How'z ur Inglesh?? :)

[cecilia]

yomping up and down 26 flights of stairs every day...

stamina is very sexy...... :-P

[Karlos]

cecilia wrote:

yomping up and down 26 flights of stairs every day...

stamina is very sexy...... :-P

One out of three, then. Could be worse :lol:

[adz]

Advanced

You scored 93% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 81% Advanced, and 72% Expert!

You have an extremely good understanding of beginner, intermediate, and advanced level commonly confused English words, getting at least 75% of each of these three levels' questions correct. This is an exceptional score. Remember, these are commonly confused English words, which means most people don't use them properly. You got an extremely respectable score.

Can't really complain about that score.

[X-ray]

@ Vincent

If you have been thin for a long time you may have an entrenched tapeworm (ETW). I can't provide a link, but basically it is a rare kind of tapeworm that has a very selective diet. What this means is that the usual medicines don't work and the symptoms are not overt. It just means you can't put on weight, and this may become a medical problem as you get older and your digestive chemistry changes. Up until now the only way to get rid of the ETW has been by means of surgery. Recent developments in Australia have resulted in an ingenious method to get the ETW out. I was reading it the other day...basically it works like this:

1) You have a low residue diet for 2 days, followed by nothing the 3rd day. On the afternoon of the third day you have a blood test to see what chemistry you have (it tells them what nutrients you are lacking, which points to what the ETW is consuming).
2) On the 4th day a clinic nurse (or in your case Sioux, because she can probably follow the instructions on the kit herself) gives you a light sedative and then you fall asleep, lying on your stomach, no pants.
3) When you are asleep she takes out a squeezy tube of chocolate sauce (like the stuff you put on ice-cream, but this stuff has been mixed with a synthetic formula based on the results of your blood test). Basicaly, the stuff in the squeezy bottle is what the ETW really wants.
4) A circle of this sauce is drawn around your tradesmen's entrance, and then the lights are switched off and an ultraviolet light is switched on (the ETW will not come out in normal light, and it can't see UV glow).
5) After a while the ETW will emerge to eat the sauce and that's when Sioux can use a pair of white plastic tweezers (glow in UV) to grab the worm (who also shows up nicely in UV) behind the head and roll him up like a bit of spaghetti. It is important not to roll it too quickly or to pull, because the worm could segment and then you have to wait a few days for the pieces to be excreted.

Total cost is about £32 for the blood test and kit, and £67 if a nurse comes to do it (you can get Sioux on the case, so you'll save money there).

You may not believe it, but I was talking about tapeworms with my colleagues just the other day, and I managed to catch quite a few of them with this story, and I'm sure I'll catch a few more...

[adz]

@X-ray

Yikes :-o :-o :-o !!!!

[Glaucus]

Okay X-Ray, could you cut it out with the medical horror stories already! Jeez! What is it with you medics, you really love to gross people out! My sis is a Dr. and she has a few good ones herself. Ugh!

:-D

  - Mike

(just kidding of course  :-) )

[Damion]

@Glaucus

Here's some worm info, the hookworm is especially nasty IMO...as is this bit:

. Serious, even fatal, complications of ascariasis result from the infiltration of the larvae into sensitive tissues, such as the brain, and from the migration of the adult worms into various body structures where they produce abcesses and toxic manifestations. Ascariasis exists worldwide and is believed to affect some 660 million persons.

Brain worms!!!

:-P

[odin]

Oh ffs! I am NOT clicking that link. I am NOT! :-x.

[X-ray]

@ -D-

Ja, those Ascaris worms are bad buggers. I once saw a kid of ten with an Ascaris infection..it wasn't pretty. The worms finally migrate to the lungs (I can't remember if the mode of travel is via egg or if they physically burrow) but basically this kid was coughing up LIVE Ascaris worms. It is an UGLY UGLY worm, my friend. It is tapered at both ends (there's something creepy about not being able to identify the head of a creature) and when they were collected in a specimen jar, they were flicking and arching against the plastic...tap tap flick tap.

OOooooer I get goosebumps when I picture that again.


