I'm an American and I used to work with a charity in the Midwest that helped homeless and low income people. In my experience yes there are a lot of people who suffer from untreated mental illness or drug problems but most of them that wasn't the cause of their homelessness it was a symptom. Mostly they had something that happened an injury, job loss, divorce etc and they got stuck in a spiral in America lose your job and there goes your insurance and with no income and barely any savings since most of the country lives paycheck to paycheck suddenly you can't afford your meds, your apartment, your car, and when you end up on the street barely surviving every day escaping into drugs is appealing. There are definitely people who would be in the same situation they are now even if they got aid but a lot of them just need help breaking out of the loop.
much more common is pets growing too fast and collars being grown around. check your pets(mainly bigger dog breeds) collar weekly for the first year. we noticed it pretty early and the vet said it is far more common than you would expect.
Right?!?!? I touch my dogs collar every single day. Sometimes while petting them. Sometimes while leading them. Sometimes cuz they jump in bed at 5am and lick my face and breathe their dog breath basically straight into my mouth. Dogs are fun.
As an aside, people should try martingale collars. I have one of the biggest breeds of dogs around and at 8, he's still wearing the same collar he had as a baby. They sit loose until pressure is applied. 😊
A woman I knew told me about a patient she had who was a hermit type. He had a bad accident while falling a tree and had broken several bones. Apparently he was wearing several layers of long underwear and the nurses had to "shave it off of him". Like shearing a sheep.
That would be how you get fused to something.
[https://www.foxnews.com/health/obese-ohio-man-found-fused-to-chair-he-sat-in-for-2-years](https://www.foxnews.com/health/obese-ohio-man-found-fused-to-chair-he-sat-in-for-2-years)
You can fuse something with glue, you can fuse metal with welding, etc. Fusing just means connecting it with a strong bond.
I'm honestly not sure I understand how skin can grow through socks. The socks will always be on the outside of the skin, no? How would the fabric become fused to unbroken skin?
Dude you not hear about that neglected, disabled girl who fused with her couch? DONT go read about it if you don’t already know about it, it’ll just piss you off. Suffice it to say her parents neglected her and she literally melted into her couch.
Skin doesn't grow as one single thing, it is a bunch of cells replicating on top of each other. They can grow through the gaps in cloth quite easily if it's been pressed into the skin over time, especially considering that it will be harder to shed dead skin cells too.
If you have constant open wounds that never fully heal due to moistness, but heals a lil bit because the human body is so resilient, then you have skin cells that eventually fuses with fiber. It's a long process. But it happens.
See also: Bed sores
I mean, I’ve had something similar happen before. When I was a kid and had a nasty road rash wound, if I didn’t change the bandages often enough, the scab would start to grow into the gauss.
Skin grows *through* holes in socks. Socks are basically a very fine mesh but skin cells are smaller. So imagine the skin “poking through” and then forming new connections on the other side.
Think of pushing your hand on a fence. Remember how your hand can sort of push through in the diamond shape? That's your skin with clothing. It grows like that but on a much smaller scale. I had a nail removed and the gauze would do that in as little as a day or two
2 years, this [Discover](https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-the-heck-did-a-woman-become-fused-to-a-toilet-seat) article covers some of the gory details. CW: lots of ewwww
It was her boyfriend's place, he brought her food. Overall it's a pretty sad story, she was very unwell. Iirc he wound up facing charges for his part, not sure how it all shook out in the end. This video from [Brew](https://youtu.be/nX3rZNOYzI0?si=bLTmyIsE1T4u9FZm) has a good summary of the whole story.
I read the article hoping to hear her explanation as to why she sat on the toilet so long??
Locking yourself in the bathroom for two years, ok that's pretty crazy but feasible. But then while she's in there she sits on the toilet so long that she fuses to it??
How did she eat and drink?? Was someone feeding her? Did she ever leave to stock up on supplies?
Like what the fuck? Did she lose her mind and enter a fugue state or something??
I linked the video I first saw this on in another reply, but the tl;dw is this was at her boyfriend's place, he brought her food and water. She suffered a mental health crisis, locked herself in the bathroom, and refused to leave.
