By best of course I mean the worst.
Well… I have Spina Bifida & am, essentially, a paraplegic. It’s not a degenerative disease, and I’m a pretty content person, so I think that it’s perhaps not the worst ill health condition… It just really sucks sometimes, is all.
So there ya go. 
I’m in Ok health, but my sister was diagnosed with severe juvenile arthritis at the age of 14/15 and now at the age of 19 she has recently been also diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a fusion of the spine. She is in pretty bad pain constantly, and even her meds don’t really aleviate the pain, though they do diminish it a bit. Missing a pill, or missing a physio therapy session results in a lot of stiffness and pain, and loss of fleixibility. Lucky her, she will get to deal with this for the rest of her life. I don’t know how that compares, or in the long run, will compare to Cosmopolitan’s condition, or to those of other people who might post here, but IMHO, things are pretty bad for my sister.
Heh. And I complain when my ankle is sore from tiredness (a never-quite-healed sprain).
There was one chap here who announced a few months ago that he didn’t have long to live. I’d say that was pretty serious.
I have this real nasty hangnail that just keeps growing back.
I’m sure Cosmopolitan trumps me, but what the heck… I’ll post anyway.
I have epilepsy, which comes in two parts. One, myoclonic, causes twitching of an arm, leg, or occasionally torso. I’m still awake through it, so it’s rather disconcerting. Meds control those pretty well though. Part two is psychogenic absence-like seizures, which are not under control. Typically I have somewhere around five a day, which can vary greatly depending on a number of factors. For instance, last weekend I was having so many seizures I was on the couch or in bed most of the day. Couldn’t figure out WTF was going on until I came down with the flu Monday night… must’ve been a bug incubating!
Along with the above, I have depression and panic disorder, which are controlled through meds and counseling. So basically, when I’m not having a seizure I’m fine… 
I have multiple sclerosis… but I seem to be responding well to treatment and am doing better than most in my circumstances.
I don’t make blood, and I have Hepatitis C. Not as bad as some people, though.
Wow it sounds like some of you guys are hanging out for a brains-in-vats scenario like me Just a brain and an eye is all I need (any amatature scientists out here???)
Well, this isn’t actually all that bad, but I’m pregnant and diabetic, and when I reveal this to most people, they gasp in horror as though I am Julia Roberts in “Steel Magnolias” and likely to keel over from kidney failure at any moment. :rolleyes:
Oh wow. I was just laughing my head off at the “funny business names” thread and I thought this was going to be some hokey thing about people complaining about non-serious health problems that drove them completely nuts…like persistant dandruff. Now I feel all sad and stuff. I’m basically a healthy person.
Unless mental illness counts. Which does suck, by the way. Last November I landed myself in a mental hospital which is the WORST place for a mentally ill person, I guarantee it. I spend my life taking two or three medications at a time until one or more of them quit working and I become non-functional and then I have to play the roulette game with meds again, which is a real bummer. My diagnosis changes every now and again, so the meds are a crap shoot anyway…depression, manic depression, and the now completely popular and over-diagnosed attention deficit disorder. You can imagine the fun drugs I’ve been on. They generally make me feel like a zombie and are really yucky.
But I wouldn’t trade with anyone else anyway. Plus, I actually think I manage it pretty well in spite of all that. I’m quitting my day job to start my own business in August!
I have a pretty shitty syndrome. The effects are too long to list
http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/
To sum it up, I’m in constant pain / constant fatigue, depressed, agoraphobic, anxious, panic-ey, etc…
I’ll paraphrase Dennis Miller: “If you gotta have a chronic disease, PRAY for alcoholism.”
Well, I started out with hydrocephalus which was diagnosed when I was ten months old. That’s an odd thing to have when you’re a little kid, but my parents are both doctors, so any surgeries I had to have were virtually outpatient. I don’t think I ever stayed in the hospital more than two days when I was a little kid. he he.
I do remember being really pissed the last time I was in because my headmaster’s daughter was also in for neurosurgery. This was in 1993 when Tom Cruise was in Memphis filming The Firm. He came to visit her but not me, and of course I had a huge crush on him from Top Gun.
Then when I was sixteen I started having seizures, big honking grand mal seizures where my whole body’s affected. That’s the kind of seizure you probably think about when you hear the word. I also sometimes have seizures where I remain conscious that I believe are called complex parital, not totally sure about that. The seizures are moderately well controlled by medicine so I can at least function.
-Lil
I have the same type of seizures, percypercy, probably as a result of my VP shunt. Medication controlls them quite well, though.
I think that I’m way better off than people who have chronic pain issues: Having limited mobility sucks, but I’d imagine that chronic pain sucks much, much more.
Ummm, terminal cancer, with liver mets. Again.
The semi-good news is that it’s a slow-growing cancer, kinda rare.
I have the carcinoid syndrome, with the pain and the potty problems, but i’m still pretty functional if within quick reach of a bathroom at all times.
I also have colitis (just to add insult to injury, and potty problems to potty problems), glaucoma, hypoglycemia (even before the semi-gastrectomy) and mild spina bifida (closed), so that much walking has been a challenge a good portion of my life. But, i’m old, ya know?
Oh, and 'noids (those of us with carcinoid) tend to get/have other cancers as well. I’ve had or have three or four others. There is some debate over #3 and #4 were the same thing in two locations or different things with similar components. Just depends on which pathologist at NIH is taking calls that day.
Wow. You guys are some brave souls.
I had surgery two weeks ago for a pilonidal cyst, which leaves a gaping hole on your ass that can take two months to close…and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself until I read this thread.
God bless all of you.
Well, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at age six, which is pretty rare. It was pretty godawful (potty problems, as that thatDDperson so elegantly put it, anorexia, no energy, etc.) but I’ve been in remission since about sixth grade, so that’s not too bad. And I’ve also got depression and anxiety, and I’m allergic to just about everything, but I don’t think those really count.
And I seem to have the flu, as I spent all of last night throwing up. I mean, I couldn’t even keep water down. It was pretty wretched.
sarcasm
We all seem to be a pretty healthy bunch.
/sarcasm
IMO, it’s not so much that we’re a bunch of sickos 
as that folks with limited mobility tend to gravitate to the Net. That’s certainly what I do (no driver’s license), and since my sister got chronic pain from Lyme’s disease she started spending a LOT more time on the Net.
IMO, it’s not so much that we’re a bunch of sickos as that folks with limited mobility tend to gravitate to the Net. That’s certainly what I do (no driver’s license), and since my sister got chronic pain from Lyme’s disease she started spending a LOT more time on the Net.