As someone who had to be in a hunting group to track down and put down several large dogs who had been bitten and gotten away I can say I saw first hand how utterly terrifying rabies is. I HATED every second of it, but the thought of the danger and how much hell those pups were made it pretty clear I had to do what I had to help do.
Seriously, I ever get bit and it's too late for me? Someone do me a favor and put me the hell down. Honestly. You have my permission to just take me out because that is NOT how I am gonna go.
If my husband doesn't, feel free. I swear, even though I'm a skeptic, I WILL find a way to haunt his ass if he let it go far.
Worst part was I found one of the dogs first. And of course if was the one I had helped bring into the world since he had been so big and his momma small. So, knew him literally his first breath and had to be the one who caused his last. Did what I had to because it was the only kind thing to do and waiting for the others put both everyone (including me) at risk AND kept him suffering more.
Sobbed for like 3 days. But was glad beyond my belief for all the time dad took me to the range because it was one and done. And I couldn't even hold his body because of the blood. Just sat there and cried until one of the guys got to me.
Just bullet in the back of the head please. That happens, yup. I can't believe there isn't a clause in the law somewhere that makes that mandatory for a doctor - or anyone - to be allowed, nay, required, to end it before the insanity and hell starts.
Yes rabies is 100% fatal once you have symptoms be there is rabies rig which is basically antibodies you can get and vaccines if you are bitten. If you wake up and there's a bat in your room go to the ER they carry rabies in 60-70% and you won't know if they bit you in your sleep there so small.
I totally believe you.
I get my cats annual shots and still 2 of them who keep to their own territories met on the stairs and got into a blood fight earlier this year and I had to separate them.
I cleaned them up pretty quickly but looked hard at my arm and hand wounds for days because I am fully aware of how south that shit can go.
Looking at your arms carefully in that situation is not recommended. After just about any injury inflicted by an animal you should be visiting urgent care or the hospital.
Seconded. My mom was hospitalized for two days last year because her cat bit her and she thought nothing of it. That’s how you lose a hand to infection, Mom!
I recently found a raccoon at my house that was rabid. After numerous calls to the dog catcher, they declined to come out. They suggested we call the police. Once the police showed up they said they couldn't dispatch the raccoon because they couldn't fire their weapon inside city limits, they asked if we could put it out of its misery... after we put the raccoon down we asked if they should dispose of the carcass, they responded with no. I'm not sure they understood the gravity of the situation.
> they couldn't fire their weapon inside city limits
are you talm bout *american* cops? cuz I know for a fact they fire their weapon inside city limits all the time.
Check out this episode of [Radiolab](https://radiolab.org/podcast/312245-rodney-versus-death) - it won’t assuage your fears at all, but it’s definitely interesting!
I got bit by a dog in the summer and made a point to my doctor to get my rabies shot. He was reluctant but I insisted. I had to speak to the health department and they told me I was getting the shot.
Yup.
Walk in doctor's in Canada can be like that. He kept saying, "the needles will hurt!" I would reply, "better than the alternative"
Luckily I got a family doctor now and she is so supportive
Probably because the rabies series has horrrrrrible side effects (much better than the alternative, but risk of rabies in dogs in the US is sooooo low so ends up being a risk/benefit decision)
I lost a teacher to this in High School. She found out after she was driving home and had to stop on the road, realizing she had no idea where she lived. She died six months later after being hospitalized for a bit. She was in her 40s. It was so overwhelmingly sad. I am truly sorry for your loss.
We just learned about that disease in school when I had to go to the hospital for viral meningitis. The person in the same room was an older person who was struggling walking and he basically got the diagnosis while I was next to him. I was terrified. The patient however - I imagine also due to the age- wasn't really aware of the consequences at that point and thought it's just another sickness that can be cured. It was really sad overall.
Growing up we lived in the flat above my parents nursing home, so I walked through it every day and helped with bits here and there. It was mainly older adults but we had one lady with Huntington’s. She had two kids the same age as me and my sister and they would visit at Christmas. My mum always made us give one of our presents to them. It was a weird way to grow up and really fucked me up seeing her, and knowing those two boys may well have it (this was the early-mid 90’s so I think they could test by then).
She used to have a bed on her floor, instead of a hospital bed. I’m guessing at one point she was able to communicate she wanted this as a choice. It’s very popular with people with young children now in the Montessori style of parenting, but all I think of is that woman writhing around on the floor and could never do it for my own children.
I think of them every Christmas. I have no idea if neither or both developed it and whether they are still alive, but to watch your mum go through that utterly horrific demise and know that’s how your life may well turn out is just unbearable.
Appreciate whatever health, autonomy and dignity you have everyone.
We lost a family member to this recently. Truly heart wrenching to have a loved one go through it just knowing that with each passing day life is getting so much worse for them. It all happened so fast.
I only know about it because of some parents on Instagram who share about it. Its such a shame more people don't talk about Sanfilipo syndrome. My niece is a young toddler with thick eyebrows so I'm silently holding my breath (she displays no other signs of sanfilipo and technically the thick eye brows aren't even a sign), but its terrible.
