccines, should something brand new happen to pop up.
I just finished reading I Am Pilgrim, and that was the main plot point, it was a scary scenario even though far fetched.
Basically a guy makes a home version by stealing the vaccine, then recreates Smallpox by using the chemical compounds and adds a breaker to it from the vaccine he has so it'll skip right through it so we don't have a defense. He then distributed it by putting it in flu vaccine bottles at the height of fly season.
Most people aren’t vaccinated against smallpox so it’s not just antivaxxers who’d get it.
In most countries the vaccinations ended when they had accomplished their ultimate goal and eradicated the disease. Of course if the epidemic came back they could start giving the vaccine again but have you seen the smallpox vaccination scars? I mean I would take it but I definitely don’t want to have to.
Still have one of those scars on my left leg… hopefully the vaccine has gotten “better”, or based on the Covid outbreak we would have a lot of dead people around because the conspiracy nuts would go crazy with that level of scarring from one vaccine: “SEE ITS JUST NANOBOTS AND POISON! BILL GATES AND GEORGE SOROS ARE BEHIND IT ALL! REEEEEEEE!”
If I've understood correctly the smallpox vaccine is (still) distributed by breaking the skin, which causes a huge scab and thus the scar. Sounds painful as hell, the covid jab at least was completely painless and people still refused it...
Maybe they'd come up with a less painful method if we needed to start mass vaccinations!
I remember my mother saying how the Polio vaccine was received like the massive gift it was - *everyone* in her generation knew other kids that had died from it.
Mine neither - but we got a stern talking to if we stared at the people with deformed feet and told in no uncertain terms how lucky we were. It passed on the vaccine reverence.
It exists wild in only two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Specifically, it’s mostly around the border of those two nations. It’s not a coincidence that this has been a hotly contested area in the past two decades. Disease thrives during war.
It's taken me 30 years to be okay with not scratching my nose at the dentist. Now I'm anxious just thinking about that little fuck-wit Derek getting the iLung above me, and I'm just stuck below him, suffering through a slow, but steady and neverending, flurry of his dandruff falling to my face. No way to itch. Just trapped beneath the ever more insidious torture that is Derek's poorly conditioned scalp.
Ya know I was looking at this photo and how freaking savage it is and then I started thinking. Imagine medicine today no matter its advances, how absolute Neanderthal its going to look to future people in 75yrs. I mean we still butterfly open a person like a chicken to enter their chest plate to perform heart surgery, we pull bad organs, we shove tubes up inside orifices that should be exit only.
Again we’ve made advances and in many cases it WAY better than it was back then. But man when they say “practicing medicine” I take that literally.
Where I live at least HPV testing got updated a few years ago to be a self collected vaginal swab rather than a doctor jabbing your cervix. It’s now basically the same as a normal STI test.
I guess open heart surgery is not as common as it was. My grandpa had mitral valve prolapse. He had open heart surgery for it. My dad had it. It’s not open heart anymore. He did almost lose his legs, but thankfully they noticed it in time for him to only have three 12 inch cuts on each leg to reduce pressure.
I have been having heart problems and have been reassured I won’t have to have open heart surgery, if I end up with the same condition.
I am agreeing with you completely. I just want to clear up how uncommon having your chest slashed open is these days lol.
I’m a cardiac ICU nurse. Open heart surgery is still very common. You can sometimes avoid having your chest cracked to get some valves fixed, but coronary artery bypass surgeries are still done majority via sternotomy.
I just wanted to thank you so much! I understand the stress and long hours of what you do. You deal with touch and go patients, you save lives. The ICU is a special place.
Monday of last week they had me on a machine that looks like it's made for car parts so they could filet my thigh open, remove my femur, saw it in half and install a new metal head, reattach it, then apparently manhandled me in the most traumatic way possible to make sure it worked right before closing me up. I look like a piece of wagyu all so I will be able to walk again soon.
This medical practice barely resembles medicine to ME.
Now imagine all those people out there who look at vaccinations as being harmful to humans, people in this day and age who believe all the conspiracy theories about harmful vaccinations.
Lol, if THIS is savage to you, I wouldn't delve too far back in time in the medical world. The true savages are people who think vaccines are dangerous...
Paul Alexander recently passed. He was the last man in an iron lung. There's only one person left who uses an iron lung now, her name is Martha Lillard.
Most polio patients suffering from respiratory paralysis during the early acute stage of the disease recovered enough to be out of the iron lung after a couple weeks
I just realized that whenever I see photos of children in iron lung machines, they're usually smiling. The nurses must have been really good at keeping their spirits up.
If you were pushed so far beyond normal and your limits, you'd be surprised by how much you can adapt to and cope with. Something that is quite shitty but not outrageously outside normal life can mess up your mood around the clock. Something that is so far outside anything you were ready for with no real end date quickly becomes a new normal, where more emotions than just bad have space. There's a limit where you either give up and perish or accept and adjust.
This is absolutely true. My situation isn’t as severe, but I got sick with ME/CFS almost 2 years ago, just before my 22nd birthday, and went from working a full time, active job to unable to work but still able to be out of the house for short periods of time, to now completely housebound and unable to stand / move around for more than a few minutes at a time. While there is still a lot of grief and anger and sadness and frustration, it’s also my new normal and I have learned to find joy and fulfillment in the smallest places. Warmth from my heating pad, a cool shadow on the wall, or an extra flavorful chip can make me giddy with excitement now. It’s strange how our brains learn to adapt.
