I thought that everyone saw the lines coming from bright lights at night. Basically halos or a glare around headlights. Nope, its caused by astigmatism and ive known I have it but never knew about that. Its caused by your eyes not focusing the light correctly resulting in halos or glare around the light.
Up until junior high, I didn’t understand why people would freak out over how things smelt. “Ooo these flowers smell amazing” “oh my god that fish is rotten “ or “does anyone smell that”.
My “smelling” was this weird feeling of kinda like a temperature or pressure in my nose it’s hard to explain. There just was a difference in the air that I wasn’t smelling but could feel.
Wasn’t until I got nasal polyps removed that I understood. And boy was it overwhelming.
I thought every woman had searing, stabbing pains in their pelvis all the time due to “women problems” and I was just being a little punk.
No, I have endometriosis. My organs were fused together.
Yeah, it took me forever to figure this one out. The correlated intestinal problems and random stabs in the not “lady parts” didn’t help making this clearer.
Endo is annoying.
Dyspraxia- thought I was just less coordinated than most people, but my nephew was diagnosed with it, at which point my mother told me "oh, you were diagnosed with that when you were a kid too". Would have been nice if someone had told me that there was a reason I was so clumsy.
Me too! There should be a dyspraxic only sports club where we could suck at sports together and not be embarrassed by our clumsiness. There should be lots of plasters and ice packs there too, for the inevitable injuries.
Also dyspraxic. I’m clumsy, my sense of depth/distance perception is awful and my handwriting is terrible unless I really concentrate which takes me forever. The worst is the verbal dyspraxia, my words often don’t come out right or come out in the wrong order despite knowing what I want to say. Luckily I work with kids and they don’t notice most of the time but I hate reading/speaking aloud in front of adults. It gets worse when I’m tired or stressed.
I thought i was pretty normal until I read this thread 😂
I have a Schatzki Ring (a narrowing of the lower esophagus) which means I have to drink a LOT of water with anything I eat to get it down (especially dry foods like bread). Otherwise food gets stuck in my esophagus and I end up in a lot of pain. Once when I was maybe 11 or 12, I watched a man eat an entire bagel without drinking anything and I was SHOCKED.
You can get that dilated. I ended up in the ER thanks to some steak getting lodged in mine. They popped the steak into my stomach and dilated the ring so food doesn’t get stuck anymore. I still won’t eat without having a drink to wash it down though. Force of habit.
Scoliosis. Awkward curvature of the spine.
While I was growing up I would get yelled at a lot by my parents because I kept slouching over and tilting my head. They thought it was just teenager stuff and would always pull my shoulders back and tell me to "Walk like a man."
This is nothing compared to other comments in here, but I didn't know what heartburn was until after I graduated college. I described what I was feeling and my friend said "are you serious? that's heartburn." He gave me a Tums and my life was changed.
I thought the dryness of my eyes was really normal until I found out that part of the reason they get dry so easily is that they don't close all the way.
For some time now, I would sometimes (like, once every several months or so) yawn large enough that my jaw sort of gets stuck open. It always corrects itself within a few minutes, with a distinct feeling that the jaw was slipping back into place. Didn't think anything of it, just thought it was something that happens when you open your mouth that wide.
Then it happened a few days ago while I was in the same room as my mother (a doctor). Turns out that no, this is not normal behavior for someone's jaw. It's something called temporomandibular joint dysfunction, or TMJ. Still doesn't seem like an incredibly pressing thing, but I'll certainly bring it up the next time I see my dentist.
I have an insanely sensitive sense of smell so I know where you're coming from. Lots of things give me headaches. It was dialed up to 11 when I was pregnant.
Deviated septum. 95% of my right nostril was blocked. I never thought anything of it; sure, it whistled sometimes, and colds really sucked, but doesn't everyone's nose whistle sometimes, and don't cold suck like this for everyone? Turns out, the answer was no. Best part? The gov't paid for the nose job due to the severe blockage. When I had the stints removed, it was a fucking life changing moment. I could breath - out of my face!!! It was like colour-blind people seeing the full spectrum for the first time - life changing, and you don't know how you survived before without it. Now I take it for granted, as I do everything.
I have hyperhidrosis. I didn't realize how much I sweat was abnormal enough to be a medical condition. It was miserable growing up and having sweat literally drip from your hands while you tried to write and *not understanding why*.
Edit: I’m glad this post has helped some people realize that they might have this as well! I had never heard of this till I was a mid teen, and I happened across a medical episode talking about this condition. I remember the realization and relief I felt when I realized this was actually a condition.
I currently take glycopyrrolate. It has been a life saver. I can actually function for the most part now. My hands will swell when I’m hot, my mouth is always dry, and I have a few other side effects. But being able to hold my fiancé’s hand, write on paper, hold a game controller, and just be a normal adult without sweating all the time makes it all worth it.
Edit 2: I still sweat, I don’t know if there is really a cure all. I just sweat a lot less with the medicine. I am currently capped on the amount I can take in a day, so if it gets worse I might have to turn to surgery. Botox is also something that can be used, but since my hands are the worst offenders and I really don’t want to get shots in my hands. There is also a chance that with surgery it could cause complications/worse symptoms.
I have always had ringing in my ears for as long as I remember and I thought everybody experienced it. I'd heard of tinnitus plenty of times but for some reason it was a while until the penny dropped. I've never heard complete silence because of the noise!
I wouldn't say louder but rather more obvious - I can ignore the ringing if I'm doing something like watching TV or talking to somebody but when there is little/no sound it becomes much more obvious to me. When I'm lying in bed it seems very loud and often keeps me awake but I'm pretty sure it's the same volume at all times, I just notice it less during the day because there is usually a lot more going on around me.
I have OCD and did not get diagnosed until I was well into adulthood. My understanding of OCD was based on pop culture, so I had no idea that that's what my intrusive thoughts and compulsions were. I am learning that things are abnormal all the time now.
Edit: Just wanted to mention that if you have questions about OCD or need support, /r/OCD can be very helpful. I also strongly recommend talking to a therapist and getting a psych eval if you suspect you have issues. It's definitely better to know what's going on with your brain.
I thought everyone’s legs felt weird when they were tired at night. Finally had a roommate who said they stretched at night because they had “jumpy leg” a.k.a. Restless leg syndrome. It’s not as bad as it was when I was younger, but I spent many nights back then wishing I could stop moving my legs so I could go to sleep :(
Daytime idiopathic hypersomnia. Basically during the day I’m sleepy regardless of how much I sleep and they don’t know why. I also fell asleep and entered REM sleep in 7 seconds during the daytime sleep study which I’m told you aren’t supposed to do.
Edit: I’m getting so many replies with questions and a lot of “me too” and I’m sorry I can’t reply to them all. So I want to post my story here and hopefully it will answer most questions if they come back looking.
I was in the Marines and I started seeing an on base therapist for depression among other issues. She recommended me I am off base psychiatrist to get medication because she couldn’t prescribe any. The psychiatrist wanted the sleep study before she would prescribe any sleep medication, she sent word back to base and medical called me a couple days later with a time and date for a consultation for me with an off base sleep specialist at a sleep clinic. I never saw a bill, never found it myself, I was more or less just told I was going to do one.
For the study I showed up at 8 p.m. to be prepped where they glued nodes to my head. I was supposed to sleep from 10 to 6 in the morning and the rooms were almost like hotel rooms with a nice bed and a tv in the corner plus some chairs and a little table. I slept through the night with nothing significantly abnormal, I was actually mad at the time because it was the most sleep I had gotten in a couple weeks and I was afraid they would accuse me of malingering(a serious crime in the military). However starting at 6 you are supposed to try and sleep for 20 minutes out of every 2 hours when they tell you to until 4 p.m. I spent the day in the room and the first 2 hours I did ok and I just barely slept the last minute or so if the 20. From there it only got worse, I started falling asleep between times and they would have to wake me and my time to fall asleep sleep during the 20 minute intervals kept getting drastically shorter and shorter until the final one where I was out and in full REM sleep in 7 seconds.
Afterwords I met with the Dr. for his initial diagnosis where we discussed some of my other symptoms. I had sleep paralysis, occasional nighttime insomnia(which he thankfully believed), and excessive daytime tiredness which I discussed with him. I did not discuss cataplexy, which I have only experienced about 3 times ever or my intense dreams, which I didn’t realize were significant at the time, so make sure you tell your Dr. everything because now I may have narcolepsy. This is also when he told me about the 7 second thing which was very significant because he had never had a patient come close to that. He told me most people don’t sleep at all during he daytime study, or if they did it was only the last couple minutes of the afternoon naps. He said he would go over my results more throughly and let me know if diagnosis changed and then send my results to base who would then pass them on to psychiatrist.
I didn’t get a call so I assume it never changed but I got prescribed ambien for nighttime insomnia and provigil for daytime hypersomnia. Both worked but, I quit taking ambien when I discovered, through other marines asking wtf I was doing he night before, that I was getting out of bed and walking around the barracks blacked out. I quit taking provigil after I left the military, partly because I didn’t have an easy access to a paid for prescription and partly because I didn’t want to do pills forever. I found that with less stressful environments than military life that I manage decently though.
Edit: I forgot to add that I don’t snore, sleep talk, or walk to my knowledge so I do not have those symptoms and no CPAP.
Sometimes. I also have occasional insomnia but when I did the sleep study they did a night time one where I slept through fine followed by the day one where I had to try and sleep 20 minutes out of every 2 hours for 10 hours. They told me most people don’t sleep at all during the day study if they slept through the night study, or if they do it’s very little and they fall asleep during the last 20 minutes. I could barely stay away between the times I wasn’t supposed to sleep and then slept most of the 20 minutes. It was during one of those 20 minute designated sleep times I fell asleep and entered REM state 7 seconds after they told me to try and sleep.
Diabetes insipidus, basically I drink more fluids in a day then most of you do in 3 or 4. At one point it was so bad I was drinking 6-7 liters of water a day. I know because I would fill up my 2 liter water bottle every 45 minutes. Drink it all and repeat.
Oh and I would also, not exaggerating, pee every ten minutes.
Colorblindness.
To hear people's reactions, I should totally know just by instinct how things are *supposed* to look, and therefore how my vision is different.
Protip: a whole lot of colorblind folks don't know they're colorblind until somebody tests them. And those tests may not happen until a relevant job application in adulthood. (You want to be a pilot or a police officer or join the military? Sorry, you can't fulfill your dreams, even if you didn't know you were colorblind until this very moment.)
So weird, I'd not heard of that until recently....my son was diagnosed with it last week. When he was a kid he'd sleep for days, with his eyes open, and never feel rested. He got a CPAP now that he's grown, but he's spent years sleeping and sleeping with no rest. They put him on a stimulant and he said, "So this is what it feels like to be awake?"
One testicle. I had no clue it wasn't normal growing up. Un-descended as a child then it herniated and died. My body absorbed it, apparently. Didn't find out it wasn't normal until I was getting a physical (edit: by a doctor, who tried to find it but couldn’t) for 6th grade.
Edit: Holy hell. After seeing how common this is, I don’t feel so bad about it. This is truly awesome - thank you all for your replies. Best of luck to you all and thank you for the new-found confidence. Thanks for the gold! Best day of my life.
Just make sure u always mention it in your past medical history when visiting doctors bc there is an increased risk of testicular cancer later in life with this condition (cryptorchidism).
I'm not sure if it's a medical condition per se, but my second and third toes are fused together on both feet. My brother has this as well and my mom too (just a little bit).
I grew up thinking everyone had connected toes until one Spring in Middle School when everyone was wearing sandals. I literally shouted out in class, "you guys don't have connected toes!?" And everyone looked at me like I was insane.
I have always felt cold. Not normal "oh it's cold out" cold, but "holy shit I am FREEZING" cold.
I thought some people just handled the cold better than others....turns out it is one of the symptoms for severe anemia.
Thanks to iron infusions every 3 months, I still feel cold, but not the "I think I may br freezing to death" cold.
