Bizarre Medical Conditions You've Had

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The body is a remarkably complicated and delicate balance of systems. I am being constantly educated of all the flat-out weird things that can go wrong in a body, and the bizarre way the problems choose to display themselves in symptoms.

I tend to get several minor, but weird, ailments. I know I’m not alone! But first, here’s a sampling of the weird stuff my body has done:

  1. **Unexplainable(?) Hives. **When I was a child, I broke out in hives for a week. A week! I was covered head to toe. I had no allergies, had done nothing unusual, and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. When I was taken to the doctor, he said I’d contracted a virus–and rather than get a fever or sore throat, my body’s response was an allergic reaction. I’ve not had anything like that since.

  2. Pilonidal cyst. Apparently, the back is formed in utero through a serious of foldings. Sometimes in the process, pockets of skin can be tucked in the creases (crease: read, the crack), and are never exposed to air. Thus, the sweat glands, hair follicles, etc. that grow there cannot shed or drain. Result? I wake up one day with a new hole in my butt. EW! It was actually around the tailbone area, but that’s still too close for comfort. I needed minor surgery to cut the area out and drain the whole gnarly thing. It involved cutting into some delicate territory, and lemme tell yuh, I sympathize with the hemmoroid stories!

  3. God only knows what. A year ago February, I started having severe, localized headaches. One day while driving home, I rubbed my head where I hurt (above the right eye, just past the hairline), and was stunned to find pea-sized red lumps. The pain was piercing, and magnified to a point that my senses of taste and vision were affected on that side of my face. I went to three doctors, and got three different diagnoses: 1) staph infection localized in the scalp; 2) skin infection that spread from a sinus infection; 3) cellulitis (I think that’s what it’s called). Regardless of what it was, antibiotics cleared it up. Yay!

  4. Severed pinky tendon. I was knocking on a friend’s (apparently cracked) window and put my first through it. I managed to sever a tendon in my pinky of all things–and required surgery plus six weeks of physical therapy for that dainty digit.

  5. Claritin makes my scalp tingle. It does! I told my doctor and he just looked at me funny. But I swear, if I take that antihistimine, in an hour or so my scalp will tingle and itch to the point of almost driving me nuts.

I’ve had my share of the more mundane ailments, but these stick out in my mind as being fairly unique to me.

What bizarre, previously unheard of (at least to you and those around you) ailments have you so far endured?

2

I have peripheral neuropathy. I have it both in my hands and feet but right now only my feet are noticably affected. This is a condition that is usually found in someone with diabetes or liver disease but I have been tested and have either.

The symptoms are numbness and incredible pain in my feet. It hurts to walk, is incredibly painful to stand and I can only wear shoes for very short periods of time. I wear loafers to work and take them off as soon as I get there.

There is no known cure or even effective treatment of the condition. I take something at night to help me sleep but it is only marginally effective and I often am in excruciating pain.

3

Back in my senior year of high school, I was in to see the doctor for a routine exam. She noticed that the pulse in my left wrist was slower than the one in my right (For every three beats on the right side, there was one on the left).

She sent me to a specialist. He told me that I probably had a problem with my aorta.

They did an echocardiogram (I apologize if I butchered the spelling). They noticed that “something” was wrong, but couldn’t tell what. Their best guesses were:
a) My aorta was too wide at some point, which could cause early heart attack and they should operate ASAP.
b) My aorta was too narrow at some point, which could cause early heart attack and they should operate ASAP.
Either way, I was terrified. They ended up doing another echo and decided it was one or the other (I don’t even remember which).

Finally, they did an MRI (at this point, my surgery was scheduled, but they needed a closer look). The results came back. I was fine! Apparently, the human aorta should come out of the heart, head off toward the left, and go along its merry way. Mine comes out of my heart, heads left, turns and heads right, heads back to the left, makes a stop in Cleveland, then goes along its merry way. (Okay, so maybe Cleveland isn’t involved).

So, long story short (I know, too late), I have a “right-arched aorta.” Only 1% of the population of the world has it (that’s what the doc said). The only thing it does is make my pulse and blood pressure show up lower than it really is on my left side. No danger. I’m fine.

And I meet few doctors or nurses who have any idea what I’m talking about when I tell them.

4

I had a growth cut off my tongue a year and a half ago.

I’m going back to the oral surgeon sometime this summer for surgery on my jawbone to see what some dark spots that showed up on my recent Xray might be.