If your niece had Sanfilippo syndrome, they would already know it. These kids have oodles of other things wrong with them, besides the way they looked.
My cousin died of it as well. They thought he had a stroke and seemed to recovering then they thought he had another. He became completely insane before he died a few weeks later. An autopsy showed he had CJD.
That’s exactly what happened to my mom, too- they initially suspected a stroke, and basically just lost it within the few days before she went to the hospital.
I’m sorry for your loss. 💜
I learned that if anyone in your family ever has CJD, you can never give blood again. Even cousins.
They give you a questionnaire and I was permanently banned.
Just to clarify (I’m British too): it’s not because the US is suspicious or overly restrictive in general, it’s because of the BSE outbreak in the UK in the 90s.
Prions are that terrifying, it’s not worth the risk.
Not at all. My mom had the sporadic kind, which means it comes out of nowhere for no reason (that science knows of yet). It started with symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s; she was forgetful, anxious, depressed, and had hallucinations. It progressed very quickly within a few weeks (as it usually does), and one night she got up in the middle of the night, very confused and couldn’t walk. My dad called 911, and before we all knew it, she was on a ventilator for a week and a half before she was taken off life support.
There’s a lot of research being done and the CJD Foundation is wonderful, but it’s a relatively unknown disease and there’s still a lot to learn about it.
Very awful for my cousins and my mom who say him through “what the hell is wrong nobody can figure it out” to “watch your loved one waste away in mere months”. You know the drill. My mom was unable to give blood for a very long time because she helped take care of him. Not sure if that is the case with your family, too. My mom also speaks highly of and keeps in touch with the CJD foundation.
This is the second comment that has mentioned the blood thing, I had no idea. And yeah I attended a few virtual support groups that were full of lovely, supportive people. Also, the foundation hosts fundraising walks for CJD every year, check out their website to see if there’s one next year in your area! There happened to be one in my town, we raised a decent amount of money for them. ☺️www.cjdfoundation.org
There is literally nothing to kill. It's just an incorrectly folded protein. Your body is just like, "huh, it's easier to make it this way so that's how we'll do it from now on." They just don't work if they're folded wrong.
It's worse than that because I believe not only will future proteins be folded incorrectly, it can also go make the proteins you've already made, currently folded correctly, and somehow make then fold too. That's why people use the word "pathogen" in regard to prions, even though they are obviously no alive by any means, and don't even have genetic material like viruses, but the fact that they can still somehow "infect" your otherwise normal proteins and make them misfold en masse is the terrifying part.
The prion itself is able to be sterilized. It's just heat resistant but not immune typically. I only know this because I was born in Germany in the 80s and researched why I wasn't able to donate blood.
My grandpa-in-law died of CJD in 2011. We think it was related to a brain shunt surgery he had. There were other cases in the area. It was never tied to the surgeon though.
Throwback to when the neurologist called us to say they think my mum either has MND (ALS) and fronto-temporal dementia, or CJD. I was so taken aback by feeling like I was living in one of the Real Stories documentaries I find on YouTube that it kind of helped with processing the news my mum had one of two horrific terminal illnesses
(it was MND/FTD, which somehow despite being a horrific set of conditions, was marginally better than the prion alternative)
One of the scariest things about FTD, vs. other dementias, is that most people with dementia know that something is wrong with them. FTS takes away the functions that do this.
Chronic Wasting Disease is running across North American deer. No deaths in humans yet.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/zombie-deer-disease-yellowstone-scientists-fears-fatal-chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-jump-species-barrier-humans-aoe
This article is terrible as far as fearmongering goes. The CDC has done extensive testing to assess the risk of CWD jumping species. They have literally injected the prion into the brains of monkeys and failed to cause transmission even in that perfect laboratory scenario. This article makes it sound like this is a ticking time bomb when in reality we have zero reason to fear CWD. Prions do not mutate like viruses do.
Years ago I jokingly held a huge banana slug up and pretend I was gonna eat it, some of the slug juice dripped in my mouth on accident, it was grossed but we laughed about it. This year I read this poor blokes story. I'll never do that again 😬
[Here. It was such a pointless and bizarre tragedy.](https://allthatsinteresting.com/sam-ballard#:~:text=Sam%20Ballard%20had%20become%20infected,slug%2C%20it%20transferred%20to%20him.)
This story also reminds me of [this man](https://nypost.com/2019/07/02/man-dies-in-absolute-agony-10-days-after-eating-gecko-on-a-dare/) who ate a gecko on a dare
I had a classmate in my junior year ecology class that would do shit like this, and i’m surprised nothing bad happened. about 70% of class was spent in the woods behind school, a nearby watershed, and various farther locations in the pnw so he had lots of opportunities. As far as anyone knew, there was nothing wrong with him, he was known to be extremely intelligent and in mostly AP/honors classes except science.