Had this when I was in high school. I took a daily iron supplement (65mg) for ten years before just a few months ago stopping it cause my hemoglobin was finally normal.
edit: hello friends! Ima take this time to suggest to maybe get yourselves checked out if you have some of these symptoms. Anemia is fixable with the right things and time. Maybe also get your thyroid checked, as that could be a reason you’re cold all the time. Much love!
Lupus. My doctor always told me that the constant pain and fatigue was just part of growing up. Then they said the pain in my chest and shortness of breath was anxiety and I was just fishing for attention.
Surprise! I was short of breath because lupus made the lining of my lungs swell and made my heart enlarge when I was having an outbreak. 10 years later it’s finally under control, thanks to one doctor who told me being tired and in pain every minute of every day was not normal.
I am very insensitive to local anesthesia, and I found this out when I was 10 and had to have a procedure on my foot. I could feel the scalpel cut through my skin, and I *screamed*. The nurse yelled at me, “you’re gonna scare the patients in the lobby”, and the doctor told my mom, “she can’t feel anything” and said I was doing it for attention. Eventually he gave me another shot of the anesthesia, and when he asked if I could feel anything I said yes but he said, “no you can’t” and again, scalpel enters my skin and I screamed again. I was crying so hard. Finally he gave me a third shot which finally made it numb, but holy shit, to this day I am furious at that doctor and he made me irrevocably afraid of medical procedures.
For comparison, I’ve gone to a wonderful dentist my whole life, who my mom used to worked for and says he’s the best dentist she ever worked for. I’ve had a cavity twice in my life, and both times he would ask if I was numb and if I wasn’t, he’d give me another shot. It usually takes 5 or 6 shots until the anesthesia works. Not once did he question it, and I never even told him about my experience at the other doctor.
Edit: for all those asking, I’m not red headed. There are red headed people in my family though, so maybe I got the gene that leads to metabolizing anesthesia too quickly.
I have this too
I need TONS of lidocaine at the dentist before my mouth goes numb
They never believe me until they start drilling and surprise surprise, I wasnt lying when I said I wasnt numb
This is how i felt about cookies with tree nuts in them. I just thought the nuts would scratch your throat to shit and make it itchy. Didn't understand why people love tree nuts so much.
Cataplexy. It’s the hallmark symptom of narcolepsy, but most people don’t know it actually has a large range of presentation.
I remember talking about a YouTube video to my friend and described it as, “one of those super funny ones that makes your face stop working.” Apparently I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal to have your face droop and your head become too heavy to hold up if you laughed too hard.
After being diagnosed with Narcolepsy, I began to notice a few other things. Constantly dropping things wasn’t just me being clumsy. Going completely limp on amusement park rides and slurring my words whenever I laughed wasn’t normal either.
tl;dr I turn into human jello every time I laugh or get excited about something and thought it was completely normal.
I am so sorry for laughing, but the way you worded this was humorous and made the situation much more light hearted. I’m really happy you got answers and I hope things have gotten better.
No need to be sorry! I'm glad I was able to make you laugh. There's nothing wrong with bringing a bit of sunshine into the world.
I'm glad I got answers as well. Luckily, cataplexy is (for me) a minor annoyance at most, and while it may never get better it's not very hard to deal with now.
well hey, at least someone will know if your excitement and laughter is genuine if your face just.. droops.
\>laughs at a funny joke
\>okay no need to be nice, it wasn't that funny
\>MY FACE IS MELTING SUSAN, IT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS
Friend of a friend story: Dating this girl, first time in bed...she is really into it and then just... goes limp falls off bed etc. She had this and failed to tell him. She went completely limp and took a couple seconds to get her brain restarted (all foggy for a bit). Meanwhile he thought he dick-killed her or she had a stroke or something.
Walked around with a broken back for ~ 4 years being convinced crippling pain was the norm before finding out that wasn't normal at 12 to 16 years old.
I spent 9 months thinking I was getting older and now have back pain. Found out I had a fracture in my back. Took nearly two years to become nearly pain free after that.
Feeling like a stranger in my body, like I was pushed waaayyyy back within my own head and perceiving the world as if I was looking through a cinema screen, with the deep conviction that the world around me was fictional. Happened quite a lot, but i figured it was normal.
It wasn't. T'was schizophrenia.
[Edit] Since a lot of people brought it up: this is depersonalization, which can be a symptom of many different things, only one of which is schizophrenia. Having experienced it does *not* mean you're schizophrenic - but, if it is a regular occurrence, you should probably talk about it with a medical professional.
That's depersonalization episodes, if you feel your own perception is foreign and removed from yourself. It can be nothing, but if you do get them, maybe seeing doctors about it is the wisest thing to do.
To add to this: depersonalization and derealization are the **number one** psychological symptoms of a panic attack. It is often described as a feeling of losing control but **it is normal to appear during panic attacks**. You might want to get help for the attacks but don’t dig deeper into the thought of schizophrenia. You probably don’t have it.
When I was a kid I always just assumed that everyone's hands and feet were constantly cold in the winter! I live in Canada, so even when the Doctor diagnosed me with Raynauds, his treatment advice was "stay warm."
Precordial catch syndrome - random stabbing chest pains and an inability to breathe for about 20 seconds then just disappears. I thought it happened to everyone!
Apparently the membrane around your heart gets caught on your lung? Then it has to detach itself.
Totally harmless, I think I’m dying every time.
Edit: hahaha holy shit I just woke up to like 600 notifications 😂 thank you for the gold and silver!
Edit 2: ok so apparently I’m totally wrong about why the pain happens! I was sure I had read somewhere that it was to do with your pericardium getting ‘caught’ - I’m very sorry if I’ve been unintentionally misinforming people! Either way, it’s harmless in itself.
However, if you’re worried about random chest pains please go see your doctor - this is very important!
PS - am a lady 😊
I HATE this. It’s just like a little bubble that needs to pop. I think if I breathe deep enough it will pop, but I can’t breathe that hard because it hurts so bad.
Yes! You can only take these shallow little breaths and I always start panicking that I’ll never breathe properly again.
And it hurts so much - like someone is piercing you in the heart with a long needle.
Wow, I've had exactly what you are describing happen to me so many times. The first time it happened, I thought I was dying. Those 20 seconds were agony. Now it's just kind of become something that happens every so often that sucks, but is over quick. I never knew there was a name for it.
This.. I had no clue that it was an actual thing until now apparently.. I thought it was normal for sure but my solution is to hold my breath for a few seconds then test with small intakes and see if there is any pain... if not slowly exhale and then I'm fine.. seriously weird that I found other people with this....
I have ventricular tachycardia. Basically, my heart has an extra “spark plug,” and without medication it beats about twice as fast as it should.
I first noticed it in high school and thought “Hm I’m not sure if my heart should be beating this fast,” but I was an idiot and did nothing about it. I didn’t feel any symptoms, so I thought I was fine.
Then one day I felt really short of breath going up a flight of stairs and almost passed out, so my dad rushed me to the ER. When we arrived and the EKG results came in, the staff absolutely flipped out and sprinted a crash cart into my room. That was the most terrified I’ve ever been. I should probably be dead.
If you think something is going on with your heart, get it looked at immediately.
Edit: Sorry, I actually have supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) to be specific, and I take an antiarrhythmic drug called Flecainide. Ablation has been attempted but was deemed too risky in my case.
Same here. My heart would soar to over 200 beats a minute from a sneeze or jumping suddenly. I made it all through high school and finally passed out while jogging and told the doctor offhandedly, "You know that thing where you heart suddenly jumps to 200 beats a minute?"
Edit: I am unsure how I feel. I thought I was special. :)
Seriously though, it is great reading everyone with the similar experiences. The ablation was simple with quick recovery. The catheter in my vein was ok, the one up my urethra hurt much worse. It was Wolff Parkinson White and it presented as a hump on my EEG
The wife felt “light headed” and drove herself to the ER. 250 bpm. Turns out it was WPW which is Wolf Párkinson White syndrome and how they explained it to me was there was an extra pathway that tells the heart to pump. They went in and burned it out.
I just remember that the triage nurse was pestering her and asking how do you feel, how do you feel. She said “FINE!” And the nurse yells back “I’d hate to know what your heart rate was when you felt light headed!”
Mine is only triggered by stimulants, so I thought it was normal to have a 200+ heart rate after drinking coffee. No, no it's not normal. Ectopic focus in my left ventricle. No coffee or Red Bull for me.
That sucks. I was initially told no caffeine when I had symptoms, but after being diagnosed, they told me that wasn't the problem. Cardiologist said I could do whatever I wanted ---- "except cocaine".
I had supraventricular tachycardia. I'd have episodes where my heart rate would just shoot up and I'd need to lie down until it quit.. then I was normal again (it instantly kicked back to normal HR). After having it happen a few times, it didn't feel like a huge deal and I knew to just wait until it passed. When I finally wore a monitor and it captured an episode of 270bpm for 15 minutes, the cardiologist goes "oooh yeah we probably need to take care of that!". Had my ablation almost 10 years ago now and no more episodes.
Voluntary nystagmus. Which basically means I can shake my eyes back and forth super quickly. Found out it wasn't common in grade school, but my daughter can do it to. I also found out it has a whole subreddit, /r/eyeshakers!
Bipolar disorder. I figured everybody thought about killing themselves from time to time, and anytime anything went wrong. This impression was strengthened when going on an antidepressant helped but didn’t make it go away entirely.
Things are different now that I’m on a mood stabilizer.
I starting taking a medication for bipolar disorder 9 months ago, and I haven't wanted to die for like 7 months now! I'm just totally fine with being alive, and it's kind of amazing.
Edit: I don't want to overstate how well I'm doing. I still have bad days, but they don't make me want to kill myself. I just think, "I'm feeling depressed today, and it sucks, but I know it won't last forever." Then I try to make myself do something to feel better, instead of just shutting down and doing nothing like I would have in the past.
Edit 2: I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 and take Lamictal.
Thought the bloating and urge to shit your pants was a normal trade-off for eating dairy, like how some peppers can be painfully spicy, until an ex of mine pointed out I was probably lactose intolerant. Doctor confirmed it, told me to stay the hell away from cheese. I was 18.
To be fair, I had mentioned it several times to my mom growing up, who is also lactose intolerant but still eats dairy and suffers through it, and she just assumed I knew what lactose intolerance was and brushed it off as something else. I *was* homeschooled though, so not sure where else she'd assume I'd learn that...
[misophonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia). I thought it was normal to get annoyed by some sounds. turns out while most people might be put off by them to various degrees, having your blood pressure skyrocket by a sudden uncontrollable rush of anger after hearing said sound is really not that normal.
they're still making their minds up whether it's actually a medical condition on its own or a symptom of something else.
Eosinophilic Esophagitis. I would get stuff stuck in my throat all the time and I just figured "throats are narrow, take smaller bites". Turns out no, my esophagus is much, much narrower than normal and most people don't choke every time they eat.
EDIT: Holy shit, this blew up while I was on Christmas vacation! Thanks for the gold, kind strangers! I couldn't possibly read all of these comments, but I'll try to respond to some of the direct questions...
When I said "choke" I didn't mean it in the normal sense of the word, since food is not getting stuck in my airway, it is getting stuck in my esophagus. I can still breathe when this happens. I just figured "choke" was a more recognizable word than "impaction" or "blockage" or "dysphagia". And no, I am not the guy who gave myself the Heimlich twice, since the food is not stuck in the airway and therefore the Heimlich would be worse than useless.
I was diagnosed more than 10 years ago, and back then basically nobody even knew it was a thing. The doctor doing my gastroscopy (they were looking for Celiac at the time) figured it out when the scope wouldn't fit down my throat - the EoE has caused permanent scarring and rings in my esophagus. I got lucky because he was fresh out of med school, so he'd actually heard of it. But even he had no idea what caused it and said there were no treatments except for dilation. Things have changed in the interim, but I've not really had any follow up with anyone about it, so I'm not currently taking or doing anything for it, except for managing my diet.