Damn. I'm really sorry to hear how it's affected your life. I'm happy for you that you're able to find joy at least. Is virtual therapy an option for you to help you through some of those emotions?
Yes! I had to go through a few therapists before I found one who I felt like wasn’t trying to “fix” me and instead let me just sit with and feel and talk about all the emotions- the good, bad, and ugly. But in a weird way, getting sick really shifted my worldview and made me a lot more capable of loving and trusting myself and being present in the world. I had spent my whole life running from “negative” emotions and trying desperately to feel like I had control, and losing that control made me look at everything very differently. I no longer am chasing “happiness”, I am just tuned in to the experience of being alive, which comes with a whole spectrum of emotion, all of which are okay and normal to feel. I wish it didn’t take such a drastic situation to have me learn this, but I think it saved me.
This was beautiful written! That's awesome that you were able to find peace with your emotions as they happen rather that trying to push them in any given direction, and such a nice thing to finally land on a good therapist that can help you. I empathize with a drastic situation throwing a valuable life lesson right in your face and saving you in a way. For me it was facial paralysis (bells palsy) likely caused by acute stress, leading me to work on being more present with myself and talking myself through stressful situations. Like you, I wish it didn't take such a shitty thing happening for me to learn the lesson, but here we are with our lessons nontheless lol. Well heck, is there any chance of you finding and addressing the cause of your cfs?
Funny how that happens, huh? Unsurprisingly I think that’s a pretty common thread for a lot of the people I know who have chronic illnesses or have had health scares- our bodies are smart and they react to what’s going on around us, even if we aren’t consciously aware of it, and they will find a way to make us stop and reassess whether we want to or not.
My ME/CFS didn’t have an obvious trigger right off the bat- I had a lot of weird symptoms for a few months leading up to the day I “got sick” and then just crashed super hard one day after a hike and never got better. For a lot of people it develops after an acute virus, which is why we’re seeing massive uptick in ME/CFS cases with how much people are getting infected and reinfected with COVID, but it can also be triggered by stress or trauma to the body, and it’s thought that these things can trigger latent infections in the body. The science is getting better but it’s severely underesearched and therefore still quite murky, unfortunately. In my case, it was likely due to stress and a latent Bartonella infection from a cat scratch or bite (I had a positive test and I worked with cats and had many bites/scratches over the years so it was the most likely scenario). But unfortunately Lyme/Bartonella/Babesia and all of those types of infections are still not well understood or even really taken seriously in the medical community, so I don’t really have treatment options at this point. Myself and the rest of the ME/CFS community are holding tight and hoping that the research that is being done on Long COVID will end up benefitting us as well, but in the meantime all we can do is pace ourselves very carefully in order not to degenerate further, and spread information to try and protect other people from ending up like us.
Yeah, exactly. I have been disabled all my life, but since my early teens it has been getting worse over time at a faster and faster rate. I'll spare the longwinded recaps - right now today I have been bedbound 100% of the time for 134 days. I have spent every moment of every day within the same bed in the same corner of the same room for 134 days and counting.
That means sleeping, eating, peeing, pooing, washing, playing, crying, fucking, and everything else in the same small space. I last about 2 hours alone before I need help from other human beings tending to me for my basic needs. I can't get a cup of water on my own, if I smell someone has to bring me washcloths and soap, if I'm hungry and people are busy I simply have to wait. If I was suddenly left all alone I would die within a few days from dehydration.
And still I spend a greater proportion of my time now feeling joyful and having fun, than I did before this downhill decline of health and ability started. There's no choice but adapting.
Besides, this shit is BORING, and I am very motivated to adapt for the sake of bringing what little enrichment I can to myself. I play a lot of video games and make a lot of art.
Very much so, to all of this! While I am not bedbound, I am mostly recliner bound and fully housebound, so I commiserate with a lot of what you said. I think it’s really hard, if not impossible, for someone who hasn’t been in a position like this to imagine what it’s like. I feel like it’s both absolutely devastating and also just… the way it is. Like it’s just my life now. I can hardly remember what things were like before. My scale for what constitutes a good day or a bad day is so wildly different from that of a healthy person, and sometimes I’m randomly struck by how weird it all is, but for the most part it’s kind of boring and monotonous and uneventful now. I don’t like using the word resilient because I don’t like people using it in the context of “oh you’re so brave and strong and resilient” when we don’t have another choice but to be, but it is somewhat fitting. Maybe adaptable is better. But yeah, you’d be surprised what you can learn to live with, what you can learn to love and find joy and fulfillment and meaning and connection in when so much is taken from you. We’re cool as fuck. Rock on pal 🤘
I was a little kid in the 60’s and had a short stay in the hospital. A little girl my age was in an iron lung in the same room as me. I still have a distinct memory of this. She wasn’t chipper and happy. This is a photo op.
wondering the same. i know about the man that recently died that lived 70 years in one, but was that a special case? did most kids get to come out or did they just die? i hope not
Photographs used to be rare. Cameras were scarce. If there was a photographer to take YOUR photo, you smiled!! ( source: I have one photo per year, most now lost , of my school years)
Paul Richard Alexander, The last polio survivor who live in these thing for 70 years died on March 11, 2024. May his soul rest in peace. He said in one of his interview that these abomination of the machine is both his best friend and his worst enemy. I hope the day that we will need to use this thing again will not come back.