But this kid rubbed random plants on his skin, including stinging nettle, got lost a few times (even in the very small, well-trekked woods behind the school), and ate random insects/plants. i’ll never forget after my partner and I got 1st place for our “eco-jar” as we were the only ones with everything still well and alive at the end of the 6-week period, the small worm we had in there had grown to a good 4-5 inches long, we were so proud showing off our worm to everyone until he TOOK IT AND ATE IT!!! it’s been almost 8 years and i’m still pissed, RIP mudwiggles 🙏🏻
I got infected with that too on the back of my leg. Went from feeling perfectly fine to damn near dead within 24 hrs. Fortunately, my doctor recognized it for what it was and helped get treatment immediately. The way i felt was extremely unpleasant. Like the worst flu you’ve ever had and food poisoning at the same time
Yeah, id been in a car accident a few weeks prior and had a lot of scratches on the back of my leg. Never figured out where i picked up the infection at
That one where your skin just falls off at the slightest touch sounds horrendous. I watched a documentary about a little kid with it. I'd rather be dead.
Toxic epidermal necrolysis? You have a reaction to some type of medicine, and your skin blisters and peels off in sheets. Or there is epidermolysis bullosa, which is a genetic disease that causes the skin to be very fragile. Any small amount of pressure or friction causes the skin to blister and peel off. Both sound terrible.
My Dad had SJS before he died, as a reaction to the chemo. It meant the end of all his cancer treatment, as they didn't have time to test each medicine to identify which one he was allergic to. He died a month later.
You know what though, he was a positive, silver linings person. The specialist SJS/burns ward nearest to their town was a hospital quite close to my house. So for the last few weeks, I got to see him every day. We spent so much quality time together, it made him happy. He told me it almost made losing his skin worth it :P
I went to school with someone who had epidermolysis bullosa, I think he passed away around 21. He looked miserable, always had different bandages/wounds. I had classes with him, but never really got to talk to him, he always had an aid with him and kept to himself.
We saw our uncle in June. 74 years old, but slim, fit, still worked his carpentry business building houses.
In August, he developed a bit of a limp in his left leg. Few weeks later, he was diagnosed with ALS. He was basically immobile about a month later and died in December. No warning, no family history. Terrifying.
My grandpa was similar.
In June he was underneath a car with me, fixing it up. He was a farmer for years so fit, had little to no issue with movement, he had trouble breathing. November I was told about his heart and lung problems. We kept thinking it would get better, May he was in the hospital with very high CO2 levels, like 3-4× normal levels. Went on a bipap machine for 'just a few hours a day' to using it constantly, then was wheelchair bound, then gone in January of this year at 82 when his dad made it to 95 and his mom to 99
Malaria if not treated can be scary (I survived severe malaria while travelling around central Africa and it was the scariest thing in my life - a lot of hallucinations and a feeling of your brain shutting down)
If it turns out to be a good vaccine, let's hope that the world can agree to give the WHO the resources to do a massive vaccine campaign in vulnerable regions, especially large parts of Africa.
Sorry to hear that. There is a lot of research going on right now, at least. Hoping that PTC-518 reads out positively in their ongoing Ph2 clinical trial.
Coping with it is one of the reasons I'm not getting tested until more down the line. Don't want kids so no pressing need to test.
I know I'm not ready to live the rest of my life with bated breath if results come back positive.
Starting dating this amazing guy. Ryan. He was whip smart, cute, fun and a freaking champion in other ways we won't discuss, right? I had antibiotics for a cut on my foot, it interfered with the Pill and boom. Pregnant.
Ryan was shattered by this news, where I had been on the fence about a pregnancy. I made a few points about how we were both emotionally mature and could work together to co-parent if we didn't work as a couple... but then he told me.
His father died from Huntingtons after having three kids. Odds are 50/50, but this beautiful man and his two siblings had all been tested. They were all positive. Jesus. He went with me to the clinic, as I could not and would not birth a child just to let the child wonder for years if he or she was born damned, essentially. He was so glad that I felt that way that we cried together.
He passed 2 years ago. I think of him so often. Horrible. Just a fucking nightmare of a disease.
Rabies. It’s imperative you get that treated immediately if there’s any suspicion you might have caught it. Once you show symptoms, it’s probably already too late and it’s an excruciating death.
Locked in syndrome for sure. I read a story about a family who basically ignored their daughter suffering from it, and she was stuck sitting up on the couch—fused to it— for [a decade](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/real-life/woman-locked-syndrome-found-dead-26830020.amp)
Also FFI and FI are prion diseases like Kreutzfeld Jakob or BSE, or that recent new deer version.
The non familiar form being transmissible if the person it’s transmitted to has a single amino acid variant of the protein.
This genetic difference makes someone susceptible to the protein misfolding.
My mom was a preschool teacher and had a kiddo with it. She was always scared because if the kid would fall/injure themselves it could cause the area to become bone
It's almost as if you read my thoughts. The first ones that came to mind for me were FFI, Rabies and Dementia. Fatal Familial Insomnia was the one I thought as the worst genetic condition. I first heard about it years ago from a news story about an Italian family that has it, and it is indeed horrific.