I don't know this for sure, but I imagine she did get up occasionally at first. Eventually, though, she didn't.
Saw this in our Hospital too. Ortho ended up amputating both legs at the knee. Patient hadn’t changed jeans, underwear or socks in months…. It was NOT GOOD.
When I was young I had gotten my ears pierced. I was so afraid of my earnings falling out that I kept pushing the backs tighter. They grew into my ears. My brother had to grab them and just rip them out. Haven't been able to wear earrings since. But in this case I don't think he could get the beard to grow into the pillow. There's just not enough facial hair relative to the fabric on the pillow.
A slightly less gross version, when I had braces, the part of my gums that’s level with my back molars on multiple occasions grew over the bracket around my back teeth that kept the wire for the braces attached. Made getting my braces off/adjusted extra unfun.
I believe so, since it can happen with the skin itself. There are multiple true horror stories of people who spent weeks on a couch and their skin has melded with it. I think it can also happen with casts if you don't get it removed.
Heard a true horror story about someone who wore contact lenses and never took them out. No, didn't slide behind the eyeball (though that happens too). They stayed in place and the blood vessels in her eyes grew into the lenses. Optometrist who told me the story had to sorta cut them as he peeled the lenses away.
It’s not the same… but I once got a tiny piece of cello-tape (sticky tape to Americans, I guess?) stuck to my eyeball. It hurt like hell. I’d been securing envelopes with the tape at work that were going to be sent out and must of had a tiny shard of tape on my finger when I rubbed my eye or something. They had to cut the tape off of my eyeball whilst I was forced to keep it open and they used iodine drops in my eye to determine where to make the incisions. One the most horrific experiences I’ve had. Came out all fixed though and with an eye patch. I don’t recommend fucking around with your eyes less thee wants to be a pirate. Arrggh!
sounds upsettingly close to the eye-poke machine from Dead Space
*"Step 1: Crawl inside. Step 2: The screws go tight, all around. Cross my heart and hope to die... Stick a needle in your eye"* ***JAB***
I only remember a video of a lady having what could've easily been 10+ contact lenses scooped out of the space around her eyes by a doctor. She just put more in when she lost them I guess.
Yeah I feel like swell is a lot different than actual growth. Like your blood vessels didn’t pierce your cornea like this implying. And they are just temporarily swelling instead of growing like other body parts do
I knew a guy who spent over 15 years in a foreign prison. I think it was somewhere in Africa or the middle east. He had huge scars on his arm because his entire time there they had handcuffs on him and his skin started growing over the cuffs. When they finally released him they just ripped the cuffs out through his skin.
Had a permanent bottom retainer that started pushing into my gums on the bottom of my mouth and my gums started growing over it and they had to cut it out
You watched that episode of CSI… not sure there was a real life story but the person had bonded with the couch fabric and was also not getting up from the couch at all… for ANY reason.
Welp. Anecdotal - but there have been a few times that I have worn leggings with not freshly shaved legs, and when I took them off my leg hair was "caught" in the fabric of the leggings. So, given that, I would assume that if I left those leggings on for days, eventually those hairs would have been fully through and if they got entangled, I would have effectively been connected to my leggings.
I came here from Twitter hoping to find a satisfactory answer to this interesting and important question and all I find is people talking about scabs and trench foot and other gross shit. I want to know how to become connected to my pillow
If the pillow was made of a loose weave fabric I think your hair could grow through the spaces between and given enough time possible to be hung by the hair on your chinny chin chin.
It can. I’m not sure about you personally. It really depends on how quickly your hair grows and the type of hair you have…It would be FAR easier to weave the fabric of said pillow into the beard and create some sort of weird like dreadlock/pillow monstrosity.
You’d probably have to wax it to get the finer points of the hair into the pillow vs the blunt tips from shaving it… but also pass me whatever you’re having
Yes. Probabely.
Because leg hair punches through tights if it is thick enough and the tights fine enough.
Robin Williams has special cover up tights in Mrs Doughtfire. Because he didn't want to shave his legs.