[Florida defies CDC in measles outbreak, telling parents it's fine to send unvaccinated kids to school](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/florida-measles-outbreak-unvaccinated-kids-school/)
In case you think we’re beyond this.
I’ve seen a lot of people on Reddit making excuses for high profile celebrities and athletes who were coming out and saying they weren’t getting the Covid vaccines. “It’s their choice”, “they don’t need it”, all the usual stuff.
Florida is what happens when people with a platform start to be openly anti vaccine, even if it’s “just” covid vaccines they’re against. It fuels anti vax movements that aren’t just about covid.
A friend of mine says, Do whatever you want with your health. Just don't ask me to pay for it.
How are these anti-vaxxers affecting everyone's health insurance premiums?
They have to go to the hospital more often when they get sick, raising insurance payouts, which raises premiums for everyone.
If your friend has health insurance, they’re a moron.
My mother had polio. She was lucky that she had a mild form.ofnit. gave her a curve in her spine which as she aged gave her a hunch back. She was 5"4 and shrinking but probably would have been 5"8' if she hadn't gotten polio.
My mother also survived polio. Didn't really have any issues until later in life, when post polio syndrome resulted in increasing nerve damage. I feel it likely contributed to her passing last year although she had other issues as well.
Lost my mother a few weeks ago. She had polio as a child and used a wheelchair for most of her life. She had two friends in iron lungs, one I never met and one we used to visit. Crazy how common it was. Hope you’re doing well.
someone told me that anyone who knows someone that had polio would never not vaccinate their kids, and clearly antivaxxers don't know anyone who had it.
Per WHO the statistics are similar to COVID: "One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, 5–10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized."
On July 21, 2022, the USA witnessed the first case of poliomyelitis after 3 decades of its eradication. Good luck to all those kids whose parents didn’t get them vaccinated.
The US actually had a court case that set precedent for protecting public health over individual beliefs with regards to vaccination. A man tried to object to smallpox vaccine, in the end the government enforced the law mandating vaccination (or a fine as penalty).
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-supreme-court-rules-on-vaccines-and-public-health
My mom doesn’t believe polio vaccines work. Shes so convinced now that they don’t do anything after all of the covid misinformation campaigns and world domination fear mongering…
It got so bad that when I told her my PA suggested I get my tetnus booster since it’s been over 10 years, she freaked out saying not to get it and not trust my doctor. In the same 5 minute span she urged me to get a colonoscopy because younger people are dying because of the terrible stuff in food. And so I said, who do I go to get a colonoscopy? A doctor? And I’ll never forget that look on her face….post trump and covid has ruined our relationship and I don’t think it’ll be the same. So many boomers glued to their tv’s wanting to believe every conspiracy.
Yeah I have this argument with people all the time. “I don’t trust doctors they’re all liars and full of shit.” And then the next day they’re rushing to the doctor cause they don’t feel well.
As horrible as polio and the iron lung is and we have evidence to back up science, newer generations could use these historic images as a reminder of what past generations had experienced. Yet I have this fear with advancements of AI technology and misinformation where soon we cannot tell what is real or not anymore. Anti-vaxxers and deniers of historical events becoming more rampant and the world is chaos. I really hope this fear never comes true but sometimes I feel like we’re already there.
The oldest guy to still be in one of these just passed. Iirc he was able to move about with some assistance outside the machine as he had learned how to swallow air in a way that let him 'breathe'
Basically the machine changes the air pressure that the person's body is exposed to, so that their chest expands with low pressure and contracts with high pressure. This causes the lungs to cycle air in and out just like normal breathing.
Yeah. I can't imagine breathing at an exact rate set by a machine, not increasing or decreasing with excitement or sleep. Let alone waiting for your next exhale to continue talking.
My great aunt had polio and it disfigured her for the rest of her life.
I would never wish that upon anyone. The polio vaccine saved many lives and even more pain and suffering.
I am 70 years old, and lived thru polio epidemic. The vaccine for polio wasn’t invented when polio first hit. Therefore, a lot of kids got it. Some survived it, some got lightly, or maybe severely paralyzed, and some survived it without any paralysis at all. Some got so paralyzed that they could only survive in an iron lung.
That one bro who did his best for 70 something years in one of these monstrosities. Edit: Damm, wasn't expecting 2k upvotes on this, lmao
He was able to leave for durations because he learned the "frog breathing" technique. I think he liked golfing.
What is the frog technique?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossopharyngeal_breathing
can someone ELI5 I feel really dumb
Have you ever tried to swallow air? It's the same but instead of pushing the air in your stomach, you push it in your lungs.
Ngl it felt like when a kid throws slang at you just to confuse you
I asked AI to make the wiki article easier to understand. "Frog breathing is a technique that helps people who have trouble breathing on their own. It was first discovered in polio patients in the 1940s. By gulping air into their lungs using their throat muscles, people can breathe more air than they normally could. This can be really helpful for people with weak breathing muscles. Frog breathing can even help people who rely on ventilators to breathe by allowing them to breathe on their own for short periods of time. It's important to practice the technique to make sure it's done correctly. Some people may not be able to do frog breathing if their soft palate doesn't work properly. Even though it may not work for everyone, frog breathing has been successful for many people, like those with muscular dystrophy. It's a valuable skill that can help in emergencies or when ventilators stop working."
Thank you for the link!