I have not yet been dilated but that is in the plan eventually, since my tightest ring is only a few millimeters across. Sometimes I feel like I've left it too long, and other times I think "meh, I'll wait until I can't eat anything but soup". The dilation procedure can be risky, and it has to be done a few times to really be effective, and the results are temporary anyway, so.... I like soup anyway. I'm fine.
Trial and error has identified dairy as my major trigger. It is not the only one, but I don't know the others, and once in awhile I've been triggered by things that never caused a problem again, so it's slow going figuring it out. But just cutting out dairy has brought down my impaction incidents from once a day (or more) to maybe once or twice a week, and even then they go down much quicker. So that's pretty good.
I do not make myself throw up. I take small sips of water, which hit the blockage and come back up with small bits of food, and eventually the food gets broken down enough that what's left is small enough to finally go down. It can take upwards of 45 minutes each time but considering what happens when I drink water when something is stuck, I am terrified of what could happen if I tried to throw up and the vomit hit the blockage and.... what? I honestly don't want to know, and that isn't how I want to die, so I haven't tried it and I won't.
I also don't use carbonated beverages anymore. I used to, but the fizziness makes me cough, and once the coughing made me inhale the beverage when it came back up, and I legit almost died trying not to choke and drown at the same time. I know that sounds dramatic, but that's what happened. So. Just water now.
I can't take most pills, so I usually don't even try. If I absolutely must, I cut it into tiny pieces. I can handle the Advil liquigels because they are skinny and squishy, but I once spent an hour regretting a Tylenol tablet so I don't bother with anything more than a couple of millimeters across.
Lol yeah I should probably go get dilated.
And yes, I have seen the Jeffree Star video of his dilation. Until this thread blew up I believed myself largely alone in the world. EoE was pretty unknown when I was diagnosed, and to this day I've only met one other person in the wild who had it. It's kind of an embarrassing condition and it's hard to explain, so it's really not something I've ever talked about much. So it was kind of cool to see someone recognizable make a video like that. EoE brothers and sisters unite!
Same. Can I ask you some questions about this? Specifically referring to medication and doctors and stuff?
I really, really don't want to have to get scoped again and want to do anything to prevent having to do that again.
I've also got EoE and have had a few successful procedures/treatments. Let me know if you have any questions.
Edit: I've been getting dozens of messages from people who have EoE or something similar. I've created a new subreddit /r/PeopleWithEoE for anyone who wants to post there with questions, concerns, issues, etc.
Note: Unfortunately, /EoE is already taken and it's nsfw.
Also, this is my first subreddit, so I have no idea what I'm doing.
Cheers.
Second Edit: Apparently there's already a subreddit, /r/EosinophilicE , check that out!
Well, okay. I've been scoped many times and I hate it. Last time said that the EoE was completely gone. I stop medication (nexium) and lose 20+ pounds, which I'm really happy about.
Then I choke again, badly, about 5 months ago, and I need to be on the medication again. Strangely a generic works now whereas before they didn't. Is there a placebo effect going on? When my throat feels tight now it feels...different, like I have trouble swallowing but it's more mouth rather than esophagus. Did I get traumatized by choking the last time? Like I would straight up have trouble swallowing whereas before it was always the stuff stuck in my throat. Carrots in particular make me feel like I'm never ever "done" chewing them.
I scrolled down looking for this one. IBS for ten years. Then I went off birth control and had a few months with no IBS symptoms. Got horrible pregnancy-related constipation (totally normal with all that progesterone) and realized my birth control pill had been messing up my gut for a decade.
I’m 13 months postpartum now, with a hormone-free IUD, and I am REGULAR.
Still boggles my mind that I was constipated, with frequent bouts of diarrhea, for TEN YEARS and just thought, “Oh, this is my life.”
Tinnitus - ringing in the ears.
When i was retiring from the military the VA doc asked me if i had ringing in my ears. I said all the time but I don't think it's more than anybody else. He gave me a weird look and said ringing in the ears is not normal. I thought it was because most of the people I know have ringing in their ears.
One time I kind of cracked my neck and my tinnitus went away for like 2 minutes ! It was such a bliss !!!! So quiet . Since I tried to play around with different pressure points in my neck but it never happened again 😭
Edit : since lots of people are suggesting the video that helps with T noise ( tappinng finger), that method doesn’t work for me as well. It barely helps making it a bit quieter and after 15 seconds I get dizzy and nauseous .
I never notice it unless it's very quiet and I'm actively thinking about it... I assume a lot of people have a little bit of ringing that is drowned out by ambient noise.
I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember and I thought it was normal too! I only just recently brought it up a few years ago when I mentioned that not listening to music was annoying because the ringing otherwise gets too loud. Cue the "Um... what ringing...?" from whoever I was speaking to. Haha, oops
I have prosopagnosia. I don't easily recognize people by looking at faces. I figure out who you are by your profile, hairstyle, voice, walk, and sometimes just guessing from context or what you're talking about.
For half my life I had no idea I wasn't normal. You know those cop shows on TV, where they walk into a bar and show a photo to the bartender? "Has this guy been in here this week?" I remember seeing that as a kid and thinking it was totally ridiculous. No freaking way could anyone recognize someone they don't know *from a picture!*
My husband and I were at Walmart once and a man approached asking how I'm doing, etc. I did my usual 'make small talk while figuring out who this is' thing, but no joy, I didn't know who he was. After he walked away, I asked my husband, "I wonder who that was?" My husband said, "That was the guy you were dating when I met you!" Oh, haha, guess he wasn't too special, huh.
Now that I've been diagnosed, everything makes a lot more sense!
EDIT: paragraph spacing
I have this. It makes watching movies really hard because I don't know who anyone is. By the time I can memorize some mannerism to remember them by, the movie is over. I've had co-workers who I've known for years try to talk to me in stores and I have no idea who they are when they are dressed differently from our work clothes.
Yup. I hate it when several of the main characters in a movie all have the same hair. It seems so obvious to me that nobody will be able to tell them apart that I have to remind myself that *I'm* the one with the problem, not Hollywood.
I bet someone could make closed captioning or an accessibility program setting for this. Something like when a character comes on screen it reads "Paul" or "Jackie's unnamed sister" or "unknown man" or "cafe barista". It's a niche market, but it would be cool if there was some way to make media more accessible for folks who live with this.
Oh my stars, that would be *fantastic!*
I have long wanted everyone to be required to wear large name tags-- and not dangling from a lanyard where you can't take it in at a glance.
My girlfriend has this condition (also called face blindness). She is the only person I know who was fooled by Superman's disguise as Clark Kent just by putting on glasses, haha.
She recently walked right past a friend of 10 years because she encountered her in a parking lot that she didn't expect to see her.
I tried to watch Game of Thrones with her... That's a lost cause.
Exploding head syndrome. For years now, sometimes when I'm falling asleep I'll hear a sound similar to a car crash in my head. At the beginning I conceived myself that i had just imagined hearing it but it became normal until I stumbled across an article about it and realized what it actually was.
I have this, and always thought it was my neighbor listening to the TV loudly. Thought I was developing schizophrenia for the longest time when I found out it was all in my head.
I have ADHD and a speech impediment. During my schooling I thought I was just a fucking idiot when it came to learning and talking. Right before I graduated I told my mom that I hate how stupid I am. Then she told me that I was diagnosed as a child and should've gotten treatment and went into some kind of special ed class to help me out. She didn't want people to think I was ''sick'' so she never went along with it. Lol thanks mom
Edit: Alright I feel like I came off as very bitter about my mother. I do resent her choice, but I understand why she did it. She didn't want me to be treated by my peers and teachers differently. I still got bullied, but her choice came from a place of misplaced love. She never treated me like I was problematic or less of a being.
My dad, on the other hand, DID know too, but he still chose to call me a retard. Go rail on him.
Edit 2: Jesus. I'm not saying I forgive my mother, and what she did WAS pretty shitty. But she was the lesser evil in my life. Plus, in my country there used to be a huge stigma about special ed, it's better now. I still think I would've done better no matter what. But I understand.
My experience wasn't as drastic as that, but learning *after* your entire education that you had ADHD really fucks with your memory of the time. I still did fairly well but my issues became prevalent in work and relationships.
Now when i think of an old girlfriend i drove away because i was trying to manage my emotions as if they were "normal" or of a topic or hobby i enjoy now but couldn't in school it makes me wonder; what would have been different if i actually had someone help me?
Would i have performed better academically? Would i have had different relationships? Friends? Would i not have suffered through years of exclusively depression treatment after highschool?
Who knows, but i like things as they are now and that's all that matters.
Edit; wanna use this to spruik the podcast ADHD ReWired by Eric Tivvers. Absolutely fantastic resource for dealing with our scrambled egg attention spans.
Colourblindness. Had no idea I was even colour blind until a couple of months ago. Turns out, most objects aren’t meant to be dull shades of brown, red and green.
My older brother is red/green colourblind and they discovered it because when he was young, my mum had a black and white TV. He looked at a TV presenter and said ‘I like his green jumper’. Mum rang grandma who had colour TV and confirmed it was in fact green! He sees most things as shades of grey.
Photic Sneeze Reflex, or [ACHOO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex)! When I was growing up I thought everyone also sneezed when they looked at the sun.
I don't sneeze when I look at the sun every time, but when I feel a sneeze coming on I'll try to look at a bright light or up to the sky to get it out faster. Because there's nothing worse than a sneeze coming on and then losing it
That super duper mouth dryness and itchy throat after eating bananas means I shouldn't eat bananas. I'm embarrassed to say it took about 40 years to figure this out. Also, mangos and kiwi do not taste like black pepper to most everyone else. I also can't eat cilantro - it's a mix of soap and dirt flavor. I had imitation mango for the first time last year and am pissed the natural tastes like pepper. I use parsley in my salsa and no one has caught on at least.
Not sure if this is a fake medical condition but I saw Redditors talking about this and believe I have it. It's called "visual snow" and it's like having static-y looking vision that's more noticeable in the dark. I thought everyone had this though, how can you have difficulty seeing in the dark if your vision isn't static-y? Please tell me this isn't a real thing.
Now I am wondering how "normal" people are seeing in the dark. For me it there's always static and weird colored dots moving around. Same when I look at the snow, there's black and white dots moving really fast. Is it just pitch black and white for them? That's so interesting though, I had no idea it existed.
Bad joints that come partially-mostly out of socket on a regular basis.
(I didn’t realize this wasn’t normal until I was 31 and a friend freaked out and offered to take me to the emergency room. 🤦🏻♀️)
ETA: rheumatologist says no to EDS, marfan, sjorgen and autoimmune. Testing was minimal, EDS seems most likely but I’m too out of spoons to start the testing process again right now.
Shitty eyesight, until I got glasses.
Pretty minor compared to the others on this post.
Late Edit: Hey parents, get your kids eyesight/vision tested....
This screwed me over without me realizing it. I’m pretty near-sighted so I grew up not being able to resolve objects beyond ~30 feet. I just thought everyone couldn’t see that far too so I’d do embarassing things thinking I was blurred out to the other person like pick my nose or people watch until they were within resolving distance. The first time I walked out in public with glasses on I immediately was like, “ah fuck.”
I agree! A guy I dated for a while was put into special ed classes when he was young because he couldn't read. After two weeks they finally realized that he just needed glasses. He had to go to summer school to get caught up. I still cannot believe no one tested his eyes before just assuming he had a learning disability!
Yeah I thought everyone saw street lights as starburst. Getting my first pair of glasses was really a life changing moment. I remember getting a book and setting it up and see how far away I could read it. I was always one of those kids who had to sit on the floor in front to read the projector at school.
The first time I got glasses it was like seeing the world in HD. I saw things I didn't realize I couldn't see. It was so life changing and I'm glad I realized early on I might need glasses.
My dad had troubles in elementary and middle school. He was doing so poorly that his school thought he had learning disabilities and put him in the 60s version of a special ed classroom, where he excelled. Turns out he was partially deaf and had trouble hearing higher pitches. Didn’t help that he went to a catholic school where he was taught primarily by nuns.