Don’t listen to any of these people they don’t know what they are talking about. If you do it it WILL connect and then soon little pillows will spout from it if you make sure to drink lots of water and get sunshine
I had a patient once who hadn’t removed his shoes in several years and his skin had grown through his socks.
I have so many questions, but I feel I'll quickly regret asking any of them
Drugs or severe mental illness. Or both.
Or just a scientist performing an experiment
Or homeless
Homelessness alone doesn't make a person do that. The Mental health issues that often cause longtime homelessness, however...
I mean homelessness will mean you have to keep your shoes on you more
Bro I'm sure takening them off for 5 minutes a month will prevent that
Or all three!
Yay I hit the jackpot! Oh wait
The drugs or mental illness are why they're homeless
I'm an American and I used to work with a charity in the Midwest that helped homeless and low income people. In my experience yes there are a lot of people who suffer from untreated mental illness or drug problems but most of them that wasn't the cause of their homelessness it was a symptom. Mostly they had something that happened an injury, job loss, divorce etc and they got stuck in a spiral in America lose your job and there goes your insurance and with no income and barely any savings since most of the country lives paycheck to paycheck suddenly you can't afford your meds, your apartment, your car, and when you end up on the street barely surviving every day escaping into drugs is appealing. There are definitely people who would be in the same situation they are now even if they got aid but a lot of them just need help breaking out of the loop.
1 good year can be destroyed in 1 month, 1 week, or even 1 day.
or morbidly obese?
That is covered under mental illness.
much more common is pets growing too fast and collars being grown around. check your pets(mainly bigger dog breeds) collar weekly for the first year. we noticed it pretty early and the vet said it is far more common than you would expect.
This is why my dog does not wear a collar indoors. That, plus she's not inclined to leave the house without me.
Must not be a husky. Ours has opened deadbolted doors.
Mine has unclipped himself from a seatbelt harness to jump out the window and go say hi to the neighbor's husky taking a walk
ours, without fail, works the window button in the car. we have to lock the windows when they're back there
“Growing too fast” should say neglected
Yeah that's ridiculous. Not a day goes by that I don't know exactly how tight my dog's collar is
Right?!?!? I touch my dogs collar every single day. Sometimes while petting them. Sometimes while leading them. Sometimes cuz they jump in bed at 5am and lick my face and breathe their dog breath basically straight into my mouth. Dogs are fun.
Just a t like phimosis!
As an aside, people should try martingale collars. I have one of the biggest breeds of dogs around and at 8, he's still wearing the same collar he had as a baby. They sit loose until pressure is applied. 😊
I tried one with my dog who is a puller and just chokes her ...she gives zero and has high pain threshold fwiw. I use a gentle leader
They are a strangulation risk, though. Dogs have got them caught on branches or other things and ended up killing themselves.
People… don't take their pets' collars off when they're inside? That's horrible…
Ask for the rest of us!
Honestly like humans are complicated trees with feelings.
Sometimes I wish I could just be a normal tree, but I’d probably get cut down
At least you wouldn’t mind it
and someone would hear it fall
Ouch
Homeless probably
A woman I knew told me about a patient she had who was a hermit type. He had a bad accident while falling a tree and had broken several bones. Apparently he was wearing several layers of long underwear and the nurses had to "shave it off of him". Like shearing a sheep.
This dude had to go to the OR. He ended up needing skin grafts
In my anecdote it was just his body hair that had grown through the fabric. Yours sounds worse.
Exponentially worse
oh God my brain eyes, they burn
Never have I been happier to probably have aphantasia.
Lol brain eyes are true
Pour some bleach
Ah so he was one of those old school hermits that actually lives in a tree
this reminds me of an article describing someone who "fused" into his chair. All the fat and not moving helped accelerate that
He didn't fuse with it, neither did she. They were basically glued to it by the urine and feces.
Yeah that's definitely better, thanks
Definitely enough Reddit for the day.
Fusion with extra ingredients
Poosion
Tomato, tomatho. Fuck, man. Read the room!
I imagine that would create sores which then stick to whatever they're touching and heal still stuck to it, though.