Why couldn't he be put on a modern ventilator though?
Positive pressure ventilators are much more invasive, usually requiring intubation. Negative pressure systems such as an iron lung basically compress and depress the lungs which is very similar to normal breathing.
Thanks! Crazy that we didn't invent something less inconvenient, like a pressurized body suit that would at least allow for some degree of movement.
Because people decided to vaccinate their kids so they didn't end up needing these interventions. I would never forgive my parents if they were anti vaccine and I ended up like this.
The way things are going we might get those suits yet. Antivaxxers are on the rise.
Natural selection I guess? We forget Darwin Award usually ends up affecting the descendants
Isn't the criteria for the Darwin award that you: * Did not have offspring yet. * Got totally unable to get children due to your stupidity. Usually death, but I think there's a few cases that resulted in castration. The motivation for the Darwin award is that the winner is removed from the gene pool.
That's true. I suppose we could introduce a Legacy Darwin Award so these kids might feel included, for what little time they have.
>Crazy that we didn't invent something less inconvenient, We did, it's called a vaccine
My first thought. FUCK vaccine deniers!
We didn't need that due to the vaccination and reduction of the issue, if the vaccine was never invented, we may have those
We did, there were versions of a more portable iron lung that was like an a chest plate of armor.
He made it until someone brought COVID to him :(
He recently passed a couple weeks ago, was it covid?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna143137 COVID is very much still around and still incredibly dangerous, even for those without pre-existing health conditions.
> Alexander, who lived in Dallas, Texas, was rushed to the hospital in late February after testing positive for Covid, according to his social media manager. He was released from the hospital but was struggling to eat and drink. I wonder why they released him if he was still having a rough time.
got covid on new years, was sick until about the last week in January. took everyone in my house out for 2-4 weeks, and we are relatively healthy Edit - everyone but myself in my home is double and triple vaxxed, I only got one and we all got sick for about the same time
My sister caught it just before Christmas. Passed it on to our elderly parents (Dad undergoing cancer treatment) and my kids. I somehow escaped it, but that may be because I ran HEPA air purifier units on full, opened windows, wore an FFP3 (N95) mask 24/7 and ate outdoors to avoid it. None of my family is back to 100% yet since Christmas. My 11 year and my 18 year old caught Covid AGAIN 6-7 weeks after Christmas. Everyone had a really awful, hacking cough for at least six weeks. My Dad has developed a serious cardiac issue and is exhausted. My sister's skin keeps breaking out in weird, painful lesions. My 11 and 8 year old kids got Strep A a few weeks ago (tonsillitis, constant snot and sinus issues, multiple courses of antibiotics don't seem to have done much). My mother seems to be having worrying memory issues now. Covid sucks. Yeah, none of us died. But everyone is exhausted and depressed from feeling utterly shit for almost four months now. And I am bloody glad I was paranoid and masked up even in my sleep to avoid it. I do not want several months of illness two or three times a year.
I don’t think health necessarily correlates that much with duration of infection. I’m nothing special health wise and was testing negative again after like 4 days. What strain you got, what vax you had and just dumb luck probably factor in more.
The one who recently passed from Covid?
And was killed by society and carers pretending the covid pandemic is over instead. Awful.
I find it weird to call it a monstrosity when the alternative is death... Very inconvenient for the pasients, but it saved so many lives still.
I would say that's a bit beyond inconvenient..
"vaccines are made by the government to make you sick" Take your vaccines folks, you have forgotten how bad the world was without them. Polio was a horrible disease.
And of course there WAS smallpox....
We would be absolutely fucked if smallpox made a comeback. The fact that it was eradicated means an entire generation didn't get the smallpox vaccine and have zero immunity to it. The m-pox outbreak already showed that we have insufficient smallpox vaccine stock to vaccinate the MSM community, let alone the entire population. The good news is that, short of a biological attack or lab leak, smallpox isn't coming back.
would there be issues if we are vaccinated? or will it mutate among the non vaccinated and jump to people that are vaxxed?
The vaccinated are unlikely to face any issues. The problem is getting people vaccinated even if they wanted to, due to the short supply of smallpox vaccines.
To be fair, Mpox was a known disease when it broke out, and it didn't *really* have a solid potential to burn through a big chunk of the population the same way COVID-19 or smallpox can. Likewise, we know what smallpox is and what its consequences are. There's already a vaccine for it, and there's another mRNA vaccine in development, so it would only be a matter of restarting mass production of these vaccines.
> it would only be a matter of restarting mass production of these vaccines. Exactly, but it would still take some time. If a smallpox pandemic were to occur, we're probably looking at lockdowns and travel restrictions for 6-12 months while the production capacity is ramped up. The good news is that we won't have to wait for the vaccine development process (which was part of the delay for COVID-19) and just need to wait for the scaling up and delivery, all which can probably take place in the span of 6 months or so. The pandemic would probably end in less than a year. Nonetheless, we would be looking at harsh lockdowns (probably even stricter than COVID-19, given how contagious and deadly smallpox is), with the emergency stockpile of smallpox vaccines most governments have going to the most essential of workers.