@ All

That ETW story I told is utter fiction, but the Ascaris story is real (I gotta admit when I'm pulling the wool, eh?) :-)


@ Glaucus

Ja, medical stories (whether true or made up) just have to be told because they are so tasty  :-P

[Vincent]

@X-ray

It's not a tapeworm of any kind (was checked for them 4ish years ago when this stomache incident started).  I just have a really high metabolism, I've been thin since birth.  Saying that, I was the heaviest out of the three of us :-D

There are reasons contributing to the stomach, like too much acid (which I now have new tablets for, lets these work) and a few other things that I won't go into.  But we're still stumped by the main cause.

@everybody's reaction to X-ray's story

:roflmao:

[X-ray]

@ Vincent

I trust you have done all the usual things like blood tests for anaemia, endoscopy or barium studies for (insert inflammatory or absorptive bowel disease here) ?

Some of these things remain mysteries like the paraesthesia (numbness conforming to the distribution of a certain nerve branch) that I had in the late nineties. It involved the 4th and 5th fingers of my left hand and some of the wrist. It was bad, man. Burning pain that affected my grip. Anyway, here's what I went through for that:

1) X-rays of the elbow (there is a little channel at the back of the elbow through which the ulnar nerve runs (4th and 5th fingers are ulnar nerve territory while the others are radial nerve territory). This channel is called the ulnar groove and if you have impingement there, it can give you disturbances such as the ones I had. Anyway that was clear.

2) Cervical spine X-rays, specifically for the neural foramena. This just means looking at the little apertures on the spine where the nerves branch out from the spinal chord at the neck. These were okay.

3) CAT scan of the neck. This is to look for other nefarious things that could impinge on the nerves as they leave the spine. That was clear.

Okay, so no radiological findings that could explain this. Next stop: neurologist. Now this is where it got interesting. There is a nerve conduction/rate test called an EMG. Basically what they do is test the electrical conductivity of the nerves by stimulating them. How do they do that?
Simple...THEY FUGGEN ELECTROCUTE YOU!!!
I am not kidding. He stuck a 7cm needle in my neck, right down to the nerve, then made me hold a steel electrode in my left hand and connected the two of them via a circuit to a very fancy control unit. Then he turned up the dials and ZAPPPP!!! I was given shocks of increasing strength and my arm was flailing around uncontrollably.
My mate, that was unpleasant, to put it mildly. This went on for about 40 minutes, with the dude changing needle positions and voltages and current. He couldn't find the branch on the forearm (said my forearms were too muscularly dense for him to localise) and this resulted in a lot of probing with that needle, followed by shocks to see if he was in the right place.

What was the result of all this torture? Well, nothing helpful. He just said the conduction was within normal limits at the arm but slightly under at the neck. Nothing was ever found and the condition went away after a year.

So I feel for you, if you've had tests and they found nothing.

[Glaucus]

LA LA LA LA LA - I CAN'T HEAR YOU X-RAY - LA LA LA LA ...

:-D

Btw, I don't believe a word you said!  :-P

  - Mike

[X-ray]

@ Glaucus

I know, it sounds barbaric...but it is true. An EMG is no fun, and they can't sedate you or use local anaesthetic 'cos its the nerves they want.

[odin]

Can you just not drop the gross medical topics! There are people here who are trying to eat chocolate you know!

[Glaucus]

Vincent wrote:
@X-ray

It's not a tapeworm of any kind (was checked for them 4ish years ago when this stomache incident started).  I just have a really high metabolism, I've been thin since birth.  Saying that, I was the heaviest out of the three of us :-D

There are reasons contributing to the stomach, like too much acid (which I now have new tablets for, lets these work) and a few other things that I won't go into.  But we're still stumped by the main cause.

@everybody's reaction to X-ray's story

:roflmao:

The is one GUARANTEED way to put lots of weight on.

Smoke half an ounce of ganja every day, and just let the munchies take over.

I had the same problem as you until I was about 23/24, then it all went down hill.  Mine was caused by dancing my tits off all weekend for ten years solid though! :-D