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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3204 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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What strange, unique, personal, harmless design flaws does your body carry? On balance, looking around, I'm extremely satisfied with my body, but over time I've noticed...some minor problems.

-- My ears clog up with wax, any time I get a cold or my seasonal allergies act up. No method of removal solves it reliably other than using those drops from the drugstore several times.

-- I feel like I can't really spit with any velocity. Seriously, I don't get how people spit on other people to start a fight, any time I spit it just kinda...falls? I can't get much forward momentum on it. I guess I could spit on somebody's shoes if I leaned over, but that seems like a bad idea before a bar fight?

-- I have seriously flat feat, the "barefoot" shoe trend is great for me. I'm still frustrated that it's gone away, I basically buy Amazon knock-offs of shoes that Merrill and New Balance used to make. I see a shoe that promises arch support and I groan. Supposedly flat footed soldiers were once frowned upon or something? But idk why, other than shoe limitations I've never had a problem.

How about you?

Flat feet. Unusual physical flexibility, although this is slightly harmful all things considered. Male pattern baldness. High cold tolerance; I sweat easily.

I get bloody noses in dry climates. If I lived in a dry climate without access to Vaseline I’d have daily bloody noses.

My bones and especially my skull are noticeably harder and thicker than most peoples, I've gotten comments on xrays and my weight being a bit too heavy for my volume.

I am hypersensitive to bright lights, but only in respect to the total amount of light I am seeing. So if it's too bright I can close one eye and the discomfort goes away.

I look like a gorilla; my arms are too long and my torso and neck are way too wide/thick. I have a great photo I like to break out for laughs of one of those "You may think gorillas look like people, but not so!" standees at a zoo where you are supposed to stand in front of it and go "wow gorillas are big!" but I perfectly overlap with the fucking thing.

And I have that wax thing too! It's supper annoying, I've had to have my GP irrigate my ears with hydrogen peroxide solution 3 times to remove a blockage that was messing with my hearing and balance.

A gene for congenital lactase deficiency.

It's harmless for me since I don't actually have congenital lactase deficiency, you need the gene from both parents for it to possibly actually trigger in a baby... but my infant son does have it, and it made the first weeks at the hospital very scary for us (it means serious lactose intolerance right from birth including for mother's milk), until they found the proper diagnosis and started feeding him lactose-free formula. After the first year passes, which is pretty soon, it's just going to be a equivalent to normal lactose intolerance and easy to deal with, but if they didn't have the modern scientific knowledge about this, he would have died miserably in few weeks from birth.

There's only, like, 60 known cases of congenital lactase deficiency in the world, 50 of them in Finland, and the Finnish cases are connected to two specific, fairly low-population regions in Finland, one of which happens to be the one where both me and my wife have some roots.

You can also try warm water. It works just as well as hydrogen peroxide for me, and doesn't tickle my ear.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

harmless

Either way, you have my condolences, nasty little disease

I don't actually know if I have IBS, afaik it's an exclusionary diagnosis.

But my symptoms are mild enough and varied enough that I think pinpointing a problem is going to be hard. Symptoms are;

  • Alternating constipation and diarrhea (psyllium fixes the constipation)
  • Very mild abdominal pain before bowel movement.
  • Inconsistent stools. Sometimes narrow, sometimes thick/regular. Sometimes flat, sometimes round.
  • Gas
  • No blood or weight loss. I did have a few drops of blood a few months ago but that was after severe straining (probably a fissure or hemmoroid) and dissipated within 2 days.

I'm meeting a gastroenterologist soon nevertheless, because WebMD keeps on telling me I have colon cancer and the resulting panic (which I should be able to but can't avoid) is probably causing a negative feedback loop.

Given that you don't have weight loss, and that you're not middle-aged, I highly doubt it's colorectal cancer. Still, you're doing the right thing in seeing a GE, since you might need an colonoscopy to really rule things out, including more benign conditions.

I feel like I can't really spit with any velocity

I think this has to be a 'you never learned it' thing? The velocity of spitting comes from, I think, collecting at the front of the mouth, building up air pressure behind it by squeezing the mouth/from the throat, and releasing it. It's hard to imagine a physical/structural reason you couldn't do that.