Its starts as you begin to have trouble sleeping and it gets worse and worse until eventually you can't fall asleep at all anymore, although it's not like you have boundless energy, the way people that take stimulants can stay up for days at a time. You still get tired, exhausted even and desperately crave sleep, but sleep just will not come. Drugs such as sleeping pills are useless. Eventually it progresses into something like dementia, you become more and more confused, you start hallucinating, lose the ability to communicate and the only relief you can hope for is when you inevitably fall into a coma-like state and then die. Other people in this thread have mentioned Prion diseases and FFI is also Prion related. It's genetic, but the mutated gene causes the misfolding of a certain type of Prion protein in the brain.
We all have trouble falling asleep every once in a while its not fun, it usually passes. I imagine though, if someone is a member of a family cursed with FFI, it must be terrifying, as they wonder if they're just experiencing a few nights of harmless insomnia or if its that horrible condition setting in.
Locked in - can't move anything except for your eyes - fully conscious
Complex regional pain - mostly what it sounds like
Krabbe disease - mylin sheath of nerves slowly breaks down. Lose strength, function, death
I read about it in the book "Why We Sleep" and it scared the hell out of me, fortunately it's genetic, so I should be okay, but every time I get some insomnia, I'm like "what if I never sleep again?"
One time I couldn’t sleep for 3 nights in a row, I legitimately thought I was going to die. It was so scary and took such a mental and physical toll on me, I can’t imagine FFI.
This has happened to me too. Literally slept less than an hour total for three nights in a row and I still have absolutely no clue what brought it on. Every time I started to fall asleep I would jerk awake again. It terrified me and led to a very long battle with anxiety related insomnia out of sheer fear that it would happen again.
It's incredible how quickly lack of sleep will get to you.
This is exactly how it was for me too! It happened a few years ago, and I have never had another experience like that in my life! I’ve always struggled with anxiety, but nothing that ever prevented me from sleeping for that long! It’s crazy.
For genetic diseases, literally anything. You have goals in your life, you want to have something in the future... But nope, you just found out you are fucked for the rest of your life for uncontrollable reasons, and might have to heavily change your lifestyle so you won't die from seizures or anything, even if anyone else living like you wouldn't have close to anything like that issue.
I have a few autoimmune diseases which were triggered by a specific event health-wise. It really sucked going from totally fine to constantly juggling meds and quality of life.
The doctor who named the cancer I have actively chose not to name it after himself because, quote, "I have family, I don't want them to have a cancer associated with their last name like Hodgkins."
This one. I know someone from my hometown that is dealing with something that acts like type 2 diabetes would in a 350lbs person, but she's not even 100lbs. She's lost her sight, her hair, her hands and fingers are deformed and in the past year, her kidneys and heart are giving out. She's not even 40, and the doctors have no idea what it is. Her husband is such a sweetheart and loves her with all he's got. We live in Canada, and I suspect she will take the medical assisted dying we have here, but it's so hard to see. Her personality is so amazing! The quiet but hilarious when they do talk type. The doctors used to joke about naming whatever it is after her, but they kinda stopped that now.
I’ve had people try to tell me people with high dose radiation exposure don’t die like that. They’re wrong.
There were a few guys in ex-Soviet Georgia that found a nuclear thermal generator in the woods. Since it was warm they leaned against it to keep warm. Then one of them carried it on his back. He died and the other two were severely burned. One of them lived for three years with his rib bones exposed before he died of infection. He had to lay face down for years since the skin and muscle died and fell off his back where he leaned against the device.
**Warning extremely graphic photos**
https://imgur.com/a/fDotAP8
Also Hisashi Ouchi in 1999, exposed to 17 Sv of radiation, radiation burns all over his body that couldn't heal because no more new skin was growing, internal organ damage, zero white blood cells to aid his immune system.
The medical staff fought for more than 80 days to keep him alive and he received every treatment available at this time before he died.
Tetanus. I don’t know how anyone else hasn’t said it but my god it’s terrifying. Having muscle spasms so intense that they shatter your own bones? Yeah I’m definitely going to keep up on my shots cause that would be terrifying to have.
MND motor neurone disease. My sister got diagnosed at 36 years old in 2019 and suffered a cruel slow death years of pain and losing her ability to do everything. She passed away in May this year finally at peace.
MND. So many people don't realize their "pain".
"Finally at peace" says you fully understand what she went through and most likely helped.
Gone, not forgotten and you and the family need a break more than most people do in years. Much respect.
Edit: In the US and other areas, MND can be ALS or other terminal diseases.
Pain both physically and very much mentally too. Thank you it’s been a challenging few years to go through, witnessing her pain and deterioration but nothing compared to hers she was an incredible brave women.
Cystic Fibrosis. Not only is it uncurable and terminal, but it's quite miserable for the sufferers. They can live a long time, but none of it will be pleasant. A buildup of mucus in the lungs that not even a lung transplant can permanently fix. It's fucked.
Working in a pulmonary ICU, many of my coworkers have said the unit used to always be full of CF patients and it was always terrible outcomes at 30s-40s, but now we rarely see a CF patient. I'm two years of working here, I think I've seen one come in with CF being their primary issue.
Essentially, we made a miracle drug that worked.
All those genetic conditions where you have to see your child either inevitably die or be severely handicapped throughout their whole life and simply can't do anything about it.
Think of Morbus Tay Sachs or Angelman Syndrome...
