What’s “terminal flatulence”?
How does it differ from regular old flatulence?
Surely you’re not saying farts until death, are you?
Part of taking a history from a patient includes the dreaded Review of Systems (ROS). It is supposed to be a brief review of body systems to ensure you haven’t missed something. The list Qadgop linked is a very thorough example. Some patients will answer yes for every single thing you ask them. “Do you have a headache?” “Well I had a headache last week.” “Do you have blurry vision?” “Well only when I take my glasses off.” So it’s fun to start asking them silly things to see if they’ll say yes. For instance, do your teeth itch? does your urine glow in the dark? etc. Grossly positive just means that they said yes to everything.
This isn’t like a magician giving away his secrets, is it?
Terminal Flatulance is not a disease to be sniffed at! So give generously that a cure may be found! 
TF is another “tongue in cheek” disease, like microdeckia, carbuncular trollopsy, or weasels.
I should’ve known
Ok, what is that? I know it’s fake, but…
whut opus sed.
FWIW, I find MSG gives me canker sores. This seems consistent with it functioning by stimulating (and in my case, irritating) the lining of the mouth. I’ve never experienced any of the bizarre symptoms listed above, but after discovering the link to canker sores for me and reading labels very carefully, my problems with canker sores were greatly reduced. Now that I’ve also discovered SLS-free toothpaste, I hardly ever get a canker sore.
Not all Chineses use MSG - they don’t use it all the time for home cooked food. It is largely prevalent in restuarant.
For some, MSG also causes dryness of throat.
Hey! Listen, buddy, I’ve owned ferrets for years, and I can tell you that having weasels is no laughing matter …
Wait a minute! That article cited by e-logic says that glutamate is naturally present in mother’s milk. Why have I been advised against eating anything with MSG while breastfeeding. It doesn’t make sense.
Because your kid may have some of the negative reactions that you don’t, and breastfeeding kids are notorious for being non-helpfully non-communicative.
What’s wrong with Welcome Back Kotter? Sure beats most of what’s on today…
I suspect that many people who claim to be sensitive to MSG are suffering from what I call “imaginallergies.” My mom, for instance, claims to be allergic to dozens of substances. However, if she is unaware that one of these substances is present in her food, it magically becomes “safe,” and she doesn’t react to it.
I’m not saying that MSG sensitivity does not exist, but I doubt that it is as widespread as the media may have led us to believe.
Those hypersensitive to MSG just shouldn’t ingest it. It is that simple. A local Chinese restaurant (run by an actual Chinese family), offers the option of adding no MSG on request. Why should I care if this restaurant will make an order without MSG if I ask?
I agree with you. It’s a shame really. I feel they are limiting themselves to some of life’s simple pleasures for no real reason. Someone i’m close to claims she’s allergic to MSG, but little does she know, she eats it in all kinds of stuff… I think she’d be truly surprised if i pointed it out to her. I have allergies myself, and when exposed, my body reacts in some very real ways. So when I see someone (perhaps unknowingly and of their own volition) eating something they claim they’re allergic too, and showing no symptoms, I can’t help but be skeptical. I only wonder why they would claim something like that?
This is just a casual observation I’ve made, so there might not really be anything to it, but it’s been my experience that people who claim that they are allergic to this, that, and the other thing are almost always histrionic types who are constantly seeking attention. I very often see this behavior in unattractive women who get little or no attention from men.
My aquired knowledge on the subject is alarmingly immense, however, I have no articles to cite, so you can take it FWIW.
First: MSG is naturally occuring. Glutamate is the non-ionic form of Glutamic Acid. Glutamic acid as an ammino acid, one of 20 used to build protein in your body. Monosodium Glutamate is Glutamic acid bound to a sodium ion to make a salt. Like NaCl, normal table salt, a positivly charged ion binds to a negatively charged icon. You have an amount of MSG in your body right now. All protein-containing foods have MSG, especially things like Soy Sauce, like Bippy said.
Second: MSG is added to foods in ways that don’t appear on the label. Almost any time you see hydrolysed blank protein, it is mostly to add MSG. Cooking increases proteolysis, which, in the presence of salt, creates MSG.
Third: Chinese Restaraunt Syndrome has a cause other than MSG. I controlled study with “MSG Sensitive” people revealed that if people don’t know there is MSG in the food, then they have no symptoms. Furthermore, they found that if the food contained a large amount of NaCl, the Syndrome appeared. If you look at the symptoms of Chinese Restaraunt Syndrome, they are parallel to those of dehydration. The proposal of the study was that the salt content of the food, coupled with the fact that, in general, people eat too much, but don’t drink enough, causes Chinese Restaraunt Syndrome by exacerbating dehydration.
Fourth: Washoe is correct about umami. MSG doesn’t really contribute to the flavor so much as it enhances other flavors. MSG makes beef taste beefier, etc. Nobody is exactly sure how it works.
Fifth: It is conceivable that someone could be allergic to MSG, since theoretically, you can be allergic to any protein fragment. However, given the first point, I would find it extremely unlikely that that would be a survivable condition. I have never heard of anyone having a true allergic reaction to MSG. Again, it is likely that someone with true allergy symptoms is actually allergic to another component of the food.
Now, anybody wanna ask about the history of sodium and saccharin?
This is fascinating. I had a doctor tell me MSG was one of my migraine triggers. There is, undoubtedly, some sort of food enhancer or preservative that bothers me-- certain deli meats, beef jerky, some cheeses, flavored crackers, hot dogs, etc. will give me a headache right quick. Maybe it isn’t MSG. Maybe it is. Whatever it is, it’s everywhere. For a while i tried avoiding it, but it proved so restrictive I just chucked it into my category of triggers out of my control (like the weather).
It could be the nitrites.
That’s exactly what I was going to say, those all sound like likely additives for nitrites. Nitrites are legislated at a certain level because they can and do cause problems for people. They are popular in cured meats because they preserve the red color. I am not sure about the cheese and crackers. If avoiding MSG works for you, that is fine, because certain food additives tend to ‘go together’ and some are easier to spot on the label.