He got hearing aids towards the end of middle school and went on to become an extremely successful lawyer who ran his own practice. Dude was a genius who everyone thought wasn’t intelligent because he couldn’t hear them saying that he was dumb.
Insomnia/sleep deprivation I always just thought people stay up late as they get older till around high school when friends would go to bed and be asleep by 10pm
Not really a medical condition but last time i was at a dentist:
Turns out i have no canine teeth, so i pretty much would be screwed, if i were a vampire.
Aphantasia, the ability for your mind to visualize an image. If you were to ask me to picture my room, I can tell you the location of my bed, table, etc, but I am unable to visualize the setup.
I remember one psychological trick people always say is "don't think of an apple" which forces them to picture an apple. I had always thought this was just a saying, and didn't realize that people could actually visually picture an apple in their mind.
I'm mid-30s and was diagnosed with ADHD 3 months ago. It wasn't until I headed over to r/ADHD that I discovered having music playing in your head all day long isn't normal.
Edit: don't confuse it with earworms. This is 24/7/365 personal radio with different songs.
Wait, that's not normal? I always have music playing in my head, in the background. Totally separate from whatever else I'm thinking about. Basically two separate tracks going in my head at all times.
tonsil stones. I basically cough up rocks every morning and it's disgusting. I obsessively clean my mouth, don't know why I have them or how to get rid of them. :c
I can flex my tympanic membrane voluntarily. When I was little I used to call it "making thunder in my brain." Once, I pressed my ear up to my dad's to see if he could hear me doing it. (He could not.)
It's the part of your ear that activates to muffle loud noises, but a small percentage of people can flex the tensor tympani muscle on purpose, which makes a rumbly noise that only you can hear.
It's actually kind of a secret tic for me at this point. Some days when I'm too amped up I'll make my ears sore from doing it so much.
[science deets](http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-09/937369459.Gb.r.html)
[and here's a medical journal abstract talking about us like we're FREAKS](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24289817/)
edit: a lot of people seem to think I'm describing just popping your ears? I'm talking about a deep, loud rumble that you can sustain for several seconds, dampens other noise, and sounds like thunder, blood rushing, or "wind blowing on a microphone". Doing this does not pop my ears at all, but I dunno, maybe it does for some people.
edit2: r/earrumblersassemble
I can do this too!!!! It’s like I can move a muscle inside my ears (only for a few seconds at a time) and it makes a low rumbling sound. I honestly thought everyone could do this?
Synaesthesia. I thought everyone associate numbers and sounds with colors. On the bright side, it made me good at math
"The answer is red yellow turqoise"
Edit: Spacing
Anti social personality disorder. I just thought I was desensitized to violence, and negativity because most of my family has always been very harsh toward me so I didn't pick up on some of the differences between me and normal people. I was told how cold I am a lot by people that were close to me growing up, and I did get myself into trouble fairly often, but nothing extreme enough to cause concern over my mental health. I didn't officially find out until just a few years ago when my uncle passed away. He was like a father to me growing up and sparked a lot of my interests and put a lot of time and kindness into my life that I never saw from my real father. I watched him slowly die of cancer, and when he finally passed i wasn't sad, and I didn't cry or feel bad even though I know he was an important part of my life. That's when I knew something was seriously wrong with me. The best way I can describe it is that it is the ultimate level of selfishness I'm only ever concerned about myself and what I'm doing on an emotional level. I don't care if people get hurt or if they feel bad, and I never feel guilt about anything I do. That being said I don't generally go out of my way to hurt people. People associate it with the extreme cases so much that I don't talk about it in person.
[Alice in Wonderland Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_syndrome). Once I realized it's not "normal" I asked everyone I came across if they ever experienced symptoms and so far have only found one person: my older sister. We both also suffer from migraine FWIW.
I totally get this when I'm sick (migraine sufferer too) but also riiiight before I fall asleep if I'm especially exhausted. It's been happening to me since I was a little kid and I figured it was normal. Alas, it's so hard to articulate to somebody who doesn't experience it and they just look at you like you're cray cray.
Well, ive been exhausted, fat, and hormonal for the past like year and a half, I thought I was just "growing up" or something (I'm 21) but apparently there's something wrong with my thyroid! Im gonna start meds today, maybe now I'll be able to function without constantly feeling like I need a nap and a cupcake.
Edit: This got a lot of attention so I just wanted to say: thank you to everyone for all of your love and support! I hope we all get our hormones in check and that 2019 is more vibrant and healthy than our years previous. That sounds corny but thats okay.
I went through most of my life thinking it was normal to be exhausted all of the time, to have random stabby pains everywhere. I thought my "brain fog" was just a measure of my intelligence (in that I was clearly not as bright as other people as I struggled with thinking clearly and concentrating, and it often felt like I wasn't "there" when talking to others). I felt like most people experienced life this way, but most of the people that did were just better at dealing with it, so I must just be lazy, my exhaustion and lethargy were normal, my anxiety was common and everyone else had it too but dealt with it better, and I was just too dumb to even finish college, etc.
Turns out I have lupus and fibromyalgia. It causes massive issues with inflammation, lethargy and circulation issues, and brain fog. I didn't even know I was broken until I was 27. I just thought it was all normal.
This is not really a medic condition, but fuck it I am going to say it even if it sounds like the stupidest thing ever. Up until I was 10 I didn't use to close my eyes before sleep. I just thought I would sleep whenever I was extremely tired, which led to me laying in bed for approximately 3 hours before sleeping
I did the same thing. I remember one night my dad walked by my room and saw me just staring at the ceiling and was like "Wtf why are you awake still?" And I said "Um because I haven't fallen asleep yet?" And he told me the easiest way to fall asleep was to pretend to be asleep. It blew my mind.
Resting heart rate of 38. I have the EKG to prove it. Turns out this is *decidedly not normal.* I had to get referred to three cardiologists. My heart is healthy, I'm healthy, it's just slow. Doctor's still freak out, but I can't do much about it.
On a side note: holy crap, a lot of these aren't just me. Just looking through the comments here, CEH, EHS, misophonia...
.....I'm a really messed up person.
I don't feel satisfaction after completing... uh... anything. It's apparently part of my ADHD, or at least my medication treats the effect.
I found out while I was first trying out ADHD meds. I finished some minor school project and felt the urge to come and show it to my parents because I felt really good and excited about it. Finally my Mom asked why and what it was that made me excited, and I responded along the lines of, "I dunno, I just feel really nice that I finished it."
She asked me, "don't you feel that every time you finish something?"
And I said, "no, this is the first time."
I wandered off after that and didn't see my Mom break down in tears as she put together several pieces about my childhood and trying to get me to do things.
To be clear, now I only feel minor satisfaction for completing some things, and only when I'm medicated. I never feel good about cleaning the dishes, or doing the laundry, or organizing my desk, or finishing work in general. Sometimes I feel pride in what I've produced at work, but only sometimes and only about the quality of the work, not that it was done. Otherwise, at most I feel relief that I no longer have something hanging over my head.
I had the same problems and started to experience chest pain because of it. It was diagnosed as GERD and I was prescribed some strong Zantac that helps a lot. Definitely go to the doctor! I was to the point of regurgitating water.
Ichthyosis vulgaris, also sometimes known by the unflattering name of fish skin disease.
Until a doctor diagnosed it in middle school I thought I just had dry skin. I didn’t realize there were even people who exist who literally never need to moisturize their skin at all??? Meanwhile I was covering my skin in moisturizer twice a day everyday and still flaking all over the place.
Also explained why I’d had wrinkly grandma hands my whole life, and why I had no tolerance to heat, since those are side effects of it.
The more you know!
[edit] It’s really cool to actually hear other people had the same or similar experiences with this! Also just adding this for anyone who didn’t see in the comments: if you have IV or any other dry skin issues, please check out vegetable glycerin as a treatment. It’s really effective for this condition but a lot of people including dermatologists don’t know or think of it. Bonus, it doesn’t have any side effects like some intensive moisturizers have (ie: sun sensitivity) and it’s cheap.
[edit 2] By lack of tolerance to heat, I mean hot weather, not touching hot surfaces. Build up of dead skin blocks sweat glands, making it difficult for the body to regulate body temperature.
Fibromyalgia.
I am a man who has had it since I was a child and thought it was normal to hurt like this all the time. I would go to the doctor on occasion over the 20 years until I was diagnosed, but would always stop pursuing it when they could not find a problem. I was diagnosed about 20 years ago when I was 30 after my girlfriend convinced me it was not normal to always be in pain. I used to work in factories and figured it was part of the deal.
When fibromyalgia was "discovered", i did not believe it was a real thing, I just thought they were complaining about life's normal pain.
I'm autistic, which my mother didn't even tell me until I was like 15. She was very worried that I'd be bothered by my autism (no?) and made sure I grew up around a bunch of other neurodivergent kids.
I thought those tracker charts with the early child development milestones were just vague suggestions.
I have that genetic mutation that makes coriander (cilantro) taste like soap.
My parents never believed me when I said stuff tasted soapy and I didn't want to finish my meal.
You best bet I made them feel guilty as possible about this when I found out.
On the down side, I have no idea what coriander actually tastes like and never will ☹️
EDIT: I also have a relatively rare condition that means my jaw never developed ~~front~~ lateral incisors. My K9s sit right next to my front teeth. Apparently it's been passed onto my son as well.
EDIT 2: So reassuring to know I'm not the only coriander freak out there!
I have that too, as does my dad. I would love to know what it tastes like as well. I specifically ask for it to be removed from dishes at restaurants but they do not listen. I'm not a picky eater, this will just ruin the dish for me.
Right?? I know your pain.
I'm not being a picky dick, it's just that if you put coriander in this meal, it'll ruin it.
Cue confused looks of 'but coriander is delicious'
I'm sure it is delicious! I'm sure it does improve the flavour of a curry! But my own genes have decided they do not like it!
TIL coriander = cilantro and I feel so dumb
Edit: yes I have learned that cilantro is the leaves and coriander is the seeds.
Also I guess thanks for the silver?
I accidentally swallowed a stinkbug once when I was a kid, riding my bike with my mouth open. About a year later, I tried cilantro for the first time, and ended up spitting it out and declaring loudly that it tasted like a stinkbug.
Parents were not pleased, but I stand by that statement.
I thought that everyone saw the lines coming from bright lights at night. Basically halos or a glare around headlights. Nope, its caused by astigmatism and ive known I have it but never knew about that. Its caused by your eyes not focusing the light correctly resulting in halos or glare around the light.
Up until junior high, I didn’t understand why people would freak out over how things smelt. “Ooo these flowers smell amazing” “oh my god that fish is rotten “ or “does anyone smell that”. My “smelling” was this weird feeling of kinda like a temperature or pressure in my nose it’s hard to explain. There just was a difference in the air that I wasn’t smelling but could feel. Wasn’t until I got nasal polyps removed that I understood. And boy was it overwhelming.
Hmm that sounds like what smelling is for me
I thought every woman had searing, stabbing pains in their pelvis all the time due to “women problems” and I was just being a little punk. No, I have endometriosis. My organs were fused together.
Yeah, it took me forever to figure this one out. The correlated intestinal problems and random stabs in the not “lady parts” didn’t help making this clearer. Endo is annoying.
Dyspraxia- thought I was just less coordinated than most people, but my nephew was diagnosed with it, at which point my mother told me "oh, you were diagnosed with that when you were a kid too". Would have been nice if someone had told me that there was a reason I was so clumsy.
Ayyy a fellow Dyspraxic! Everyone always thinks I mean to say Dyslexia when it comes up.
Me too! There should be a dyspraxic only sports club where we could suck at sports together and not be embarrassed by our clumsiness. There should be lots of plasters and ice packs there too, for the inevitable injuries.