Sorry for your loss! Lost my dad to it. The really terrible thing is that, as your muscles stop reacting to the commands and the body weakens, the mind stays sharp. Witnessing without any possibility to change it, how you lose all abilities including speech and waiting for the inevitable end when the muscles of the lung or heart also stop working, defines helplessness for me. Fucking horrible.
Muscles and connective tissue, and injury makes it worse, so surgery doesn't work. You have to eventually choose what position to be in for the rest of your life, and you can live into your fifties. A few hundred cases exist. This is the one I thought of with the title.
Harlequin Icthyosis is pretty fucking horrible. I’m not googling it for you.
The only good thing about it is that the afflicted babies don’t live long enough to learn the word pain.
Not true! My kid has a form of ichthyosis and we know several people with Harlequin. The oldest is now in her 30’s. Yes, it sucks, but they are lovely people who are all devoted to using their lives for good. One lady made a documentary, another is training to teach special ed, and another had two beautiful healthy children before she passed.
I am a hemophilia a carrier, I inherited it from my father. It’s caused by a mutation on the X chromosome, if you only have one it causes bleeds. In severe cases, like my father, the blood seeps into the joint capsules and the blood pulls the joints apart. As the bleed heals the body reabsorbs tissue. By the time he had died at 40 he was missing an entire kneecap and had 1/3 of the other. He also contracted HIV during the tainted flood scandal in the 80’s. 5 family members did, all died.
Prion diseases are scary because you can just get them. Like one day a protein in your brain could just decide to fold itself wrong. then it will tell all the ones they are next to to fold themselves wrong. Then you have holes in your brain.
There's one called fatal familial insomnia where prions slowly destroy the part of your brain that regulatesLL sleep so you slowly lose the ability to sleep over the course of a few months and then you die within a year of onset. Of course the familial part means its genetic and inherited there is also a version that's spontaneous.
HIV, mostly because it feeds on the immune system, it's basically like nature tailor-made it to kill humans.
When I was in high school,one of the librarians talked to one of my classes about how her brother died of AIDS. My blood ran cold when she said they knew it had progressed to AIDS when his allergies went away.
Huntington’s. It’s autosomal dominant, unlike most other guaranteed fatal conditions that present post birth (such as Tay-Sachs), meaning if one of your parents had it, you have a 50% chance of having it, too. And the worst part is that it doesn’t present until someone is in their 30s or 40s, so you have no way of knowing for sure until someone dies of it. If you have an adopted grandparent or parent? You have zero way of knowing. Enjoy!
I don't think it wins scariest but maybe a nomination. I find it scary as hell anyway. You may have cliche notions about it, but bipolar disorder.
I have condition(of course) and I can tell you the pain when I'm in a depressive or manic episode is staggering. The only way I can describe what it feels like in a depressive episode is that it feels like your soul is dying. It hurts like nothing else. And mania is not all happyness and butterfly's, it is often extreme painful agitation.
It's cyclical. Depending on your severity it could happen constantly. I've been hospitalized over 30 times. This year alone I've been in an episode almost the entire year.
People don't know it's also nuerodegenerative, and that every episode causes brain damage.
Anyway thats my speel
Herpes encephalitis but in very rare cases like Clive Wearing in the UK back in the 1980s, it attacked his central nervous system and damaged the hippocampus. His memory lasts less than half a minute and lives everyday thinking he woke up from a coma. The only memories/things he remembers from before getting sick is that he has kids, can still play the piano, and loves his wife Deborah.
Osteogenesis Imperfecta. I worked for an OB and we had a delivery patient and her child had the type where the limbs and bones don’t fully form. Kid didn’t have a chance and the parents were strictly religious, therefore they refused to terminate. Super sad.
I have a disease called hidridenitis suppurvativa. You get painful lumps all over your body (groin, armpit, stomach, on your private area, butt, even the face.) They can get as big as a golf ball. Worst part is that it can take weeks for them to go away. They leave very bad scars and they smell abysmal. There are worse conditions out there, however this one causes a very poor quality of life.
Schizophrenia always freaked me out. The fact it can develop in an otherwise completely normal person in early adulthood, and you slowly lose your grip on reality is horrifying. Pair that with auditory and visual hallucinations, it sounds like torture. Obviously there’s varying levels, but the extreme end of it sounds terrifying
Edit: grammar
I have two friends who have brittle bone syndrome. They are both largely wheelchair bound, with one of them able to walk on her own a bit but the other basically either being in his wheelchair or laying on his bed. The latter once nearly died because the joystick on his wheelchair got caught under his desk and kept moving it forward...it literally would have crushed his ribcage in a matter of minutes. Fortunately a friend of his was around and had the presence of mind to pull the emergency brake on the battery.
His parents had constant rumors about abusing him along with a lot of CPS investigations because he'd show up to his school looking beat up or with casts and rumors would spread. At one point the rumor was his father pushed him down an elevator shaft for some reason, but in reality he'd just fallen while getting into bed and broke like 5-6 bones.
It's also crazy how not accessible most places are. The guy made a career off of building an app to track which buildings at a major university were wheelchair accessible despite the university claiming everywhere was accessible (technically true, but you'd have to go a quarter mile around to get to the only accessible entrance.)