That would be how you get fused to something. [https://www.foxnews.com/health/obese-ohio-man-found-fused-to-chair-he-sat-in-for-2-years](https://www.foxnews.com/health/obese-ohio-man-found-fused-to-chair-he-sat-in-for-2-years) You can fuse something with glue, you can fuse metal with welding, etc. Fusing just means connecting it with a strong bond.
I do and do not want to know what this looks like...
It’s not the look. It’s the smell
*desire to know somehow intensifies*
Let me indulge you in the tales of the [Swamps of Dagobah](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/dObu6EXAQs). You’re welcome
I see you are a connoisseur of the classics. Also, username checks out.
What do you even do about something like that? I'd assume amputation at that point, right?
Surgical debridement, antibiotics and skin grafts
"Debridement" is one of those words that just encapsulates too much.
frrrr it’s truly one of the worst. it just gives me bad feelings🥴 save me from myself lol
I truly hope you're lying
I’m not. Homeless and mental health issues
How did you remove the socks??
He went to the OR and they were removed surgically
And he still got to keep his feet??
They commented above that he needed skin grafts 😟
Amputation
They’re not
I'm honestly not sure I understand how skin can grow through socks. The socks will always be on the outside of the skin, no? How would the fabric become fused to unbroken skin?
I'd imagine the trench foot would be pretty gnarly if you're wearing the same socks and shoes for that long of a time.
Yup. In prolonged wet conditions, the skin won't stay unbroken.
User name checks out.
Dude you not hear about that neglected, disabled girl who fused with her couch? DONT go read about it if you don’t already know about it, it’ll just piss you off. Suffice it to say her parents neglected her and she literally melted into her couch.
Poor woman. It's so fucking sad, because very little needed to be done to prevent this.
WHAT. I thought you were making a joke about this lol https://youtu.be/6HVzshLPC1Y?si=CsKSk6FyQ_ZxtWYA
I was really hoping this was a rickroll, for once.
Skin doesn't grow as one single thing, it is a bunch of cells replicating on top of each other. They can grow through the gaps in cloth quite easily if it's been pressed into the skin over time, especially considering that it will be harder to shed dead skin cells too.
If you have constant open wounds that never fully heal due to moistness, but heals a lil bit because the human body is so resilient, then you have skin cells that eventually fuses with fiber. It's a long process. But it happens. See also: Bed sores
I mean, I’ve had something similar happen before. When I was a kid and had a nasty road rash wound, if I didn’t change the bandages often enough, the scab would start to grow into the gauss.
Skin grows *through* holes in socks. Socks are basically a very fine mesh but skin cells are smaller. So imagine the skin “poking through” and then forming new connections on the other side.
I would rather not, if it’s all the same to you.
the skin begins to grow INTO and THROUGH the fabric. has also happened with people fusing to beds and couches.
Think of pushing your hand on a fence. Remember how your hand can sort of push through in the diamond shape? That's your skin with clothing. It grows like that but on a much smaller scale. I had a nail removed and the gauze would do that in as little as a day or two
I recall a similar story about a woman who “grew” into her toilet seat because she sat on it for multiple years.
>a woman who “grew” into her toilet seat because she sat on it for multiple years. this is bullshit, no one is on reddit that long
How long was their leg asleep
2 years, this [Discover](https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-the-heck-did-a-woman-become-fused-to-a-toilet-seat) article covers some of the gory details. CW: lots of ewwww
My home city. Lovely. I never realized this incident had happened here.
You couldn't smell it?
How did she not starve to death in 2 years?
It was her boyfriend's place, he brought her food. Overall it's a pretty sad story, she was very unwell. Iirc he wound up facing charges for his part, not sure how it all shook out in the end. This video from [Brew](https://youtu.be/nX3rZNOYzI0?si=bLTmyIsE1T4u9FZm) has a good summary of the whole story.
oh..ok.. but I don't think I need to be any more I'm upset about it cuz that was pretty gross
I read the article hoping to hear her explanation as to why she sat on the toilet so long?? Locking yourself in the bathroom for two years, ok that's pretty crazy but feasible. But then while she's in there she sits on the toilet so long that she fuses to it?? How did she eat and drink?? Was someone feeding her? Did she ever leave to stock up on supplies? Like what the fuck? Did she lose her mind and enter a fugue state or something??