5

I don’t know if it qualifies as an ailment, or congenital. I was born with reverse pigmentation. I stay outta the sun so it doesn’t show as bad. My body is divided in two, half tan, half white. I have a line on my stomach, on one side i’m tan, the other i’m white. Creepy, huh.

6

Well, I’ve been cowkicked. Does that count as a “condition”?

I didn’t realize it at the time, because I was still struggling with the cow, but later everyone told me I had awful vericose veins or pblebitus and should see a doctor right away. I did.

It was just a an ugly bruise, with no pain. I couldn’t figure it out, but I know pblebitus can be fatal. Nixon had it.

I didn’t connect it up to the cow until the doctor asked if I had fallen or something.

7

I once had impetigo (sp?), aka “The Creeping Crud”.

It was a small sore on my face encrusted with a yellow – um – crust. It itched, which was the problem. It’d start to infect adjacent skin while the current spot healed. So it slowly creeped along my face until it was under my nose (it started in the middle of my cheek).

Once it was starting to block a nostril, my mom took me to the doctor, who gave me an antibiotic cream to apply to it until it was gone. Also, I had to refrain from scratching it, which was torture. But it disappeared once I followed the doctor’s advice.

8

Umm…I once had a golf-ball sized Boil under my nuts. ROFL, what an experience…:eek:

I’m sure that could be classified under “TMI”, but some of your ailments were kinda gross too… :slight_smile:

9

A polyp in my sinus and a cyst. Those aren’t that weird but it was wierd to me!! They used a chisel in my nose and stuff… eww

Spinal meningitis(sp?) I’m told it was nasty. I can’t remember. I was told that My ankles were beside my ears… the wrong direction.

The girl next to me died when her knees got by her ears. Spooky stuff. The spinal taps they took were black. I’m told I did alot of screaming. My fever of 113 for 2 weeks sounds pretty bad too. I’m supposed to be dead. They put me in ice baths to cool me off. Apperantly I could melt a full tub of ice in under 5 minutes :slight_smile:

Wahoo. I’m not sure that 113 is the correct temperature, that seems like brain damage temp to me, thats what i was told by my aunt though… I dunno. It sounds impressive doesn’t it?

It managed to burn the enamel off my teeth so I had all my teeth filled as soon they came up. Also my skin is dry. It will dry to the point of tearing. I use alot of lotion. My hands also have alot of lines in them. Maybe I’ll scan a photo copy of them sometime for you. I’m in my 20’s and people tell me I have old man hands.

I’m done … good night !! :slight_smile:

10

Hypoglycemia! I’m diabetic and every now and then the blood sugar gets too low. The principal symptom (for me)is confusion. My thinking gets muddled. As the sugar level gets lower, I lose the ability to speak, then the ability to process visual information (recognize letters and symbols, recognize my surroundings), then I halucinate. Its lots of fun.

11

I have Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis.

It sounds way worse than it is.

Basically, it is a condition where the inside of my eyelids are allergic to my eyeballs (or something like that). It is like having a rash on the insides of my eyelids. This is really no big deal at all–the only problem is that wearing contact lenses can be irritating. But, there are eyedrops I can use to take care of the problem.

12

I feel so bad for everybody! Makes me feel really shallow for being such a hypochondriac. :frowning:

Thought, my niece had menengitis and it was so scary. I am so glad the two of you are still around today.

Iswote, my dad had the same thing (due to diabetes) and it sort of went away by itself, so there is some hope for you. In the meantime, you have my sympathy. My dad took some medicine that he got from a German doctor that worked pretty well (at least it dulled the pain for long enough for him to fall asleep). I will ask him what it was called.

As for me, I had the chicken pox twice. And when my son was born, I had really bad pre-eclampsia, but I didn’t get all bloated (like most women do) so I almost didn’t make it to the hospital in time. And then after he was born, I got the modern day equivalent of childbed fever.

Not that it compares with what you all have gone through, I just can’t help but participate in any thread with the word disease in it.

13

I had Wolfe-Parkinson-White syndrome, meaning instead of one electrical node in the heart, I had two. This can be a slight problem when the charge is supposed to fire from top-middle-bottom. Having a couple of middles can screw up the flow.