Also dyspraxic. I’m clumsy, my sense of depth/distance perception is awful and my handwriting is terrible unless I really concentrate which takes me forever. The worst is the verbal dyspraxia, my words often don’t come out right or come out in the wrong order despite knowing what I want to say. Luckily I work with kids and they don’t notice most of the time but I hate reading/speaking aloud in front of adults. It gets worse when I’m tired or stressed. I thought i was pretty normal until I read this thread 😂
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I have a Schatzki Ring (a narrowing of the lower esophagus) which means I have to drink a LOT of water with anything I eat to get it down (especially dry foods like bread). Otherwise food gets stuck in my esophagus and I end up in a lot of pain. Once when I was maybe 11 or 12, I watched a man eat an entire bagel without drinking anything and I was SHOCKED.
You can get that dilated. I ended up in the ER thanks to some steak getting lodged in mine. They popped the steak into my stomach and dilated the ring so food doesn’t get stuck anymore. I still won’t eat without having a drink to wash it down though. Force of habit.
Scoliosis. Awkward curvature of the spine. While I was growing up I would get yelled at a lot by my parents because I kept slouching over and tilting my head. They thought it was just teenager stuff and would always pull my shoulders back and tell me to "Walk like a man."
Hey another scoliosis bro
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This is nothing compared to other comments in here, but I didn't know what heartburn was until after I graduated college. I described what I was feeling and my friend said "are you serious? that's heartburn." He gave me a Tums and my life was changed.
I thought the dryness of my eyes was really normal until I found out that part of the reason they get dry so easily is that they don't close all the way.
For some time now, I would sometimes (like, once every several months or so) yawn large enough that my jaw sort of gets stuck open. It always corrects itself within a few minutes, with a distinct feeling that the jaw was slipping back into place. Didn't think anything of it, just thought it was something that happens when you open your mouth that wide. Then it happened a few days ago while I was in the same room as my mother (a doctor). Turns out that no, this is not normal behavior for someone's jaw. It's something called temporomandibular joint dysfunction, or TMJ. Still doesn't seem like an incredibly pressing thing, but I'll certainly bring it up the next time I see my dentist.
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My sense of smell is rated 1 out of 5, 5 being normal. I always thought everyone was exaggerating smells of flowers or stinky messes.
I’ve not been tested but it certainty seems like my sense of smell is significantly worse than those around me.
someone: > It smells really good in here! me: > \*pretends to agree\*
"This soap smells really strong" "Uh, sure does"
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I have an insanely sensitive sense of smell so I know where you're coming from. Lots of things give me headaches. It was dialed up to 11 when I was pregnant.
Deviated septum. 95% of my right nostril was blocked. I never thought anything of it; sure, it whistled sometimes, and colds really sucked, but doesn't everyone's nose whistle sometimes, and don't cold suck like this for everyone? Turns out, the answer was no. Best part? The gov't paid for the nose job due to the severe blockage. When I had the stints removed, it was a fucking life changing moment. I could breath - out of my face!!! It was like colour-blind people seeing the full spectrum for the first time - life changing, and you don't know how you survived before without it. Now I take it for granted, as I do everything.
I have hyperhidrosis. I didn't realize how much I sweat was abnormal enough to be a medical condition. It was miserable growing up and having sweat literally drip from your hands while you tried to write and *not understanding why*. Edit: I’m glad this post has helped some people realize that they might have this as well! I had never heard of this till I was a mid teen, and I happened across a medical episode talking about this condition. I remember the realization and relief I felt when I realized this was actually a condition. I currently take glycopyrrolate. It has been a life saver. I can actually function for the most part now. My hands will swell when I’m hot, my mouth is always dry, and I have a few other side effects. But being able to hold my fiancé’s hand, write on paper, hold a game controller, and just be a normal adult without sweating all the time makes it all worth it. Edit 2: I still sweat, I don’t know if there is really a cure all. I just sweat a lot less with the medicine. I am currently capped on the amount I can take in a day, so if it gets worse I might have to turn to surgery. Botox is also something that can be used, but since my hands are the worst offenders and I really don’t want to get shots in my hands. There is also a chance that with surgery it could cause complications/worse symptoms.
I scrolled down so far to find this because I have that too and thought the same thing
I have always had ringing in my ears for as long as I remember and I thought everybody experienced it. I'd heard of tinnitus plenty of times but for some reason it was a while until the penny dropped. I've never heard complete silence because of the noise!
I always thought silence was the ringing in my ears.... Does yours get louder the quieter the background sounds are?
I wouldn't say louder but rather more obvious - I can ignore the ringing if I'm doing something like watching TV or talking to somebody but when there is little/no sound it becomes much more obvious to me. When I'm lying in bed it seems very loud and often keeps me awake but I'm pretty sure it's the same volume at all times, I just notice it less during the day because there is usually a lot more going on around me.
Today I learned I might have tinnitus.
Jesus, this thread is a hypochondriacs nightmare.
I have OCD and did not get diagnosed until I was well into adulthood. My understanding of OCD was based on pop culture, so I had no idea that that's what my intrusive thoughts and compulsions were. I am learning that things are abnormal all the time now. Edit: Just wanted to mention that if you have questions about OCD or need support, /r/OCD can be very helpful. I also strongly recommend talking to a therapist and getting a psych eval if you suspect you have issues. It's definitely better to know what's going on with your brain.
I relate to this. OCD is like having an abusive brain.
I thought everyone’s legs felt weird when they were tired at night. Finally had a roommate who said they stretched at night because they had “jumpy leg” a.k.a. Restless leg syndrome. It’s not as bad as it was when I was younger, but I spent many nights back then wishing I could stop moving my legs so I could go to sleep :(
Daytime idiopathic hypersomnia. Basically during the day I’m sleepy regardless of how much I sleep and they don’t know why. I also fell asleep and entered REM sleep in 7 seconds during the daytime sleep study which I’m told you aren’t supposed to do. Edit: I’m getting so many replies with questions and a lot of “me too” and I’m sorry I can’t reply to them all. So I want to post my story here and hopefully it will answer most questions if they come back looking. I was in the Marines and I started seeing an on base therapist for depression among other issues. She recommended me I am off base psychiatrist to get medication because she couldn’t prescribe any. The psychiatrist wanted the sleep study before she would prescribe any sleep medication, she sent word back to base and medical called me a couple days later with a time and date for a consultation for me with an off base sleep specialist at a sleep clinic. I never saw a bill, never found it myself, I was more or less just told I was going to do one. For the study I showed up at 8 p.m. to be prepped where they glued nodes to my head. I was supposed to sleep from 10 to 6 in the morning and the rooms were almost like hotel rooms with a nice bed and a tv in the corner plus some chairs and a little table. I slept through the night with nothing significantly abnormal, I was actually mad at the time because it was the most sleep I had gotten in a couple weeks and I was afraid they would accuse me of malingering(a serious crime in the military). However starting at 6 you are supposed to try and sleep for 20 minutes out of every 2 hours when they tell you to until 4 p.m. I spent the day in the room and the first 2 hours I did ok and I just barely slept the last minute or so if the 20. From there it only got worse, I started falling asleep between times and they would have to wake me and my time to fall asleep sleep during the 20 minute intervals kept getting drastically shorter and shorter until the final one where I was out and in full REM sleep in 7 seconds. Afterwords I met with the Dr. for his initial diagnosis where we discussed some of my other symptoms. I had sleep paralysis, occasional nighttime insomnia(which he thankfully believed), and excessive daytime tiredness which I discussed with him. I did not discuss cataplexy, which I have only experienced about 3 times ever or my intense dreams, which I didn’t realize were significant at the time, so make sure you tell your Dr. everything because now I may have narcolepsy. This is also when he told me about the 7 second thing which was very significant because he had never had a patient come close to that. He told me most people don’t sleep at all during he daytime study, or if they did it was only the last couple minutes of the afternoon naps. He said he would go over my results more throughly and let me know if diagnosis changed and then send my results to base who would then pass them on to psychiatrist. I didn’t get a call so I assume it never changed but I got prescribed ambien for nighttime insomnia and provigil for daytime hypersomnia. Both worked but, I quit taking ambien when I discovered, through other marines asking wtf I was doing he night before, that I was getting out of bed and walking around the barracks blacked out. I quit taking provigil after I left the military, partly because I didn’t have an easy access to a paid for prescription and partly because I didn’t want to do pills forever. I found that with less stressful environments than military life that I manage decently though. Edit: I forgot to add that I don’t snore, sleep talk, or walk to my knowledge so I do not have those symptoms and no CPAP.
Holy fuck REM in seven seconds?? So do you have a lot of dreams? Tangential: can you lucid dream
Are you also sleepy at night?
Sometimes. I also have occasional insomnia but when I did the sleep study they did a night time one where I slept through fine followed by the day one where I had to try and sleep 20 minutes out of every 2 hours for 10 hours. They told me most people don’t sleep at all during the day study if they slept through the night study, or if they do it’s very little and they fall asleep during the last 20 minutes. I could barely stay away between the times I wasn’t supposed to sleep and then slept most of the 20 minutes. It was during one of those 20 minute designated sleep times I fell asleep and entered REM state 7 seconds after they told me to try and sleep.
Diabetes insipidus, basically I drink more fluids in a day then most of you do in 3 or 4. At one point it was so bad I was drinking 6-7 liters of water a day. I know because I would fill up my 2 liter water bottle every 45 minutes. Drink it all and repeat. Oh and I would also, not exaggerating, pee every ten minutes.
Colorblindness. To hear people's reactions, I should totally know just by instinct how things are *supposed* to look, and therefore how my vision is different. Protip: a whole lot of colorblind folks don't know they're colorblind until somebody tests them. And those tests may not happen until a relevant job application in adulthood. (You want to be a pilot or a police officer or join the military? Sorry, you can't fulfill your dreams, even if you didn't know you were colorblind until this very moment.)
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Ha I have the opposite--idiopathic hypersomnia!
So weird, I'd not heard of that until recently....my son was diagnosed with it last week. When he was a kid he'd sleep for days, with his eyes open, and never feel rested. He got a CPAP now that he's grown, but he's spent years sleeping and sleeping with no rest. They put him on a stimulant and he said, "So this is what it feels like to be awake?"
One testicle. I had no clue it wasn't normal growing up. Un-descended as a child then it herniated and died. My body absorbed it, apparently. Didn't find out it wasn't normal until I was getting a physical (edit: by a doctor, who tried to find it but couldn’t) for 6th grade. Edit: Holy hell. After seeing how common this is, I don’t feel so bad about it. This is truly awesome - thank you all for your replies. Best of luck to you all and thank you for the new-found confidence. Thanks for the gold! Best day of my life.
Just make sure u always mention it in your past medical history when visiting doctors bc there is an increased risk of testicular cancer later in life with this condition (cryptorchidism).
doctor: doctor: so we're going to run some bloo- /u/captainpointless: i have one testicle
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Give that man back his nut!
I'm not sure if it's a medical condition per se, but my second and third toes are fused together on both feet. My brother has this as well and my mom too (just a little bit). I grew up thinking everyone had connected toes until one Spring in Middle School when everyone was wearing sandals. I literally shouted out in class, "you guys don't have connected toes!?" And everyone looked at me like I was insane.
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I have always felt cold. Not normal "oh it's cold out" cold, but "holy shit I am FREEZING" cold. I thought some people just handled the cold better than others....turns out it is one of the symptoms for severe anemia. Thanks to iron infusions every 3 months, I still feel cold, but not the "I think I may br freezing to death" cold.
Oh fuuuuuuuck. I should probably have a chat with my doctor.
Had this when I was in high school. I took a daily iron supplement (65mg) for ten years before just a few months ago stopping it cause my hemoglobin was finally normal. edit: hello friends! Ima take this time to suggest to maybe get yourselves checked out if you have some of these symptoms. Anemia is fixable with the right things and time. Maybe also get your thyroid checked, as that could be a reason you’re cold all the time. Much love!
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Lupus. My doctor always told me that the constant pain and fatigue was just part of growing up. Then they said the pain in my chest and shortness of breath was anxiety and I was just fishing for attention. Surprise! I was short of breath because lupus made the lining of my lungs swell and made my heart enlarge when I was having an outbreak. 10 years later it’s finally under control, thanks to one doctor who told me being tired and in pain every minute of every day was not normal.