"barefoot" shoe trend

Check our Xero (prio/hanna being my favorites)

My ears produce wax at an accelerated rate, but since I normally have no qualms about putting q-tips inside my ear canal, I can usually take care of it. (If putting them inside my ear is bad for me, why does it feel so fucking good??). Ok, I managed to give myself a nasty middle ear infection once, but that was because my mom cheaped out and bought me the cheapest Chinese ones, which ended up detaching and blocking my ears for months.

I can't put contacts on by myself or remove them because my eyes flutter like a coked up butterfly when anything gets too close, and I can't suppress it no matter how hard I try. Shame, because I like wearing contacts.

My teeth ache when I'm looking at hot women while simultaneously craving them in the distant sense, it never happens when I know I can sleep with them. It's been the case for me ever since I was a middle schooler looking at the hot MILFs, and it feels a little like sensitivity from biting ice cubes. I don't even know what wiring had to get crossed for this to be the case.

I can't do rolling rrrrrrs, as seen in French.

My teeth ache when I'm looking at hot women while simultaneously craving them in the distant sense, it never happens when I know I can sleep with them. It's been the case for me ever since I was a middle schooler looking at the hot MILFs, and it feels a little like sensitivity from biting ice cubes. I don't even know what wiring had to get crossed for this to be the case.

Is this genetic immunity to pornography?

Doesn't happen when I look at porn, as far as memory serves.

It happens primarily when I look at a real woman who also happens to be unattainable.

It's also not particularly painful, so I doubt it would dissuade the average coomer.

when I look at a real woman who also happens to be unattainable

I don’t know who this non-stereotypical attitude disappoints more, me or your Desi brethren.

A general anti-simpery adaptation. Likely a fitness-enhancing trait in the current environment.

I'm about as anti-simp as you can get while still entering into a relationship with women, I don't think I've ever not split the bill on dates, and I wouldn't even consider it unless I was like an OOM richer and dating someone significantly poorer.

Er, the takeaway might also be that I'm a congenital cheapskate, but I'm sure the two coexist!

My right thumb is double jointed - it can pop forward in a weird and unexpected way.

I can disjoint my jaw out of its socket and back in harmlessly and painlessly.

I sweat like a motherfucker - I am constantly sweating, even at 65f. As soon as humidity rises above 40% or so it becomes noticeable.

Do you sweat mostly from the armpits, and perhaps even the palms? You can get the sweat glands lasered away if it's more than a mild inconvenience.

Armpits yes, palms no. I don't think I'd want to stop sweating TBH.

I'm sure that removing all sweat glands would adversely affect your thermoregulation, but if you're sweating all the time even at below body temperature, you might benefit from a partial removal. Hmm, I don't know if that's routinely offered as a service as opposed to all or nothing, but I'm sure they could work something out if you asked!

  • When standing neutrally, my feet are angled outwards by around 15 degrees or so. Everything about them works and feels fine like this. I'm pretty sure at least one health teacher and/or medical professional has told me that it's a normal and common individual variation. But it's surprising to me how many gym coaches and other such lower-level professionals have acted like I'm doing it on purpose and I should be able to just stop and point my feet straight. I can point them straight ahead, but it feels highly awkward and unnatural, with a constant tension to move back to my "neutral", and I don't think I could keep them like that while doing any significant activity. So the behavior of my actual feet/legs is just fine as-is, but the behavior of certain people about it is highly irritating.

  • I'm pretty sure my nose runs about 10x more than most people in all situations. It tends to be particularly severe around temperature changes, like eating temperature-hot food or going from a cold outdoor environment to a heated indoor. Keeping boxes of tissues around is pretty much a must.

  • A possible advantage or corollary to the above, I basically never get sick. The last time I recall being sick was around 15 years ago, and I only noticed when I came home from work and went to go up the stairs of my place at the time and found it much more difficult than usual, enough to make me think something was wrong besides just being tired or sore. I actually felt fine again the next day, though I took the day off of work anyways as a precaution. Aside from that, nothing. I'm one of a relatively few people I know who, during the entire course of Covid mania, never felt sick a single day, despite taking few to no precautions and breaking most of the rules.