I had it fixed with surgery, which didn’t even involve me being cut open. The negative part of that is the only way they can find the extra node is to induce a heart attack. Granted, it was controlled and done with medication while I was out cold, but it would have been more fun if the doctors jumped out of dark corners and yelled “Boo!” a lot.

14

Ruff, I’m not sure what to say, but that Cyst situation is gonna be in my head for quite some time. I have a mental picture, which is disturbing by itself, but even worse I’m not sure if I’m turned off or not…

I should seek mental help.

Ruff, I’ll be more careful next time I “pat” you on the butt :wink:

Anyways, I don’t have anything bizarre, but a couple of uncommon events.

[ul]
[li]Mallet Finger - This is what its called when a finger is broken and the tension on tendon attached to that piece of bone pulls it out of position. In my case, at football practice during the “tip drill”, where our coach would have us run at him with another player a few yards behind us. He’d fire passes several feet over our heads. the goal was for the first person to tip the ball in the air, and the trailing person had to chase it down and catch it before it hit the ground. During my turn I over jumped the ball and it hit the tip of my ring finger, much like how you’d jam it playing basketball, except the ball was moving much faster. I continued played for 2 weeks only to eventually get it X-rayed and see that the last joint on that finger had split at a 45 deg. angle, and the fragment had the tendon attached to it. The fragment was pulled all the way down to the middle joint of the finger. As the swelling went down the tip of that finger would just hang there limp. The only solution was for the doctor to manually work it down under the skin into place. The bone fragment was too small to pin in place, and if they cut it open they would be unable to splint the finger. To remove tension while it healed, the finger was splinted with all three joints hyper-extended backwards, using a steel splint. It was a painful 4 weeks plus rehab to recover from both the injury and the damage done while it was hyper-extended for 4 weeks. (Probably much more detail than anyone cared to read)[/li][li]Wisdom teeth - The odd part is that mine are fully grown in and straight. I was lucky enough to have enough room in my mouth to accomodate them, and they were nice and straight so they didn’t get impacted. I’m not sure how common this is, but my dentist was certainly suprised. Barring a unrelated dental problem, they’ll never need any attention. The type of uncommon issue I’m thrilled to have had.[/ul][/li]
Another medical issue I encounter, while not extremely uncommon or bizzare, is I pass out every time I get a shot. I don’t know when I’ll get to share this again, so I’ll add it here. One afternoon when I was probably in 8th grade I had been outside playing hard in 100 deg. August weather. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and my mom dragged me off to the doctor to get my scheduled check up including a booster shot. Never having any trouble with needles before, I wasn’t to concerned. After getting the shot we’d gotten up to pay or something and I started to feel faint. My mom didn’t believe me, and I proceeded to pass out and hit the floor pretty hard. The doctor asked some questions while I was out, and it appears that I reacted to the innoculation because of my certain low blood sugar and dehydration. The bizzare thing is that ever since that day, I automaticly pass out entirely every time I get any shot. I don’t fear needles, nor do the injections hurt. For some reason my body shuts down any time I get a shot, it’s happened getting local anesthetic, boosters, menengitis vaccine, and that finger prick they do before you try and give blood. The only exception is one time I got a novacaine shot by the dentist. Knowing the condition he gave me enough gas to make me loopy, but not unconscious before the shot, and I’ll be damned, I didn’t care one bit about that shot :). Now if I could just get ripped on Nitrous everytime I need a shot.

15

As many of you know, I’m studying for my medical boards (Step 1) right now. It always helps me to have real people (even via message board) to connect the various disorders. For instance, I have never been able to remember Wolfe-Parkinson-White syndrome, but thanks to Mullinator I’ll know it next time. So keep 'em coming!

As for me, the weirdest physical ailment I have is Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which is not at all uncommon. (If you take Synthroid, it’s probably what you have.) I also have a symptom which I’ve never been able to explain–if I’m out in bright sunlight for more than about an hour, I get extremely sleepy. I don’t mean a little drained–I mean I’ll go inside and sleep for a few hours. I’ve only recently realized that this is not normal.

I did have a first cousin who had Niemann-Pick disease, a very rare genetic metabolic disorder.

Dr. J

16

Here’s a medical mystery that was solved about a month ago.

In September I went to Latvia (for those of you who don’t know, it’s basically still a third world country). I traveled through the country quite a bit, and at my Godmother’s house about a week and a half into the trip, I developed a sore throat and raging fever.