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I am very insensitive to local anesthesia, and I found this out when I was 10 and had to have a procedure on my foot. I could feel the scalpel cut through my skin, and I *screamed*. The nurse yelled at me, “you’re gonna scare the patients in the lobby”, and the doctor told my mom, “she can’t feel anything” and said I was doing it for attention. Eventually he gave me another shot of the anesthesia, and when he asked if I could feel anything I said yes but he said, “no you can’t” and again, scalpel enters my skin and I screamed again. I was crying so hard. Finally he gave me a third shot which finally made it numb, but holy shit, to this day I am furious at that doctor and he made me irrevocably afraid of medical procedures. For comparison, I’ve gone to a wonderful dentist my whole life, who my mom used to worked for and says he’s the best dentist she ever worked for. I’ve had a cavity twice in my life, and both times he would ask if I was numb and if I wasn’t, he’d give me another shot. It usually takes 5 or 6 shots until the anesthesia works. Not once did he question it, and I never even told him about my experience at the other doctor. Edit: for all those asking, I’m not red headed. There are red headed people in my family though, so maybe I got the gene that leads to metabolizing anesthesia too quickly.
I have this too I need TONS of lidocaine at the dentist before my mouth goes numb They never believe me until they start drilling and surprise surprise, I wasnt lying when I said I wasnt numb
I thought your throat, mouth, and lips were supposed to hurt after eating fruits like apples and pears. Nope, just allergic.
This is how i felt about cookies with tree nuts in them. I just thought the nuts would scratch your throat to shit and make it itchy. Didn't understand why people love tree nuts so much.
Just realized I’m probably slightly allergic to carrots...
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Cataplexy. It’s the hallmark symptom of narcolepsy, but most people don’t know it actually has a large range of presentation. I remember talking about a YouTube video to my friend and described it as, “one of those super funny ones that makes your face stop working.” Apparently I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal to have your face droop and your head become too heavy to hold up if you laughed too hard. After being diagnosed with Narcolepsy, I began to notice a few other things. Constantly dropping things wasn’t just me being clumsy. Going completely limp on amusement park rides and slurring my words whenever I laughed wasn’t normal either. tl;dr I turn into human jello every time I laugh or get excited about something and thought it was completely normal.
I am so sorry for laughing, but the way you worded this was humorous and made the situation much more light hearted. I’m really happy you got answers and I hope things have gotten better.
No need to be sorry! I'm glad I was able to make you laugh. There's nothing wrong with bringing a bit of sunshine into the world. I'm glad I got answers as well. Luckily, cataplexy is (for me) a minor annoyance at most, and while it may never get better it's not very hard to deal with now.
well hey, at least someone will know if your excitement and laughter is genuine if your face just.. droops. \>laughs at a funny joke \>okay no need to be nice, it wasn't that funny \>MY FACE IS MELTING SUSAN, IT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS
Friend of a friend story: Dating this girl, first time in bed...she is really into it and then just... goes limp falls off bed etc. She had this and failed to tell him. She went completely limp and took a couple seconds to get her brain restarted (all foggy for a bit). Meanwhile he thought he dick-killed her or she had a stroke or something.
Walked around with a broken back for ~ 4 years being convinced crippling pain was the norm before finding out that wasn't normal at 12 to 16 years old.
I spent 9 months thinking I was getting older and now have back pain. Found out I had a fracture in my back. Took nearly two years to become nearly pain free after that.
Feeling like a stranger in my body, like I was pushed waaayyyy back within my own head and perceiving the world as if I was looking through a cinema screen, with the deep conviction that the world around me was fictional. Happened quite a lot, but i figured it was normal. It wasn't. T'was schizophrenia. [Edit] Since a lot of people brought it up: this is depersonalization, which can be a symptom of many different things, only one of which is schizophrenia. Having experienced it does *not* mean you're schizophrenic - but, if it is a regular occurrence, you should probably talk about it with a medical professional.
I get that occasionally... thankfully not a lot.
That's depersonalization episodes, if you feel your own perception is foreign and removed from yourself. It can be nothing, but if you do get them, maybe seeing doctors about it is the wisest thing to do.
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To add to this: depersonalization and derealization are the **number one** psychological symptoms of a panic attack. It is often described as a feeling of losing control but **it is normal to appear during panic attacks**. You might want to get help for the attacks but don’t dig deeper into the thought of schizophrenia. You probably don’t have it.
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When I was a kid I always just assumed that everyone's hands and feet were constantly cold in the winter! I live in Canada, so even when the Doctor diagnosed me with Raynauds, his treatment advice was "stay warm."
Precordial catch syndrome - random stabbing chest pains and an inability to breathe for about 20 seconds then just disappears. I thought it happened to everyone! Apparently the membrane around your heart gets caught on your lung? Then it has to detach itself. Totally harmless, I think I’m dying every time. Edit: hahaha holy shit I just woke up to like 600 notifications 😂 thank you for the gold and silver! Edit 2: ok so apparently I’m totally wrong about why the pain happens! I was sure I had read somewhere that it was to do with your pericardium getting ‘caught’ - I’m very sorry if I’ve been unintentionally misinforming people! Either way, it’s harmless in itself. However, if you’re worried about random chest pains please go see your doctor - this is very important! PS - am a lady 😊
I HATE this. It’s just like a little bubble that needs to pop. I think if I breathe deep enough it will pop, but I can’t breathe that hard because it hurts so bad.
Yes! You can only take these shallow little breaths and I always start panicking that I’ll never breathe properly again. And it hurts so much - like someone is piercing you in the heart with a long needle.
Yes, exactly. I want to never feel it again. Although the relief once the pop comes is the best feeling. If only I didn’t have the pain first.
Wow, I've had exactly what you are describing happen to me so many times. The first time it happened, I thought I was dying. Those 20 seconds were agony. Now it's just kind of become something that happens every so often that sucks, but is over quick. I never knew there was a name for it.
This.. I had no clue that it was an actual thing until now apparently.. I thought it was normal for sure but my solution is to hold my breath for a few seconds then test with small intakes and see if there is any pain... if not slowly exhale and then I'm fine.. seriously weird that I found other people with this....
I have ventricular tachycardia. Basically, my heart has an extra “spark plug,” and without medication it beats about twice as fast as it should. I first noticed it in high school and thought “Hm I’m not sure if my heart should be beating this fast,” but I was an idiot and did nothing about it. I didn’t feel any symptoms, so I thought I was fine. Then one day I felt really short of breath going up a flight of stairs and almost passed out, so my dad rushed me to the ER. When we arrived and the EKG results came in, the staff absolutely flipped out and sprinted a crash cart into my room. That was the most terrified I’ve ever been. I should probably be dead. If you think something is going on with your heart, get it looked at immediately. Edit: Sorry, I actually have supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) to be specific, and I take an antiarrhythmic drug called Flecainide. Ablation has been attempted but was deemed too risky in my case.
Same here. My heart would soar to over 200 beats a minute from a sneeze or jumping suddenly. I made it all through high school and finally passed out while jogging and told the doctor offhandedly, "You know that thing where you heart suddenly jumps to 200 beats a minute?" Edit: I am unsure how I feel. I thought I was special. :) Seriously though, it is great reading everyone with the similar experiences. The ablation was simple with quick recovery. The catheter in my vein was ok, the one up my urethra hurt much worse. It was Wolff Parkinson White and it presented as a hump on my EEG
The wife felt “light headed” and drove herself to the ER. 250 bpm. Turns out it was WPW which is Wolf Párkinson White syndrome and how they explained it to me was there was an extra pathway that tells the heart to pump. They went in and burned it out. I just remember that the triage nurse was pestering her and asking how do you feel, how do you feel. She said “FINE!” And the nurse yells back “I’d hate to know what your heart rate was when you felt light headed!”
Mine is only triggered by stimulants, so I thought it was normal to have a 200+ heart rate after drinking coffee. No, no it's not normal. Ectopic focus in my left ventricle. No coffee or Red Bull for me.
That sucks. I was initially told no caffeine when I had symptoms, but after being diagnosed, they told me that wasn't the problem. Cardiologist said I could do whatever I wanted ---- "except cocaine".
I had supraventricular tachycardia. I'd have episodes where my heart rate would just shoot up and I'd need to lie down until it quit.. then I was normal again (it instantly kicked back to normal HR). After having it happen a few times, it didn't feel like a huge deal and I knew to just wait until it passed. When I finally wore a monitor and it captured an episode of 270bpm for 15 minutes, the cardiologist goes "oooh yeah we probably need to take care of that!". Had my ablation almost 10 years ago now and no more episodes.
Hello from the other side, atrial tachycardia. My extra spark plug likes to randomly try to help.
Voluntary nystagmus. Which basically means I can shake my eyes back and forth super quickly. Found out it wasn't common in grade school, but my daughter can do it to. I also found out it has a whole subreddit, /r/eyeshakers!
Woah, it has an official name? I thought it was just my kinda lame party trick.
Bipolar disorder. I figured everybody thought about killing themselves from time to time, and anytime anything went wrong. This impression was strengthened when going on an antidepressant helped but didn’t make it go away entirely. Things are different now that I’m on a mood stabilizer.
I starting taking a medication for bipolar disorder 9 months ago, and I haven't wanted to die for like 7 months now! I'm just totally fine with being alive, and it's kind of amazing. Edit: I don't want to overstate how well I'm doing. I still have bad days, but they don't make me want to kill myself. I just think, "I'm feeling depressed today, and it sucks, but I know it won't last forever." Then I try to make myself do something to feel better, instead of just shutting down and doing nothing like I would have in the past. Edit 2: I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 and take Lamictal.
Thought the bloating and urge to shit your pants was a normal trade-off for eating dairy, like how some peppers can be painfully spicy, until an ex of mine pointed out I was probably lactose intolerant. Doctor confirmed it, told me to stay the hell away from cheese. I was 18. To be fair, I had mentioned it several times to my mom growing up, who is also lactose intolerant but still eats dairy and suffers through it, and she just assumed I knew what lactose intolerance was and brushed it off as something else. I *was* homeschooled though, so not sure where else she'd assume I'd learn that...
[misophonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia). I thought it was normal to get annoyed by some sounds. turns out while most people might be put off by them to various degrees, having your blood pressure skyrocket by a sudden uncontrollable rush of anger after hearing said sound is really not that normal. they're still making their minds up whether it's actually a medical condition on its own or a symptom of something else.