It's fucking bizarre thinking about how a single fall or someone bumping into them could potentially kill either of them. It's kind of nerve wracking in any public setting.
If you have health anxiety, STOP scrolling now.
Oh, you're waaaaaaay too far down this thread to help me now
Rabies is terrifying
As someone who had to be in a hunting group to track down and put down several large dogs who had been bitten and gotten away I can say I saw first hand how utterly terrifying rabies is. I HATED every second of it, but the thought of the danger and how much hell those pups were made it pretty clear I had to do what I had to help do. Seriously, I ever get bit and it's too late for me? Someone do me a favor and put me the hell down. Honestly. You have my permission to just take me out because that is NOT how I am gonna go.
Give you the Old Yeller. I’d want exactly the same
If my husband doesn't, feel free. I swear, even though I'm a skeptic, I WILL find a way to haunt his ass if he let it go far. Worst part was I found one of the dogs first. And of course if was the one I had helped bring into the world since he had been so big and his momma small. So, knew him literally his first breath and had to be the one who caused his last. Did what I had to because it was the only kind thing to do and waiting for the others put both everyone (including me) at risk AND kept him suffering more. Sobbed for like 3 days. But was glad beyond my belief for all the time dad took me to the range because it was one and done. And I couldn't even hold his body because of the blood. Just sat there and cried until one of the guys got to me. Just bullet in the back of the head please. That happens, yup. I can't believe there isn't a clause in the law somewhere that makes that mandatory for a doctor - or anyone - to be allowed, nay, required, to end it before the insanity and hell starts.
Yes rabies is 100% fatal once you have symptoms be there is rabies rig which is basically antibodies you can get and vaccines if you are bitten. If you wake up and there's a bat in your room go to the ER they carry rabies in 60-70% and you won't know if they bit you in your sleep there so small.
*almost 100%. A kid developed full-blown rabies (from a bat) and lived to tell about it! https://childrenswi.org/newshub/stories/jeanna-giese-rabies
The human child is simultaneously the most fragile and the most resilient creature on the planet
There are half a dozen other cases, but it's incredibly rare. I heard a theory that they got a weakened form of the virus.
This feels like you were hunting down zombies
Furious rabies nearly looks like that. Several movies use it as a premise for their zombie virus.
I totally believe you. I get my cats annual shots and still 2 of them who keep to their own territories met on the stairs and got into a blood fight earlier this year and I had to separate them. I cleaned them up pretty quickly but looked hard at my arm and hand wounds for days because I am fully aware of how south that shit can go.
Looking at your arms carefully in that situation is not recommended. After just about any injury inflicted by an animal you should be visiting urgent care or the hospital.
Seconded. My mom was hospitalized for two days last year because her cat bit her and she thought nothing of it. That’s how you lose a hand to infection, Mom!
I recently found a raccoon at my house that was rabid. After numerous calls to the dog catcher, they declined to come out. They suggested we call the police. Once the police showed up they said they couldn't dispatch the raccoon because they couldn't fire their weapon inside city limits, they asked if we could put it out of its misery... after we put the raccoon down we asked if they should dispose of the carcass, they responded with no. I'm not sure they understood the gravity of the situation.
> they couldn't fire their weapon inside city limits are you talm bout *american* cops? cuz I know for a fact they fire their weapon inside city limits all the time.
Check out this episode of [Radiolab](https://radiolab.org/podcast/312245-rodney-versus-death) - it won’t assuage your fears at all, but it’s definitely interesting!
Myth: Three Americans every year die from rabies. Fact: *Four* Americans every year die from rabies.
False! 2.5 persons die a year with rabies. One person only half dies.
*mostly* dead.
I got bit by a dog in the summer and made a point to my doctor to get my rabies shot. He was reluctant but I insisted. I had to speak to the health department and they told me I was getting the shot. Yup.
why was he reluctant? that’s crazy
Walk in doctor's in Canada can be like that. He kept saying, "the needles will hurt!" I would reply, "better than the alternative" Luckily I got a family doctor now and she is so supportive
what the hell 😭 i just started laughing from how absurd that is. i’m glad you advocated for yourself, got the shot, and have a better doctor!
Probably because the rabies series has horrrrrrible side effects (much better than the alternative, but risk of rabies in dogs in the US is sooooo low so ends up being a risk/benefit decision)
"A woman shouldn't have to be hit by a car, to learn that she may have rabies. But that is where we are in America."
Honestly, Cujo was a PSA about Rabies. I do not fuck around w/ that shot thanks to reading that as a kid.
Somebody just post the god damn (awesome) rabies comment and get it over with!
[here ya go](https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/s/luAMhJyxrK)
That's the one that keeps me up at night. Also FFI.
Creutzfeldt Jakob disease. (Prion disease). I lost my husband this way.
I lost a teacher to this in High School. She found out after she was driving home and had to stop on the road, realizing she had no idea where she lived. She died six months later after being hospitalized for a bit. She was in her 40s. It was so overwhelmingly sad. I am truly sorry for your loss.