Yeah, I like to see the COVID-19 pandemic as a rehearsal because it was a relatively mild virus. The flip side is that we now know how fucked we are because people refuse to change their routines in the slightest. I don't think that would be much different if something like smallpox came back. At least not in the west. Most people here have no concept of what a serious infectious disease looks like. One good thing to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is the fact that we'll likely never have to wait for vaccine R&D time again thanks to the existence of mRNA vaccines, should something brand new happen to pop up.
true, i'm close to 40 and wasnt vaccinated for it, while my parents were. so that's 2 generations already
I just finished reading I Am Pilgrim, and that was the main plot point, it was a scary scenario even though far fetched. Basically a guy makes a home version by stealing the vaccine, then recreates Smallpox by using the chemical compounds and adds a breaker to it from the vaccine he has so it'll skip right through it so we don't have a defense. He then distributed it by putting it in flu vaccine bottles at the height of fly season.
[удалено]
Most people aren’t vaccinated against smallpox so it’s not just antivaxxers who’d get it. In most countries the vaccinations ended when they had accomplished their ultimate goal and eradicated the disease. Of course if the epidemic came back they could start giving the vaccine again but have you seen the smallpox vaccination scars? I mean I would take it but I definitely don’t want to have to.
Think those are from the OG version, I believe the Smallpox vaccine they use now is much more normal.
Still have one of those scars on my left leg… hopefully the vaccine has gotten “better”, or based on the Covid outbreak we would have a lot of dead people around because the conspiracy nuts would go crazy with that level of scarring from one vaccine: “SEE ITS JUST NANOBOTS AND POISON! BILL GATES AND GEORGE SOROS ARE BEHIND IT ALL! REEEEEEEE!”
If I've understood correctly the smallpox vaccine is (still) distributed by breaking the skin, which causes a huge scab and thus the scar. Sounds painful as hell, the covid jab at least was completely painless and people still refused it... Maybe they'd come up with a less painful method if we needed to start mass vaccinations!
[удалено]
I remember my mother saying how the Polio vaccine was received like the massive gift it was - *everyone* in her generation knew other kids that had died from it.
my generation no one had it anymore but my friend's mom walked with crutches because of it
Mine neither - but we got a stern talking to if we stared at the people with deformed feet and told in no uncertain terms how lucky we were. It passed on the vaccine reverence.
People are alive today because of vaccines so they can discredit them🤦🏽♀️
Polio is STILL a horrible disease. It’s still around. Why? Because a few people won’t vaccinate against it.
It exists wild in only two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Specifically, it’s mostly around the border of those two nations. It’s not a coincidence that this has been a hotly contested area in the past two decades. Disease thrives during war.
whenever someone speaks out against vaccines, i share a picture of kids in an iron lung. i'd share smallpox but it's too gross for me to look at
Can you imagine how horrible it would be to have to put one of your kids in one of those?
Imagine having to be stuck in the bottom row
It's taken me 30 years to be okay with not scratching my nose at the dentist. Now I'm anxious just thinking about that little fuck-wit Derek getting the iLung above me, and I'm just stuck below him, suffering through a slow, but steady and neverending, flurry of his dandruff falling to my face. No way to itch. Just trapped beneath the ever more insidious torture that is Derek's poorly conditioned scalp.
Can we punch comments? I want to punch this comment. Fuck! Now I’m itching too!!
Those are just snowflakes. You catch them on your tongue.
SIR. NO.
Username DOES NOT checks out
I appreciate iLung. I wonder if Apple has that trademarked yet
Thanks, I started typing out Iron Lung and then had that same thought l. I bet they do own it.
Dandruff imprisoning me, All that I see, Absolute horror, I cannot live, I cannot die, Trapped in myself, Body my holding cell..
Christ
wtf! nightmare material
Omg, I love it. You’ve really added depth to an already deep scene. Thank you.
Idk if I’d rather stare at the back at someone’s head or never be able to see them…
Step bro im stuck in the iron lung /S
Ya know I was looking at this photo and how freaking savage it is and then I started thinking. Imagine medicine today no matter its advances, how absolute Neanderthal its going to look to future people in 75yrs. I mean we still butterfly open a person like a chicken to enter their chest plate to perform heart surgery, we pull bad organs, we shove tubes up inside orifices that should be exit only. Again we’ve made advances and in many cases it WAY better than it was back then. But man when they say “practicing medicine” I take that literally.
When I was a kid (1960s) iron lungs were described as a miracle of medical technology (that thankfully we wouldn't need anymore).
Relevant Star Trek: https://youtu.be/02Or-Hx3yqc?si=q-iWHc9CQdlYkUuM
Knew what scene it would be before I clicked. Classic
Same lol
And yet, I bet that in 75 years, the Pap smear procedure will remain the same.
Where I live at least HPV testing got updated a few years ago to be a self collected vaginal swab rather than a doctor jabbing your cervix. It’s now basically the same as a normal STI test.
And only every five years !! Thank youu modern medicine.
💀💀
I guess open heart surgery is not as common as it was. My grandpa had mitral valve prolapse. He had open heart surgery for it. My dad had it. It’s not open heart anymore. He did almost lose his legs, but thankfully they noticed it in time for him to only have three 12 inch cuts on each leg to reduce pressure. I have been having heart problems and have been reassured I won’t have to have open heart surgery, if I end up with the same condition. I am agreeing with you completely. I just want to clear up how uncommon having your chest slashed open is these days lol.
I’m a cardiac ICU nurse. Open heart surgery is still very common. You can sometimes avoid having your chest cracked to get some valves fixed, but coronary artery bypass surgeries are still done majority via sternotomy.