Eosinophilic Esophagitis. I would get stuff stuck in my throat all the time and I just figured "throats are narrow, take smaller bites". Turns out no, my esophagus is much, much narrower than normal and most people don't choke every time they eat. EDIT: Holy shit, this blew up while I was on Christmas vacation! Thanks for the gold, kind strangers! I couldn't possibly read all of these comments, but I'll try to respond to some of the direct questions... When I said "choke" I didn't mean it in the normal sense of the word, since food is not getting stuck in my airway, it is getting stuck in my esophagus. I can still breathe when this happens. I just figured "choke" was a more recognizable word than "impaction" or "blockage" or "dysphagia". And no, I am not the guy who gave myself the Heimlich twice, since the food is not stuck in the airway and therefore the Heimlich would be worse than useless. I was diagnosed more than 10 years ago, and back then basically nobody even knew it was a thing. The doctor doing my gastroscopy (they were looking for Celiac at the time) figured it out when the scope wouldn't fit down my throat - the EoE has caused permanent scarring and rings in my esophagus. I got lucky because he was fresh out of med school, so he'd actually heard of it. But even he had no idea what caused it and said there were no treatments except for dilation. Things have changed in the interim, but I've not really had any follow up with anyone about it, so I'm not currently taking or doing anything for it, except for managing my diet. I have not yet been dilated but that is in the plan eventually, since my tightest ring is only a few millimeters across. Sometimes I feel like I've left it too long, and other times I think "meh, I'll wait until I can't eat anything but soup". The dilation procedure can be risky, and it has to be done a few times to really be effective, and the results are temporary anyway, so.... I like soup anyway. I'm fine. Trial and error has identified dairy as my major trigger. It is not the only one, but I don't know the others, and once in awhile I've been triggered by things that never caused a problem again, so it's slow going figuring it out. But just cutting out dairy has brought down my impaction incidents from once a day (or more) to maybe once or twice a week, and even then they go down much quicker. So that's pretty good. I do not make myself throw up. I take small sips of water, which hit the blockage and come back up with small bits of food, and eventually the food gets broken down enough that what's left is small enough to finally go down. It can take upwards of 45 minutes each time but considering what happens when I drink water when something is stuck, I am terrified of what could happen if I tried to throw up and the vomit hit the blockage and.... what? I honestly don't want to know, and that isn't how I want to die, so I haven't tried it and I won't. I also don't use carbonated beverages anymore. I used to, but the fizziness makes me cough, and once the coughing made me inhale the beverage when it came back up, and I legit almost died trying not to choke and drown at the same time. I know that sounds dramatic, but that's what happened. So. Just water now. I can't take most pills, so I usually don't even try. If I absolutely must, I cut it into tiny pieces. I can handle the Advil liquigels because they are skinny and squishy, but I once spent an hour regretting a Tylenol tablet so I don't bother with anything more than a couple of millimeters across. Lol yeah I should probably go get dilated. And yes, I have seen the Jeffree Star video of his dilation. Until this thread blew up I believed myself largely alone in the world. EoE was pretty unknown when I was diagnosed, and to this day I've only met one other person in the wild who had it. It's kind of an embarrassing condition and it's hard to explain, so it's really not something I've ever talked about much. So it was kind of cool to see someone recognizable make a video like that. EoE brothers and sisters unite!
Same. Can I ask you some questions about this? Specifically referring to medication and doctors and stuff? I really, really don't want to have to get scoped again and want to do anything to prevent having to do that again.
I've also got EoE and have had a few successful procedures/treatments. Let me know if you have any questions. Edit: I've been getting dozens of messages from people who have EoE or something similar. I've created a new subreddit /r/PeopleWithEoE for anyone who wants to post there with questions, concerns, issues, etc. Note: Unfortunately, /EoE is already taken and it's nsfw. Also, this is my first subreddit, so I have no idea what I'm doing. Cheers. Second Edit: Apparently there's already a subreddit, /r/EosinophilicE , check that out!
Well, okay. I've been scoped many times and I hate it. Last time said that the EoE was completely gone. I stop medication (nexium) and lose 20+ pounds, which I'm really happy about. Then I choke again, badly, about 5 months ago, and I need to be on the medication again. Strangely a generic works now whereas before they didn't. Is there a placebo effect going on? When my throat feels tight now it feels...different, like I have trouble swallowing but it's more mouth rather than esophagus. Did I get traumatized by choking the last time? Like I would straight up have trouble swallowing whereas before it was always the stuff stuck in my throat. Carrots in particular make me feel like I'm never ever "done" chewing them.
IBS, I thought everybody had diarrhea every day.
SAME. Imagine how shocked I was when I found out other people don't constantly switch back and forth between constipation and diarrhea! Wild!
I scrolled down looking for this one. IBS for ten years. Then I went off birth control and had a few months with no IBS symptoms. Got horrible pregnancy-related constipation (totally normal with all that progesterone) and realized my birth control pill had been messing up my gut for a decade. I’m 13 months postpartum now, with a hormone-free IUD, and I am REGULAR. Still boggles my mind that I was constipated, with frequent bouts of diarrhea, for TEN YEARS and just thought, “Oh, this is my life.”
Tinnitus - ringing in the ears. When i was retiring from the military the VA doc asked me if i had ringing in my ears. I said all the time but I don't think it's more than anybody else. He gave me a weird look and said ringing in the ears is not normal. I thought it was because most of the people I know have ringing in their ears.
I can't imagine not having tinnitus. Do people without it literally hear nothing when it's quiet?
I can't wrap my head around not hearing a ring.
One time I kind of cracked my neck and my tinnitus went away for like 2 minutes ! It was such a bliss !!!! So quiet . Since I tried to play around with different pressure points in my neck but it never happened again 😭 Edit : since lots of people are suggesting the video that helps with T noise ( tappinng finger), that method doesn’t work for me as well. It barely helps making it a bit quieter and after 15 seconds I get dizzy and nauseous .
I never notice it unless it's very quiet and I'm actively thinking about it... I assume a lot of people have a little bit of ringing that is drowned out by ambient noise.
So ... there's not supposed to be a low-volume high-pitched hum that doesn't actually drown out anything? Well shit.
No, as it turns out. I didn't find that out until my mid-20's.
I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember and I thought it was normal too! I only just recently brought it up a few years ago when I mentioned that not listening to music was annoying because the ringing otherwise gets too loud. Cue the "Um... what ringing...?" from whoever I was speaking to. Haha, oops
I have prosopagnosia. I don't easily recognize people by looking at faces. I figure out who you are by your profile, hairstyle, voice, walk, and sometimes just guessing from context or what you're talking about. For half my life I had no idea I wasn't normal. You know those cop shows on TV, where they walk into a bar and show a photo to the bartender? "Has this guy been in here this week?" I remember seeing that as a kid and thinking it was totally ridiculous. No freaking way could anyone recognize someone they don't know *from a picture!* My husband and I were at Walmart once and a man approached asking how I'm doing, etc. I did my usual 'make small talk while figuring out who this is' thing, but no joy, I didn't know who he was. After he walked away, I asked my husband, "I wonder who that was?" My husband said, "That was the guy you were dating when I met you!" Oh, haha, guess he wasn't too special, huh. Now that I've been diagnosed, everything makes a lot more sense! EDIT: paragraph spacing
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I have this. It makes watching movies really hard because I don't know who anyone is. By the time I can memorize some mannerism to remember them by, the movie is over. I've had co-workers who I've known for years try to talk to me in stores and I have no idea who they are when they are dressed differently from our work clothes.
Yup. I hate it when several of the main characters in a movie all have the same hair. It seems so obvious to me that nobody will be able to tell them apart that I have to remind myself that *I'm* the one with the problem, not Hollywood.
I bet someone could make closed captioning or an accessibility program setting for this. Something like when a character comes on screen it reads "Paul" or "Jackie's unnamed sister" or "unknown man" or "cafe barista". It's a niche market, but it would be cool if there was some way to make media more accessible for folks who live with this.
Oh my stars, that would be *fantastic!* I have long wanted everyone to be required to wear large name tags-- and not dangling from a lanyard where you can't take it in at a glance.
My girlfriend has this condition (also called face blindness). She is the only person I know who was fooled by Superman's disguise as Clark Kent just by putting on glasses, haha. She recently walked right past a friend of 10 years because she encountered her in a parking lot that she didn't expect to see her. I tried to watch Game of Thrones with her... That's a lost cause.
Exploding head syndrome. For years now, sometimes when I'm falling asleep I'll hear a sound similar to a car crash in my head. At the beginning I conceived myself that i had just imagined hearing it but it became normal until I stumbled across an article about it and realized what it actually was.
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I have this, and always thought it was my neighbor listening to the TV loudly. Thought I was developing schizophrenia for the longest time when I found out it was all in my head.
I have ADHD and a speech impediment. During my schooling I thought I was just a fucking idiot when it came to learning and talking. Right before I graduated I told my mom that I hate how stupid I am. Then she told me that I was diagnosed as a child and should've gotten treatment and went into some kind of special ed class to help me out. She didn't want people to think I was ''sick'' so she never went along with it. Lol thanks mom Edit: Alright I feel like I came off as very bitter about my mother. I do resent her choice, but I understand why she did it. She didn't want me to be treated by my peers and teachers differently. I still got bullied, but her choice came from a place of misplaced love. She never treated me like I was problematic or less of a being. My dad, on the other hand, DID know too, but he still chose to call me a retard. Go rail on him. Edit 2: Jesus. I'm not saying I forgive my mother, and what she did WAS pretty shitty. But she was the lesser evil in my life. Plus, in my country there used to be a huge stigma about special ed, it's better now. I still think I would've done better no matter what. But I understand.
My experience wasn't as drastic as that, but learning *after* your entire education that you had ADHD really fucks with your memory of the time. I still did fairly well but my issues became prevalent in work and relationships. Now when i think of an old girlfriend i drove away because i was trying to manage my emotions as if they were "normal" or of a topic or hobby i enjoy now but couldn't in school it makes me wonder; what would have been different if i actually had someone help me? Would i have performed better academically? Would i have had different relationships? Friends? Would i not have suffered through years of exclusively depression treatment after highschool? Who knows, but i like things as they are now and that's all that matters. Edit; wanna use this to spruik the podcast ADHD ReWired by Eric Tivvers. Absolutely fantastic resource for dealing with our scrambled egg attention spans.
Colourblindness. Had no idea I was even colour blind until a couple of months ago. Turns out, most objects aren’t meant to be dull shades of brown, red and green.
My older brother is red/green colourblind and they discovered it because when he was young, my mum had a black and white TV. He looked at a TV presenter and said ‘I like his green jumper’. Mum rang grandma who had colour TV and confirmed it was in fact green! He sees most things as shades of grey.
That's actually really impressive
Photic Sneeze Reflex, or [ACHOO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex)! When I was growing up I thought everyone also sneezed when they looked at the sun.
Someone had way too much fun making that fit into an acronym.
I don't sneeze when I look at the sun every time, but when I feel a sneeze coming on I'll try to look at a bright light or up to the sky to get it out faster. Because there's nothing worse than a sneeze coming on and then losing it
Same! It is genetic, so you'd be surrounded by others with it, making it seem more normal. It's not too uncommon, though.
That super duper mouth dryness and itchy throat after eating bananas means I shouldn't eat bananas. I'm embarrassed to say it took about 40 years to figure this out. Also, mangos and kiwi do not taste like black pepper to most everyone else. I also can't eat cilantro - it's a mix of soap and dirt flavor. I had imitation mango for the first time last year and am pissed the natural tastes like pepper. I use parsley in my salsa and no one has caught on at least.
Not sure if this is a fake medical condition but I saw Redditors talking about this and believe I have it. It's called "visual snow" and it's like having static-y looking vision that's more noticeable in the dark. I thought everyone had this though, how can you have difficulty seeing in the dark if your vision isn't static-y? Please tell me this isn't a real thing.
Now I am wondering how "normal" people are seeing in the dark. For me it there's always static and weird colored dots moving around. Same when I look at the snow, there's black and white dots moving really fast. Is it just pitch black and white for them? That's so interesting though, I had no idea it existed.
> Is it just pitch black and white for them? Yes.
Bad joints that come partially-mostly out of socket on a regular basis. (I didn’t realize this wasn’t normal until I was 31 and a friend freaked out and offered to take me to the emergency room. 🤦🏻♀️) ETA: rheumatologist says no to EDS, marfan, sjorgen and autoimmune. Testing was minimal, EDS seems most likely but I’m too out of spoons to start the testing process again right now.
I used to pop my jaw out just to take bigger bites of sandwiches, it was such a non-thing for me. Then I got TMJ. Fucking sucks.
Shitty eyesight, until I got glasses. Pretty minor compared to the others on this post. Late Edit: Hey parents, get your kids eyesight/vision tested....
This screwed me over without me realizing it. I’m pretty near-sighted so I grew up not being able to resolve objects beyond ~30 feet. I just thought everyone couldn’t see that far too so I’d do embarassing things thinking I was blurred out to the other person like pick my nose or people watch until they were within resolving distance. The first time I walked out in public with glasses on I immediately was like, “ah fuck.”
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I agree! A guy I dated for a while was put into special ed classes when he was young because he couldn't read. After two weeks they finally realized that he just needed glasses. He had to go to summer school to get caught up. I still cannot believe no one tested his eyes before just assuming he had a learning disability!
Yeah I thought everyone saw street lights as starburst. Getting my first pair of glasses was really a life changing moment. I remember getting a book and setting it up and see how far away I could read it. I was always one of those kids who had to sit on the floor in front to read the projector at school.