The next day, I woke up with tons of lesions on my hands and feet. They were basically large itchy pools of pus. The sores would blister and then seep for a few days. (note: I still have scars)

The medical care there is basically non-existant so I went to the doctor when I returned to America. He said it was herpes (it wasn’t) and I flew into a panic thinking I had contaminated all of my relatives and friends.

He prescibed antivirals and antibiotics and gave me two creams. The sores healed. I was also given every single disease test known to man. Everything came back negative (including the herpes biopsy). We didn’t know what it was.

About a month ago, I got another sore on my thumb exactly like the ones I had in Latvia. This time I went to a renowned dermotologist. It took him two minutes to look at it and say, “allergic reaction”. He prescribed Claritin and it disappeared.

Apparently my allergies have gotten worse and my body is now producing lesions instead of hives. It sucks, but it could be worse and I’m lucky to have medicine that controls them.

17

In the summer of 1997 I noticed a grey spot in the vision of my left eye. I saw an opthalmologist who said that it was not interfering with my vision and sent me to a neurologist. The neurologist said there was something wrong with my sinuses and sent me to an ear, nose and throat speacialist. The ENT told me that I had mucoceles in my sinuses. I tried to find an official medical definition, but the ones I found were confusing… My doctor described them as expanding balloons of tissue, filled with mucus. YUCK! Turns out these balloons were impacting on my optic nerve, causing the grey spot. I also had some bone loss in my left eye socket. Emergency surgery proved successful. No more mucoceles.

Two years ago I noticed some brown spots on my face. My doctor said that I had melasma (AKA chloasma), “a brownish discoloration of the face that occurs most often in women. Men can also develop this problem. The brown color often fades in winter and gets worse in the summer.” - definition courtesy of http://www.askjeeves.com. I now use special skincare products to keep the spots lighter and I stay out of the sun as much as I can.

18

This is more of a weird symptom story than a weird disease story. When I was 15, I started getting big, purple, raised spots all over my legs (each about the size of a dime). I also developed arthritis in my wrists, got hives every time I got in a hot shower, and was extremely fatigued all the time (went to school at 7, got home at 2:30, went to sleep until the next morning). The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I was tested for mono, diabetes, and a bunch of other diseases. I started developing fevers on a daily basis, including one of 104 on my sixteenth birthday. They finally figured out that I had lupus (SLE), dosed me up on prednisone and some arthritis medications (by that time, I could hardly walk), and set me up with a doctor at Children’s Hospital in D.C. It got under control and has been in remission for 10 years now. Phew!
DoctorJ…because of the lupus, I have the same reaction to the sun. I’m not supposed to go out in the sun at all, but if I do, it just exhausts me. Total body exhaustion, complete with aching joints and horrible headache. If I go lie down for awhile, though, I’m fine.

19

It’s not? I thought it had something to do with my eyes getting strained from the light. Cud you send me info on this (I’m a bit worried about this, with summer comming up…)?

When I was a kid, I was playing with a neighbour’s kitten which got frightened and dug its claws into my neck. The next day, I had a high fever and slight rash. My mom brought me to a doctor who couldn’t figure out what it was, until my exasperated mother said: “If it was up to me, I’d call it Cat Scratch Fever!” Startled, the doctor looked it up and there it was! I’ve always felt an affinity with Ted Nugent after that…

Also, I have developed a weird reaction to certain dryer sheets - my fact gets REALLY swollen, in quarters! Upper left lip, upper right lip, lower left lid, etc. No pain, no itch, no rash, nothing except this swelling. I refuse to go outside - no kidding! I look like a gorilla (which are handsome animals, but mostly to other gorillas ;)). It went away after about 12 hours. I stopped using that particular dryer sheet and called the manufacturer to report my reaction, about which they had not gotten any other comments. (When you experience a weird reaction to a product, do call the manufacturer - it gives them valuable information for product improvement/development and may help someone else.)

20

When I was about 7 I had a virus. It started out as a head cold and then moved down into my throat and then into my chest. Usually, this is when the illness subsides, but not this time. The virus, if I remember this correctly, then moved into my lower spine. I remember waking up one morning and trying to stand up. I couldn’t. I went down like a sack of hammers, and boy did I scream, here I was at age 7 not sure if I was going to walk again. I was paralyzed from the waist down, for about a week. There is a medical term for the condition, but I don’t remember what it is.