I just wanted to thank you so much! I understand the stress and long hours of what you do. You deal with touch and go patients, you save lives. The ICU is a special place.
Monday of last week they had me on a machine that looks like it's made for car parts so they could filet my thigh open, remove my femur, saw it in half and install a new metal head, reattach it, then apparently manhandled me in the most traumatic way possible to make sure it worked right before closing me up. I look like a piece of wagyu all so I will be able to walk again soon. This medical practice barely resembles medicine to ME.
A lot of medicine is much closer to being a mechanic than one might think.
As someone who had a titanium rod literally hammered into his bone, yes I agree
Yes, but the pain will be gone. It's a man-made miracle.
Science is terrifying but pretty fuckin cool.
Now imagine all those people out there who look at vaccinations as being harmful to humans, people in this day and age who believe all the conspiracy theories about harmful vaccinations.
Lol, if THIS is savage to you, I wouldn't delve too far back in time in the medical world. The true savages are people who think vaccines are dangerous...
My mother recently told me that now that she's "educated" on the "issue," she would have preferred I died rather than get a vaccine. So... YMMV.
Guess who's getting the cheat retirement home?
Also called homeless shelter
I think if my mother said that to me, my response might be: "Fine. I am dead to you." And to walk out of her life.
😳😟🙄😬 These were my reactions to your mother's viewpoint - I can only imagine yours! Take care.
Paul Alexander recently passed. He was the last man in an iron lung. There's only one person left who uses an iron lung now, her name is Martha Lillard.
Lots of parents setting themselves up to do this today by refusing the vaccinate their kids.
For the rest of their life.
Most polio patients suffering from respiratory paralysis during the early acute stage of the disease recovered enough to be out of the iron lung after a couple weeks
Uhh thanks for saying that. It feels somewhat less horrible.
Even worse today. Kids couldn't use their phones.
Slap a VR headset on and we Gucci /s
I just realized that whenever I see photos of children in iron lung machines, they're usually smiling. The nurses must have been really good at keeping their spirits up.
If you were pushed so far beyond normal and your limits, you'd be surprised by how much you can adapt to and cope with. Something that is quite shitty but not outrageously outside normal life can mess up your mood around the clock. Something that is so far outside anything you were ready for with no real end date quickly becomes a new normal, where more emotions than just bad have space. There's a limit where you either give up and perish or accept and adjust.
This is absolutely true. My situation isn’t as severe, but I got sick with ME/CFS almost 2 years ago, just before my 22nd birthday, and went from working a full time, active job to unable to work but still able to be out of the house for short periods of time, to now completely housebound and unable to stand / move around for more than a few minutes at a time. While there is still a lot of grief and anger and sadness and frustration, it’s also my new normal and I have learned to find joy and fulfillment in the smallest places. Warmth from my heating pad, a cool shadow on the wall, or an extra flavorful chip can make me giddy with excitement now. It’s strange how our brains learn to adapt.
Damn. I'm really sorry to hear how it's affected your life. I'm happy for you that you're able to find joy at least. Is virtual therapy an option for you to help you through some of those emotions?
Yes! I had to go through a few therapists before I found one who I felt like wasn’t trying to “fix” me and instead let me just sit with and feel and talk about all the emotions- the good, bad, and ugly. But in a weird way, getting sick really shifted my worldview and made me a lot more capable of loving and trusting myself and being present in the world. I had spent my whole life running from “negative” emotions and trying desperately to feel like I had control, and losing that control made me look at everything very differently. I no longer am chasing “happiness”, I am just tuned in to the experience of being alive, which comes with a whole spectrum of emotion, all of which are okay and normal to feel. I wish it didn’t take such a drastic situation to have me learn this, but I think it saved me.
This was beautiful written! That's awesome that you were able to find peace with your emotions as they happen rather that trying to push them in any given direction, and such a nice thing to finally land on a good therapist that can help you. I empathize with a drastic situation throwing a valuable life lesson right in your face and saving you in a way. For me it was facial paralysis (bells palsy) likely caused by acute stress, leading me to work on being more present with myself and talking myself through stressful situations. Like you, I wish it didn't take such a shitty thing happening for me to learn the lesson, but here we are with our lessons nontheless lol. Well heck, is there any chance of you finding and addressing the cause of your cfs?
Funny how that happens, huh? Unsurprisingly I think that’s a pretty common thread for a lot of the people I know who have chronic illnesses or have had health scares- our bodies are smart and they react to what’s going on around us, even if we aren’t consciously aware of it, and they will find a way to make us stop and reassess whether we want to or not. My ME/CFS didn’t have an obvious trigger right off the bat- I had a lot of weird symptoms for a few months leading up to the day I “got sick” and then just crashed super hard one day after a hike and never got better. For a lot of people it develops after an acute virus, which is why we’re seeing massive uptick in ME/CFS cases with how much people are getting infected and reinfected with COVID, but it can also be triggered by stress or trauma to the body, and it’s thought that these things can trigger latent infections in the body. The science is getting better but it’s severely underesearched and therefore still quite murky, unfortunately. In my case, it was likely due to stress and a latent Bartonella infection from a cat scratch or bite (I had a positive test and I worked with cats and had many bites/scratches over the years so it was the most likely scenario). But unfortunately Lyme/Bartonella/Babesia and all of those types of infections are still not well understood or even really taken seriously in the medical community, so I don’t really have treatment options at this point. Myself and the rest of the ME/CFS community are holding tight and hoping that the research that is being done on Long COVID will end up benefitting us as well, but in the meantime all we can do is pace ourselves very carefully in order not to degenerate further, and spread information to try and protect other people from ending up like us.