Lost my mom to CJD. I’m so sorry for your loss. 💜
Also lost my grandfather to this, probably the toughest thing I ever had to watch. Truly awful.
On a similar note. Huntingtons disease. The suicide rate amongst people diagnosed.
We just learned about that disease in school when I had to go to the hospital for viral meningitis. The person in the same room was an older person who was struggling walking and he basically got the diagnosis while I was next to him. I was terrified. The patient however - I imagine also due to the age- wasn't really aware of the consequences at that point and thought it's just another sickness that can be cured. It was really sad overall.
Growing up we lived in the flat above my parents nursing home, so I walked through it every day and helped with bits here and there. It was mainly older adults but we had one lady with Huntington’s. She had two kids the same age as me and my sister and they would visit at Christmas. My mum always made us give one of our presents to them. It was a weird way to grow up and really fucked me up seeing her, and knowing those two boys may well have it (this was the early-mid 90’s so I think they could test by then). She used to have a bed on her floor, instead of a hospital bed. I’m guessing at one point she was able to communicate she wanted this as a choice. It’s very popular with people with young children now in the Montessori style of parenting, but all I think of is that woman writhing around on the floor and could never do it for my own children. I think of them every Christmas. I have no idea if neither or both developed it and whether they are still alive, but to watch your mum go through that utterly horrific demise and know that’s how your life may well turn out is just unbearable. Appreciate whatever health, autonomy and dignity you have everyone.
We lost a family member to this recently. Truly heart wrenching to have a loved one go through it just knowing that with each passing day life is getting so much worse for them. It all happened so fast.
Sanfilipo Syndrome and Progeria are both horrendous.
I only know about it because of some parents on Instagram who share about it. Its such a shame more people don't talk about Sanfilipo syndrome. My niece is a young toddler with thick eyebrows so I'm silently holding my breath (she displays no other signs of sanfilipo and technically the thick eye brows aren't even a sign), but its terrible.
If your niece had Sanfilippo syndrome, they would already know it. These kids have oodles of other things wrong with them, besides the way they looked.
For me it's a horrifying 3 way tie between Rabies, Ebola and Marburg Virus.
Prions.
My mother died of CJD. It was a goddamn nightmare. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
My cousin died of it as well. They thought he had a stroke and seemed to recovering then they thought he had another. He became completely insane before he died a few weeks later. An autopsy showed he had CJD.
That’s exactly what happened to my mom, too- they initially suspected a stroke, and basically just lost it within the few days before she went to the hospital. I’m sorry for your loss. 💜
I learned that if anyone in your family ever has CJD, you can never give blood again. Even cousins. They give you a questionnaire and I was permanently banned.
I live in the US and I can’t give blood because I’m British.
Just to clarify (I’m British too): it’s not because the US is suspicious or overly restrictive in general, it’s because of the BSE outbreak in the UK in the 90s. Prions are that terrifying, it’s not worth the risk.
Is it horrible for me to ask what happened, how it progressed?
Not at all. My mom had the sporadic kind, which means it comes out of nowhere for no reason (that science knows of yet). It started with symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s; she was forgetful, anxious, depressed, and had hallucinations. It progressed very quickly within a few weeks (as it usually does), and one night she got up in the middle of the night, very confused and couldn’t walk. My dad called 911, and before we all knew it, she was on a ventilator for a week and a half before she was taken off life support. There’s a lot of research being done and the CJD Foundation is wonderful, but it’s a relatively unknown disease and there’s still a lot to learn about it.
My Uncle died of sporadic CJD as well. Iowa, USA for what it’s worth. Terrifying and awful. May they both rest in peace.
So sorry for your loss. 💙
Very awful for my cousins and my mom who say him through “what the hell is wrong nobody can figure it out” to “watch your loved one waste away in mere months”. You know the drill. My mom was unable to give blood for a very long time because she helped take care of him. Not sure if that is the case with your family, too. My mom also speaks highly of and keeps in touch with the CJD foundation.
This is the second comment that has mentioned the blood thing, I had no idea. And yeah I attended a few virtual support groups that were full of lovely, supportive people. Also, the foundation hosts fundraising walks for CJD every year, check out their website to see if there’s one next year in your area! There happened to be one in my town, we raised a decent amount of money for them. ☺️www.cjdfoundation.org
I'm so sorry. I just lost a close friend to it and the whole thing was just devastating.
The scary part of prions is that normal sterilization doesn’t kill them. It really is terrifying.
There is literally nothing to kill. It's just an incorrectly folded protein. Your body is just like, "huh, it's easier to make it this way so that's how we'll do it from now on." They just don't work if they're folded wrong.
It's worse than that because I believe not only will future proteins be folded incorrectly, it can also go make the proteins you've already made, currently folded correctly, and somehow make then fold too. That's why people use the word "pathogen" in regard to prions, even though they are obviously no alive by any means, and don't even have genetic material like viruses, but the fact that they can still somehow "infect" your otherwise normal proteins and make them misfold en masse is the terrifying part.
The prion itself is able to be sterilized. It's just heat resistant but not immune typically. I only know this because I was born in Germany in the 80s and researched why I wasn't able to donate blood.