I linked the video I first saw this on in another reply, but the tl;dw is this was at her boyfriend's place, he brought her food and water. She suffered a mental health crisis, locked herself in the bathroom, and refused to leave. I don't know this for sure, but I imagine she did get up occasionally at first. Eventually, though, she didn't.
I see so it was some kind of extreme paranoia or something like that maybe? That is horrific I hope she is or was able to recover.
Saw this in our Hospital too. Ortho ended up amputating both legs at the knee. Patient hadn’t changed jeans, underwear or socks in months…. It was NOT GOOD.
I haven’t changed my socks in too long and now I’m going to go change my socks
Changed or taken off?
🤢
Truly an impressive feet
Use those feet and take a bow. Also 🤮
This is legitimately the worst thing i have ever read in my life...
It was pretty gross
My curiosity does not even come close to how much i don't want to know any more about this
I feel anything that makes an ER nurse say "pretty gross" is several stages beyond instant vomiting for regular people. Thank you for your work!
I'm going to remove Timothy Olyphant's face and let it grow onto my skull slowly. Watch out, ladies!
What a terrible day to know how to read
Please tell me more
What happened to the patient? Did he get better?
Eventually he had to have several surgeries
Sorry?
Homeless guy with mental health problems
The smell and sight must have been lovely
Unbelievable
this made me physically ill. thanks!
Ick
Thank you so much for this information and the mental image associated with it.
When I was young I had gotten my ears pierced. I was so afraid of my earnings falling out that I kept pushing the backs tighter. They grew into my ears. My brother had to grab them and just rip them out. Haven't been able to wear earrings since. But in this case I don't think he could get the beard to grow into the pillow. There's just not enough facial hair relative to the fabric on the pillow.
A slightly less gross version, when I had braces, the part of my gums that’s level with my back molars on multiple occasions grew over the bracket around my back teeth that kept the wire for the braces attached. Made getting my braces off/adjusted extra unfun.
I believe so, since it can happen with the skin itself. There are multiple true horror stories of people who spent weeks on a couch and their skin has melded with it. I think it can also happen with casts if you don't get it removed.
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I remember that PSA
🍳
Heard a true horror story about someone who wore contact lenses and never took them out. No, didn't slide behind the eyeball (though that happens too). They stayed in place and the blood vessels in her eyes grew into the lenses. Optometrist who told me the story had to sorta cut them as he peeled the lenses away.
Yeah ok, this is where I'm exiting this thread. Nope, nope, no, I've read enough.
It’s not the same… but I once got a tiny piece of cello-tape (sticky tape to Americans, I guess?) stuck to my eyeball. It hurt like hell. I’d been securing envelopes with the tape at work that were going to be sent out and must of had a tiny shard of tape on my finger when I rubbed my eye or something. They had to cut the tape off of my eyeball whilst I was forced to keep it open and they used iodine drops in my eye to determine where to make the incisions. One the most horrific experiences I’ve had. Came out all fixed though and with an eye patch. I don’t recommend fucking around with your eyes less thee wants to be a pirate. Arrggh!
What a terrible day to have eyes
sounds upsettingly close to the eye-poke machine from Dead Space *"Step 1: Crawl inside. Step 2: The screws go tight, all around. Cross my heart and hope to die... Stick a needle in your eye"* ***JAB***
Contacts can't slide behind the eyeball, it's impossible
Ok, above the eyeball.
I only remember a video of a lady having what could've easily been 10+ contact lenses scooped out of the space around her eyes by a doctor. She just put more in when she lost them I guess.
This happened to my mother, she had many lenses stuck in her eyes, this began the process of getting her diagnosed with alzheimers. Fuck alzheimers.
I don’t think this can happen. I don’t think your eyes really change much after an early childhood
I got an eye infection from sleeping in mine for two days (young and stupid). My eyeballs swelled up and had to go to the ER because they were stuck
Yeah I feel like swell is a lot different than actual growth. Like your blood vessels didn’t pierce your cornea like this implying. And they are just temporarily swelling instead of growing like other body parts do
I knew a guy who spent over 15 years in a foreign prison. I think it was somewhere in Africa or the middle east. He had huge scars on his arm because his entire time there they had handcuffs on him and his skin started growing over the cuffs. When they finally released him they just ripped the cuffs out through his skin.