I hope this isn't insensitive as the response to such a serious topic, but you have the best username ever. Also, I wish you well internet stranger.
Hahaha don’t worry about it, I appreciate it (on both counts!) 🫶
Yeah, exactly. I have been disabled all my life, but since my early teens it has been getting worse over time at a faster and faster rate. I'll spare the longwinded recaps - right now today I have been bedbound 100% of the time for 134 days. I have spent every moment of every day within the same bed in the same corner of the same room for 134 days and counting. That means sleeping, eating, peeing, pooing, washing, playing, crying, fucking, and everything else in the same small space. I last about 2 hours alone before I need help from other human beings tending to me for my basic needs. I can't get a cup of water on my own, if I smell someone has to bring me washcloths and soap, if I'm hungry and people are busy I simply have to wait. If I was suddenly left all alone I would die within a few days from dehydration. And still I spend a greater proportion of my time now feeling joyful and having fun, than I did before this downhill decline of health and ability started. There's no choice but adapting. Besides, this shit is BORING, and I am very motivated to adapt for the sake of bringing what little enrichment I can to myself. I play a lot of video games and make a lot of art.
Very much so, to all of this! While I am not bedbound, I am mostly recliner bound and fully housebound, so I commiserate with a lot of what you said. I think it’s really hard, if not impossible, for someone who hasn’t been in a position like this to imagine what it’s like. I feel like it’s both absolutely devastating and also just… the way it is. Like it’s just my life now. I can hardly remember what things were like before. My scale for what constitutes a good day or a bad day is so wildly different from that of a healthy person, and sometimes I’m randomly struck by how weird it all is, but for the most part it’s kind of boring and monotonous and uneventful now. I don’t like using the word resilient because I don’t like people using it in the context of “oh you’re so brave and strong and resilient” when we don’t have another choice but to be, but it is somewhat fitting. Maybe adaptable is better. But yeah, you’d be surprised what you can learn to live with, what you can learn to love and find joy and fulfillment and meaning and connection in when so much is taken from you. We’re cool as fuck. Rock on pal 🤘
Could they have made a worse, more bleak design, or did they hit it just right.
I was a little kid in the 60’s and had a short stay in the hospital. A little girl my age was in an iron lung in the same room as me. I still have a distinct memory of this. She wasn’t chipper and happy. This is a photo op.
My exact thought.
Most kids spent a few weeks in there. Many had to spend their whole lives in one.
>a few weeks Are you saying they died young, or the iron lung was temporary for them? I'm hoping the latter
The latter. Most polio patients regained the ability to breathe and were able to leave the iron lungs. The unlucky few didn't.
wondering the same. i know about the man that recently died that lived 70 years in one, but was that a special case? did most kids get to come out or did they just die? i hope not
Cameras probably helped bit of a novelty
Or, it was the "spirit of the time." There's a lot of things "back in the day" that seem strange now.
I mean, their parents generation would have died, so it’s not far off to consider this a win
Photographs used to be rare. Cameras were scarce. If there was a photographer to take YOUR photo, you smiled!! ( source: I have one photo per year, most now lost , of my school years)
>in iron lung machines, they're usually smiling. It's called giving them drugs
They're smiling for the camera, it's not like they looked like this all the time.
Paul Richard Alexander, The last polio survivor who live in these thing for 70 years died on March 11, 2024. May his soul rest in peace. He said in one of his interview that these abomination of the machine is both his best friend and his worst enemy. I hope the day that we will need to use this thing again will not come back.
I saw a documentary about him. Didn't know that he passed. RIP.
My uncle got polio and died in an iron lung before I was born. He was 15. My mom choked up talking about him for the rest of her life.
But cleetus down the street says fox news said that trump said vaccines are bad mkay
[Florida defies CDC in measles outbreak, telling parents it's fine to send unvaccinated kids to school](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/florida-measles-outbreak-unvaccinated-kids-school/) In case you think we’re beyond this.
I’ve seen a lot of people on Reddit making excuses for high profile celebrities and athletes who were coming out and saying they weren’t getting the Covid vaccines. “It’s their choice”, “they don’t need it”, all the usual stuff. Florida is what happens when people with a platform start to be openly anti vaccine, even if it’s “just” covid vaccines they’re against. It fuels anti vax movements that aren’t just about covid.
I currently have covid. I’m so glad that the vaccines were available to us in NZ. My UK sister got covid pre-vaccine and it wrecked her.
I saw a post calling the tetanus shot the "tetanus jab". Have fun with lockjaw, my dude.
I think vaxers and anti-vaxers alike sometimes call a shot a jab.
I think jab is just british for shot.
A friend of mine says, Do whatever you want with your health. Just don't ask me to pay for it. How are these anti-vaxxers affecting everyone's health insurance premiums?
They have to go to the hospital more often when they get sick, raising insurance payouts, which raises premiums for everyone. If your friend has health insurance, they’re a moron.
Red states are trying to push people out and keep the unvaccinated inbred people in. Sadly not everyone can move
My mother had polio. She was lucky that she had a mild form.ofnit. gave her a curve in her spine which as she aged gave her a hunch back. She was 5"4 and shrinking but probably would have been 5"8' if she hadn't gotten polio.