My feet and arms do that as well. I had to push back on gym coaches trying to put my feet into a "correct" position for the exercise and to refuse any EZ-bar exercises they suggest.

My feet used to do that. Then I tried horse stance with toes pointed straight forward. After only doing it a few times my feet started pointing forwards. The body is very strange.

1.) When I was younger, I would start bleeding from the belly button like once every few years. It would last for a week or two, and then stop. It wasn't painful and it didn't seem to be infected.

I eventually went to a clinic about it. They said apparently I had a tendency to form little granulomas in there; that it would be possible to surgically remediate, but not really worthwhile.

I got into better physical shape, and haven't had a recurrence of this in nine years. I guess it just stopped. I theorize that maybe having lost a certain amount of weight, I eliminated any tendency for friction there. I was never actually so heavy, topping out at 220 at my very heaviest; but still, it seems logical. Everything really does get better as you increase fitness.

2.) I have a very short tongue. I have never known anyone with a shorter one. It is a little bit surprising that I can speak totally normally.

3.) In situations that lead to sweating, I sweat a ton. Huge volumes of sweat. I don't sweat at rest, and I don't have sweaty palms. But when I engage in athletic endeavors, I always out-sweat the competition.

One that my wife is fond of making fun of me for - completely unprompted by any remark about the integrity of my knees, unrelated to the nature of the visit, a physician asked me if I have Osgood-Schlatter disease. I did have tendonitis from basketball when I was a kid and I have experience IT band issues from running, but on the whole, my knees work pretty well despite me putting them through their paces. They're pretty stupid looking though, so there's that.

I am completely unable to whistle. Like, not even a little bit. All I succeed in doing is spitting and making a non-whistle sound.

I can't whistle either, but I don't know if I'm actually incapable or just haven't managed to teach myself how to do it!

I have the wax thing. When I first moved to London it was great, my local NHS GP would flush them every month for free with a syringe. Clearly this service was taken advantage of by the populace because about a year ago they said they now ‘discouraged’ booking an appointment solely for this purpose, so now I pay £75 to get it done on occasion at this chain clinic that has branches all over London.

I am the ultimate example of a Jewish wristlet (actually I say Jewish, but I have no idea if that’s a stereotype or just something we say in our family). I have the thinnest wrists I have ever encountered on an adult except for a 4’9 half-Laotian I met. All my family have thin wrists and ankles.

I hate that my brother and I have thin wrists. I'm sure it's much worse for men than it is for women, or at the very least I have never heard a man complaining that his girl is a wristlet.

Despite naturally being tall with broad shoulders, I hate that we never manage to build solid forearms and wrists. It's like the easiest thing to flaunt too, and I get pissed off when people who have never worked out a day in their lives have naturally thicker ones than me.

It's strange how different people can be. My thin wrists are the only part of my body I actually like. I'll often focus on them to the exclusion of anything else to calm down when I'm feeling bad about myself.

Are you a guy? I've never heard a guy say they were happy with thin wrists before.

Yes I'm a guy, as much as I may wish otherwise.

You can flush your ears yourself, but there's a minor risk of passing out from vagal stimulation, so you're better off just having someone else do it for you. Certainly not something that really needs a doctor!

Try not to use excessively cold or hot water, a little warm is ideal, but you should be able to pour it on your skin without discomfort.

I misread vagal for a second there and did a double-take.

Sorry, carry on.

Thin wrists and ankles are features, not bugs on chicks though.

I’ve never heard of thin wrists being stereotypically Jewish, as opposed to alleged things like (at least for men) larger noses, Jewfros, and somewhat greater hairiness overall.

I got the whole shebang: the nose, fro, wrists, the waterproof coat of fur. It's funny on me because the rest of me is fucking huge; so I'm only slightly taller than I am wide and have to by shirts a couple sizes too big to fit my neck, but I have delicate looking little lady wrists.

Doesn't seem to effect performance and there is no saving my ascetics, so I'll take it!

I am the ultimate example of a Jewish wristlet (actually I say Jewish, but I have no idea if that’s a stereotype or just something we say in our family).

Interesting, that’s not a stereotype I’ve ever personally encountered about Jews; I also have very thin wrists (I call them “little bird wrists”) for which I blame my mother’s genes.

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