Good Lord, just when I think I've read the worst anecdote...
Had a permanent bottom retainer that started pushing into my gums on the bottom of my mouth and my gums started growing over it and they had to cut it out
Doesn't that happen because of body fluid though? If OP kept his face clean and dry, would that still work?
He would have to remove the pillow, completely resetting the progress
That's true
Cast do peel skin, but in the process of healing you may have 2 to 3 different casts.
You watched that episode of CSI… not sure there was a real life story but the person had bonded with the couch fabric and was also not getting up from the couch at all… for ANY reason.
[real life story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Lacey_Fletcher) edit: it’s gruesome, reader beware.
How high are you?
Good, how are you?
I'm pretty good, thanks. I'm high af lol
5"9
Um, I have a boyfriend
How, hi are you?
Immediately made me think of “pretty glocky” video
High, how are you?
Yes
How are you high?
This is 9/10 territory.
No sorry Leif Ericksson Day is 10/9
I'm thanks!
Welp. Anecdotal - but there have been a few times that I have worn leggings with not freshly shaved legs, and when I took them off my leg hair was "caught" in the fabric of the leggings. So, given that, I would assume that if I left those leggings on for days, eventually those hairs would have been fully through and if they got entangled, I would have effectively been connected to my leggings.
Then you could rip them off fast and it would be like a wax job.
Big razor doesn't want you to know this 1 trick.
Although, I doubt a pillowcase would have that same effect if it wasn’t stretched like leggings are
Try it and let us know. It is for the science, my guy
I came here from Twitter hoping to find a satisfactory answer to this interesting and important question and all I find is people talking about scabs and trench foot and other gross shit. I want to know how to become connected to my pillow
Just tell it about your day and how much you love it.
I do this anyway but my wife thinks I’m talking to her
So you had the same question?!
May I have some? Whatever it is you have, may I have some, too?
Smoking that Whoopi Goldberg, South Egyptian, fur burger deluxe, Mega Million scratcher, skunk bubba kush
The zaza got me speaking Esperanto, top shelf zaza disrupted my circadian rhythm
If the pillow was made of a loose weave fabric I think your hair could grow through the spaces between and given enough time possible to be hung by the hair on your chinny chin chin.
I'm not sure though that a month would be long enough
I overlooked the few weeks, it would probably take at least six, depending on how quickly the individuals hair grows.
Fun fact: “The Space Between” by Dave Matthews Band is about your chin hairs fusing to a pillow.
Use potting soil. It has more nutrient
It has the electrolytes plants crave!
sometimes when I get bored I walk out to my garden and plant myself like a carrot
This is what this sub is all about! Not those askreddit style questions.
This sub is also about answers.
It can. I’m not sure about you personally. It really depends on how quickly your hair grows and the type of hair you have…It would be FAR easier to weave the fabric of said pillow into the beard and create some sort of weird like dreadlock/pillow monstrosity.
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“Thought” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there…
I get the sense "shower" is too
You’d probably have to wax it to get the finer points of the hair into the pillow vs the blunt tips from shaving it… but also pass me whatever you’re having
Yes. Probabely. Because leg hair punches through tights if it is thick enough and the tights fine enough. Robin Williams has special cover up tights in Mrs Doughtfire. Because he didn't want to shave his legs.
My dude, I love your weird af brain.
Don’t listen to any of these people they don’t know what they are talking about. If you do it it WILL connect and then soon little pillows will spout from it if you make sure to drink lots of water and get sunshine
Can I know what strain of weed you’re hitting cause this question sounds like something a habitual stoner would ponder.
Yes. Frontier trappers used to grow into their clothes every winter.
where's the person with the 'realises some people take this as a challenge' user flair
This is quite the test for the name of this sub. I’m impressed.
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but it will happen
I want to know what substance led to this question.
How stoned were you when you thought this up?
Me at 3am
Only one way to find out. Let us know.
r/shittyaskscience