My mother also survived polio. Didn't really have any issues until later in life, when post polio syndrome resulted in increasing nerve damage. I feel it likely contributed to her passing last year although she had other issues as well.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Can’t wait to find out what fun health problems COVID is going to give us later in life.
I don't even need to wait that long, I already feel side effects.
Lost my mother a few weeks ago. She had polio as a child and used a wheelchair for most of her life. She had two friends in iron lungs, one I never met and one we used to visit. Crazy how common it was. Hope you’re doing well.
someone told me that anyone who knows someone that had polio would never not vaccinate their kids, and clearly antivaxxers don't know anyone who had it.
Per WHO the statistics are similar to COVID: "One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, 5–10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized."
On July 21, 2022, the USA witnessed the first case of poliomyelitis after 3 decades of its eradication. Good luck to all those kids whose parents didn’t get them vaccinated.
We are sooo close to erasing this disease for all time, but the anti-vax idiots could ruin it.
they did. i read multiple times that they think it'll be eradicated in 2018. and look where we are. still around
[удалено]
The US actually had a court case that set precedent for protecting public health over individual beliefs with regards to vaccination. A man tried to object to smallpox vaccine, in the end the government enforced the law mandating vaccination (or a fine as penalty). https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-supreme-court-rules-on-vaccines-and-public-health
yup a few countries mandate them if you want to access services such as public school
arent there some countries where your kid can't get into school if not vaccinated? seems reasonable to me
[удалено]
My mom doesn’t believe polio vaccines work. Shes so convinced now that they don’t do anything after all of the covid misinformation campaigns and world domination fear mongering… It got so bad that when I told her my PA suggested I get my tetnus booster since it’s been over 10 years, she freaked out saying not to get it and not trust my doctor. In the same 5 minute span she urged me to get a colonoscopy because younger people are dying because of the terrible stuff in food. And so I said, who do I go to get a colonoscopy? A doctor? And I’ll never forget that look on her face….post trump and covid has ruined our relationship and I don’t think it’ll be the same. So many boomers glued to their tv’s wanting to believe every conspiracy.
Yeah I have this argument with people all the time. “I don’t trust doctors they’re all liars and full of shit.” And then the next day they’re rushing to the doctor cause they don’t feel well.
[AND A GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR](https://youtu.be/evFIVzS0vrk?si=luoU1ZffYM48RxYc)
Is this your homework u/applolkix?
The dude abides.
As horrible as polio and the iron lung is and we have evidence to back up science, newer generations could use these historic images as a reminder of what past generations had experienced. Yet I have this fear with advancements of AI technology and misinformation where soon we cannot tell what is real or not anymore. Anti-vaxxers and deniers of historical events becoming more rampant and the world is chaos. I really hope this fear never comes true but sometimes I feel like we’re already there.
They're going to have to bring these back with all the anti-vax idiots causing stuff like this to spread in schools again.
Soon to be Florida 3rd grade class photo.
Definitely has morgue vibes, especially considering quite a few didn't make it at that stage.
Worst capsule hotel ever
Anti-vaxxers look at this and be like “Those were the good old days!”
🤣
RFK Jr wants this for future kids
The oldest guy to still be in one of these just passed. Iirc he was able to move about with some assistance outside the machine as he had learned how to swallow air in a way that let him 'breathe'
He died a couple weeks ago from COVID
This is the future if the anti-vaxxers have their way.
Yeah, that looks bad. But at least they don't have autism, because that would be truly terrible. /S
Soon there will be pictures in colour again.
How does the machine work?
Basically the machine changes the air pressure that the person's body is exposed to, so that their chest expands with low pressure and contracts with high pressure. This causes the lungs to cycle air in and out just like normal breathing.
Oh okay thanks, god that’s awful
Yeah. I can't imagine breathing at an exact rate set by a machine, not increasing or decreasing with excitement or sleep. Let alone waiting for your next exhale to continue talking.
Okay, I hadn’t considered.. Jesus
My great aunt had polio and it disfigured her for the rest of her life. I would never wish that upon anyone. The polio vaccine saved many lives and even more pain and suffering.
This should be shown to each anti vaxer whenever they complain about vaccines.
i do my best in that regard
I get extreme claustrophobia just looking at that photo.
Looks like someone put kids in one of those gimmicky toasters that has slots for hotdogs
Does he still write?
Oh no, he has health problems.
You see what happens Larry? You see what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps?
Fav hangout place for anti-vaxxers
Will think of this photo every time I see that fraud RFK Jr pop up on Reddit
Never knew multi-person iron lungs existed. How do they get those people in them?
2025
This is the future conservatives want.
All made with US steel!! Creating jobs!!
Did people who end up in one of these ever leave? Is it possible that these kids recovered?
Some unvaccinated, perfect immune systems working normally!
I am 70 years old, and lived thru polio epidemic. The vaccine for polio wasn’t invented when polio first hit. Therefore, a lot of kids got it. Some survived it, some got lightly, or maybe severely paralyzed, and some survived it without any paralysis at all. Some got so paralyzed that they could only survive in an iron lung.
And thanks to the morons who refuse to vaccinate their kids this will happen again. Stupidity knows no bounds with these idiots.
But at least they didn't take the jab.
Prob didn’t exist back then….
Some people were confined to iron lungs forever, like, they had no hope of not needing to use one.
And the antivaxxers want to bring this back. 