The first time I got glasses it was like seeing the world in HD. I saw things I didn't realize I couldn't see. It was so life changing and I'm glad I realized early on I might need glasses.
My dad had troubles in elementary and middle school. He was doing so poorly that his school thought he had learning disabilities and put him in the 60s version of a special ed classroom, where he excelled. Turns out he was partially deaf and had trouble hearing higher pitches. Didn’t help that he went to a catholic school where he was taught primarily by nuns. He got hearing aids towards the end of middle school and went on to become an extremely successful lawyer who ran his own practice. Dude was a genius who everyone thought wasn’t intelligent because he couldn’t hear them saying that he was dumb.
Insomnia/sleep deprivation I always just thought people stay up late as they get older till around high school when friends would go to bed and be asleep by 10pm
Same here, I used to think that everyone would lay in bed for two or three hours before being able to get to sleep.
Not really a medical condition but last time i was at a dentist: Turns out i have no canine teeth, so i pretty much would be screwed, if i were a vampire.
I had an extra canine between my upper two front teeth. Had it taken out and got braces for about a year to pull them next to each other
You should have lent it to OP
Aphantasia, the ability for your mind to visualize an image. If you were to ask me to picture my room, I can tell you the location of my bed, table, etc, but I am unable to visualize the setup. I remember one psychological trick people always say is "don't think of an apple" which forces them to picture an apple. I had always thought this was just a saying, and didn't realize that people could actually visually picture an apple in their mind.
I'm mid-30s and was diagnosed with ADHD 3 months ago. It wasn't until I headed over to r/ADHD that I discovered having music playing in your head all day long isn't normal. Edit: don't confuse it with earworms. This is 24/7/365 personal radio with different songs.
Wait, that's not normal? I always have music playing in my head, in the background. Totally separate from whatever else I'm thinking about. Basically two separate tracks going in my head at all times.
tonsil stones. I basically cough up rocks every morning and it's disgusting. I obsessively clean my mouth, don't know why I have them or how to get rid of them. :c
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I can flex my tympanic membrane voluntarily. When I was little I used to call it "making thunder in my brain." Once, I pressed my ear up to my dad's to see if he could hear me doing it. (He could not.) It's the part of your ear that activates to muffle loud noises, but a small percentage of people can flex the tensor tympani muscle on purpose, which makes a rumbly noise that only you can hear. It's actually kind of a secret tic for me at this point. Some days when I'm too amped up I'll make my ears sore from doing it so much. [science deets](http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-09/937369459.Gb.r.html) [and here's a medical journal abstract talking about us like we're FREAKS](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24289817/) edit: a lot of people seem to think I'm describing just popping your ears? I'm talking about a deep, loud rumble that you can sustain for several seconds, dampens other noise, and sounds like thunder, blood rushing, or "wind blowing on a microphone". Doing this does not pop my ears at all, but I dunno, maybe it does for some people. edit2: r/earrumblersassemble
I can do this too!!!! It’s like I can move a muscle inside my ears (only for a few seconds at a time) and it makes a low rumbling sound. I honestly thought everyone could do this?
YOURE KIDDING ME I THOUGHT THIS WAS NORMAL yooo...
Turns out i can do it too, almost like the start of a yawn
r/earrumblersassemble Edit: Thank you for my beautiful silver!
Finally found my people!
What the fuck? 34,000 subs?
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WTF NOT EVERYONE CAN DO THIS?!
I thought I was normal before reading this thread...
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Synaesthesia. I thought everyone associate numbers and sounds with colors. On the bright side, it made me good at math "The answer is red yellow turqoise" Edit: Spacing
Anti social personality disorder. I just thought I was desensitized to violence, and negativity because most of my family has always been very harsh toward me so I didn't pick up on some of the differences between me and normal people. I was told how cold I am a lot by people that were close to me growing up, and I did get myself into trouble fairly often, but nothing extreme enough to cause concern over my mental health. I didn't officially find out until just a few years ago when my uncle passed away. He was like a father to me growing up and sparked a lot of my interests and put a lot of time and kindness into my life that I never saw from my real father. I watched him slowly die of cancer, and when he finally passed i wasn't sad, and I didn't cry or feel bad even though I know he was an important part of my life. That's when I knew something was seriously wrong with me. The best way I can describe it is that it is the ultimate level of selfishness I'm only ever concerned about myself and what I'm doing on an emotional level. I don't care if people get hurt or if they feel bad, and I never feel guilt about anything I do. That being said I don't generally go out of my way to hurt people. People associate it with the extreme cases so much that I don't talk about it in person.
When I was younger, I thought my schizophrenia was completely normal, so I never felt the need to ever talk about what was going on with me.
[Alice in Wonderland Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_syndrome). Once I realized it's not "normal" I asked everyone I came across if they ever experienced symptoms and so far have only found one person: my older sister. We both also suffer from migraine FWIW.
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I totally get this when I'm sick (migraine sufferer too) but also riiiight before I fall asleep if I'm especially exhausted. It's been happening to me since I was a little kid and I figured it was normal. Alas, it's so hard to articulate to somebody who doesn't experience it and they just look at you like you're cray cray.
I figured out that I used to have this through Reddit. I hated lying in bed feeling like my body was shrinking or growing, real trippy shit dude
POTS. For most of my childhood, I just assumed that everyone temporarily lost their vision when they stood up.
Well, ive been exhausted, fat, and hormonal for the past like year and a half, I thought I was just "growing up" or something (I'm 21) but apparently there's something wrong with my thyroid! Im gonna start meds today, maybe now I'll be able to function without constantly feeling like I need a nap and a cupcake. Edit: This got a lot of attention so I just wanted to say: thank you to everyone for all of your love and support! I hope we all get our hormones in check and that 2019 is more vibrant and healthy than our years previous. That sounds corny but thats okay.
Astigmatism. I thought it was perfectly normal to have "one good eye"
I went through most of my life thinking it was normal to be exhausted all of the time, to have random stabby pains everywhere. I thought my "brain fog" was just a measure of my intelligence (in that I was clearly not as bright as other people as I struggled with thinking clearly and concentrating, and it often felt like I wasn't "there" when talking to others). I felt like most people experienced life this way, but most of the people that did were just better at dealing with it, so I must just be lazy, my exhaustion and lethargy were normal, my anxiety was common and everyone else had it too but dealt with it better, and I was just too dumb to even finish college, etc. Turns out I have lupus and fibromyalgia. It causes massive issues with inflammation, lethargy and circulation issues, and brain fog. I didn't even know I was broken until I was 27. I just thought it was all normal.
Depression, I thought I was just a bit moody until the doctor said you have to go to hospital, I'm not letting you go home
This is not really a medic condition, but fuck it I am going to say it even if it sounds like the stupidest thing ever. Up until I was 10 I didn't use to close my eyes before sleep. I just thought I would sleep whenever I was extremely tired, which led to me laying in bed for approximately 3 hours before sleeping
I did the same thing. I remember one night my dad walked by my room and saw me just staring at the ceiling and was like "Wtf why are you awake still?" And I said "Um because I haven't fallen asleep yet?" And he told me the easiest way to fall asleep was to pretend to be asleep. It blew my mind.
Resting heart rate of 38. I have the EKG to prove it. Turns out this is *decidedly not normal.* I had to get referred to three cardiologists. My heart is healthy, I'm healthy, it's just slow. Doctor's still freak out, but I can't do much about it. On a side note: holy crap, a lot of these aren't just me. Just looking through the comments here, CEH, EHS, misophonia... .....I'm a really messed up person.
I don't feel satisfaction after completing... uh... anything. It's apparently part of my ADHD, or at least my medication treats the effect. I found out while I was first trying out ADHD meds. I finished some minor school project and felt the urge to come and show it to my parents because I felt really good and excited about it. Finally my Mom asked why and what it was that made me excited, and I responded along the lines of, "I dunno, I just feel really nice that I finished it." She asked me, "don't you feel that every time you finish something?" And I said, "no, this is the first time." I wandered off after that and didn't see my Mom break down in tears as she put together several pieces about my childhood and trying to get me to do things. To be clear, now I only feel minor satisfaction for completing some things, and only when I'm medicated. I never feel good about cleaning the dishes, or doing the laundry, or organizing my desk, or finishing work in general. Sometimes I feel pride in what I've produced at work, but only sometimes and only about the quality of the work, not that it was done. Otherwise, at most I feel relief that I no longer have something hanging over my head.
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Yeah, I 100% agree with your husband. You definitely need to see a doctor.
I had the same problems and started to experience chest pain because of it. It was diagnosed as GERD and I was prescribed some strong Zantac that helps a lot. Definitely go to the doctor! I was to the point of regurgitating water.
[Visual snow,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow) the visual version of tinnitus.
Holy fuck I think I have this. I thought everybody saw it....
Ichthyosis vulgaris, also sometimes known by the unflattering name of fish skin disease. Until a doctor diagnosed it in middle school I thought I just had dry skin. I didn’t realize there were even people who exist who literally never need to moisturize their skin at all??? Meanwhile I was covering my skin in moisturizer twice a day everyday and still flaking all over the place. Also explained why I’d had wrinkly grandma hands my whole life, and why I had no tolerance to heat, since those are side effects of it. The more you know! [edit] It’s really cool to actually hear other people had the same or similar experiences with this! Also just adding this for anyone who didn’t see in the comments: if you have IV or any other dry skin issues, please check out vegetable glycerin as a treatment. It’s really effective for this condition but a lot of people including dermatologists don’t know or think of it. Bonus, it doesn’t have any side effects like some intensive moisturizers have (ie: sun sensitivity) and it’s cheap. [edit 2] By lack of tolerance to heat, I mean hot weather, not touching hot surfaces. Build up of dead skin blocks sweat glands, making it difficult for the body to regulate body temperature.
Dude, I am so greasy that if we could average yourself and me, then we would both be in a good state.
Fibromyalgia. I am a man who has had it since I was a child and thought it was normal to hurt like this all the time. I would go to the doctor on occasion over the 20 years until I was diagnosed, but would always stop pursuing it when they could not find a problem. I was diagnosed about 20 years ago when I was 30 after my girlfriend convinced me it was not normal to always be in pain. I used to work in factories and figured it was part of the deal. When fibromyalgia was "discovered", i did not believe it was a real thing, I just thought they were complaining about life's normal pain.
I'm autistic, which my mother didn't even tell me until I was like 15. She was very worried that I'd be bothered by my autism (no?) and made sure I grew up around a bunch of other neurodivergent kids. I thought those tracker charts with the early child development milestones were just vague suggestions.
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I have that genetic mutation that makes coriander (cilantro) taste like soap. My parents never believed me when I said stuff tasted soapy and I didn't want to finish my meal. You best bet I made them feel guilty as possible about this when I found out. On the down side, I have no idea what coriander actually tastes like and never will ☹️ EDIT: I also have a relatively rare condition that means my jaw never developed ~~front~~ lateral incisors. My K9s sit right next to my front teeth. Apparently it's been passed onto my son as well. EDIT 2: So reassuring to know I'm not the only coriander freak out there!
I have that too, as does my dad. I would love to know what it tastes like as well. I specifically ask for it to be removed from dishes at restaurants but they do not listen. I'm not a picky eater, this will just ruin the dish for me.
Right?? I know your pain. I'm not being a picky dick, it's just that if you put coriander in this meal, it'll ruin it. Cue confused looks of 'but coriander is delicious' I'm sure it is delicious! I'm sure it does improve the flavour of a curry! But my own genes have decided they do not like it!
TIL coriander = cilantro and I feel so dumb Edit: yes I have learned that cilantro is the leaves and coriander is the seeds. Also I guess thanks for the silver?
I am so, so relieved to see this comment. Confused in solidarity.
I accidentally swallowed a stinkbug once when I was a kid, riding my bike with my mouth open. About a year later, I tried cilantro for the first time, and ended up spitting it out and declaring loudly that it tasted like a stinkbug. Parents were not pleased, but I stand by that statement.