Man Gets Drunk, Wakes Up with a Medical Mystery That Nearly Kills Him
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A man gets drunk and wakes up with a mysterious medical condition that nearly kills him, sparking a discussion on diagnosis, medical history, and the risks of heavy drinking.
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Also, Sherwood Anderson in real life.
He interviewed the man's spouse. They had a cocktail party at home the previous night and had been drinking heavily. At a certain point in the evening her husband had knocked back his drink so energetically that he had swallowed the cocktail pick along with the drink. The people talking to him saw what happened and everybody thought this was extremely funny, including her husband.
The pathologist confirmed that the cocktail pick had worked its way through the lining of his oesophagus and had eventually reached his heart.
This is also why they (bay leaves or more generally all laurel leaves) are such a massive pain in the ass to compost in most places.
The wonders of insoluble fiber and wax coatings on leaves.
This gentleman would have disagreed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito
Quote: "His digestive system allowed him to consume up to 900 g (2.0 lb) of metal per day."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30565781
Interesting constellation of sentences. So, the most important thing in a medical history seems to be where you've been born. Is Central America or the US better/worse for your health I wonder? That is not going to be clear here.
Better in some ways, worse in others. Central America will be better if you're considering asthma and allergies. It will be much worse if you're thinking about parasites.
Alcohol tolerance is another (native south americans have lower, as do some asian populations). Over time, env effects also creep up in the genome (ie altitude acclimatization for sherpas).
But could be also societal, level of healthcare, level and types of vaccines received and so on.
I very rarely have alcohol these days, it's just not worth the feeling of fatigue and brain fogginess the next day that's pretty much guaranteed for me afterwards, even from just 2 beers.
I suspect it's not unique to South Africa, but there is a somewhat pervasive culture here of excessive drinking. Back when I lived in a complex, I would often see people pitch up in the common area at midday with a cooler box full of beer, and basically sit there for the next 6 hours just drinking, what a waste of a day in my view. And most people don't even raise an eyebrow when someone casually mentions in the workplace this is how they spent their weekend. That the police here are both incompetent and readily bribe-able also makes the effects of excessive drinking particularly pronounced, like traffic lights being regularly knocked over.
You’re an (apparently high functioning) member of society who has a moral obligation to help police individuals who negatively affect the people around them. People don’t drink in padded rooms.
You can make society better by policing individual choices. E.g., in part by policing alcohol and caffeine consumption, Mormon men live 10 years longer than white men in the U.S. generally: https://www.deseret.com/2010/4/13/20375744/ucla-study-proves....
Most western societies rely too heavily on laws to govern every aspect of their society when laws and police are there for the extremes; the rest must be managed by shaming and talking to people who break the unwritten moral rules.
The reason for this is that societal morals evolve, change and adapt more organically than any rigid bureaucratic processes can. You don’t want law based dress codes beyond a certain bare minimum (ie. naked), but instead you want people to govern themselves and be encouraged to tell others off for dressing inappropriately around others in the community.
Western liberal societies in particular have slid down into depravity because we’ve made it _immoral_ to be individual moralists. If it’s not against the law, it’s all acceptable. A man that abuses drugs and lives off welfare all his life is as lawful as a man that works hard every day for himself and his family and pays taxes that contribute to supporting the former’s lifestyle. But they are not morally the same, and it’s obvious to most of us. But we risk losing our livelihoods if we say so out loud.
If you don’t see that as at least a little immoral that’s up to you, but I would never be comfortable doing so. It goes against my fundamental character. Society only works through cooperation, it’s not about a “debt”.
That seems awfully subjective and likely to devolve into vigilante anarchy.
There was a time when having a tatoo would mean you were negatively affecting those around you. Where do we citizens police draw the line?
I don't think anyone's recommending you pull on black tights, a kevlar vest with molded nipples, and a black cape and go knocking beers out of strangers' hands.
There is, however, such a thing as noticing if your friends and loved ones are suffering from addiction and intervening to see what can be done before the addiction becomes someone else's problem. And speaking from some limited personal experience? Sometimes the problem someone is trying to medicate out with alcohol is feeling like nobody cares if they live or die. You might be surprised how much someone going out of their way to care does for a person's psyche.
Tattoos don't generally correlate causally with vehicular manslaughter; overindulgence in alcohol does, we have the numbers on it.
I'm sure I'm low functioning on some other axis then.
>a moral obligation to help police individuals who negatively affect the people around them. People don’t drink in padded rooms.
You saying that doesn't make it so. I could just as easily say you have an obligation not to interfere in other's matters except in the most flagrant cases of it directly affecting you.
My experience as someone deep in their middle age is that it seems to have turned the clock back about 10 years or so in terms of the next day effects.
Then you're possibly putting on weight from drinking (having lots of beers definitely contributes to getting a "beer belly"), which is another potential health issue, which although can be mitigated by doing physical exercise (which you should be doing anyway), part of your time exercising is to just undo the "damage" from the drinking meaning you need to spend even more time exercising now.
Perhaps instead consider other healthier (or at least less unhealthy) forms of socializing, like board games, multiplayer computer games, outdoor physical group activities, etc.
As a business owner, I ultimately get more money if I manage to get in some extra work in on weekends or after hours, but between family, friends, children's extra murals and generally managing that I don't burn out, I absolutely don't have time to waste sitting around intoxicating myself for half the day.
Oh, and most people I know aren't proud to say they spent all day watching TV, although I confess that I used to do it on occasion when I was younger with less responsibilities. TV watching can be as good an activity as any when you need to take a break from anything mentally or physically challenging and the negative health effects do pale in comparison to the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.
I can't imagine how badly drunk you have to get to swallow something like a toothpick without knowing.
Yep! In fact there was an episode of House MD where the patient had ingested a toothpick and had all sort of symptoms like these.
I highly recommend every person that drinks alcohol track the number of drinks you have on a calendar and rate how you feel the next day.
I’m surprised wood doesn’t show up more clearly on imaging though.
Hickam's dictum is a medical principle that a patient's symptoms could be caused by several diseases. It is a counterargument to misapplying Occam's razor in the medical profession. A common version of Hickam's dictum states: "A man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickam%27s_dictum
Seriously? All this and you just get some painkillers?