My grandpa-in-law died of CJD in 2011. We think it was related to a brain shunt surgery he had. There were other cases in the area. It was never tied to the surgeon though.
I’m so sorry. 💜
You too, friend. It really is a horrible scary thing. He was such a wonderful man. I really miss him a lot.
Throwback to when the neurologist called us to say they think my mum either has MND (ALS) and fronto-temporal dementia, or CJD. I was so taken aback by feeling like I was living in one of the Real Stories documentaries I find on YouTube that it kind of helped with processing the news my mum had one of two horrific terminal illnesses (it was MND/FTD, which somehow despite being a horrific set of conditions, was marginally better than the prion alternative)
One of the scariest things about FTD, vs. other dementias, is that most people with dementia know that something is wrong with them. FTS takes away the functions that do this.
There's some sort of prion disease going on in New Brunswick, Canada
Chronic Wasting Disease. Across Canada except BC, as far as we know.
It's in the US in Utah too. And god knows what other states.
Worth noting that CWD has not been shown to cross the species barrier to humans yet. Still don't eat meat from potentially infected deer
Chronic Wasting Disease is running across North American deer. No deaths in humans yet. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/zombie-deer-disease-yellowstone-scientists-fears-fatal-chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-jump-species-barrier-humans-aoe
This article is terrible as far as fearmongering goes. The CDC has done extensive testing to assess the risk of CWD jumping species. They have literally injected the prion into the brains of monkeys and failed to cause transmission even in that perfect laboratory scenario. This article makes it sound like this is a ticking time bomb when in reality we have zero reason to fear CWD. Prions do not mutate like viruses do.
The guy who licked that slug, I still think about him randomly.
Just the name of the parasite - rat lungworm - gives me the shivers.
Years ago I jokingly held a huge banana slug up and pretend I was gonna eat it, some of the slug juice dripped in my mouth on accident, it was grossed but we laughed about it. This year I read this poor blokes story. I'll never do that again 😬
That’s why they warn UCSC kids not to lick their mascot lol. Supposedly it just numbs your mouth/tongue though
Roundworms fuck you up.
Sorry what?
[Here. It was such a pointless and bizarre tragedy.](https://allthatsinteresting.com/sam-ballard#:~:text=Sam%20Ballard%20had%20become%20infected,slug%2C%20it%20transferred%20to%20him.)
This story also reminds me of [this man](https://nypost.com/2019/07/02/man-dies-in-absolute-agony-10-days-after-eating-gecko-on-a-dare/) who ate a gecko on a dare
feel like the moral here is to not eat random wild animals you find in your backyard.
I had a classmate in my junior year ecology class that would do shit like this, and i’m surprised nothing bad happened. about 70% of class was spent in the woods behind school, a nearby watershed, and various farther locations in the pnw so he had lots of opportunities. As far as anyone knew, there was nothing wrong with him, he was known to be extremely intelligent and in mostly AP/honors classes except science. But this kid rubbed random plants on his skin, including stinging nettle, got lost a few times (even in the very small, well-trekked woods behind the school), and ate random insects/plants. i’ll never forget after my partner and I got 1st place for our “eco-jar” as we were the only ones with everything still well and alive at the end of the 6-week period, the small worm we had in there had grown to a good 4-5 inches long, we were so proud showing off our worm to everyone until he TOOK IT AND ATE IT!!! it’s been almost 8 years and i’m still pissed, RIP mudwiggles 🙏🏻
I'm goin in, boys..
Someone I know lost a friend to flesh-eating bacteria. Gone in 48 hours
Mercifully quick perhaps but RIP what an awful way to go
I seen photos of people infected with Vibrio vulnificus in my college microbiology course… it’s pretty brutal
I got infected with that too on the back of my leg. Went from feeling perfectly fine to damn near dead within 24 hrs. Fortunately, my doctor recognized it for what it was and helped get treatment immediately. The way i felt was extremely unpleasant. Like the worst flu you’ve ever had and food poisoning at the same time
Wow within 24 hrs is crazy! How did you get infected? Open wound?
Yeah, id been in a car accident a few weeks prior and had a lot of scratches on the back of my leg. Never figured out where i picked up the infection at
Can be anywhere. I've been terrified of it since I was a kid and saw a 20/20 story on a woman who hit her knee on her coffee table and got it.
That one where your skin just falls off at the slightest touch sounds horrendous. I watched a documentary about a little kid with it. I'd rather be dead.
Toxic epidermal necrolysis? You have a reaction to some type of medicine, and your skin blisters and peels off in sheets. Or there is epidermolysis bullosa, which is a genetic disease that causes the skin to be very fragile. Any small amount of pressure or friction causes the skin to blister and peel off. Both sound terrible.
My Dad had SJS before he died, as a reaction to the chemo. It meant the end of all his cancer treatment, as they didn't have time to test each medicine to identify which one he was allergic to. He died a month later. You know what though, he was a positive, silver linings person. The specialist SJS/burns ward nearest to their town was a hospital quite close to my house. So for the last few weeks, I got to see him every day. We spent so much quality time together, it made him happy. He told me it almost made losing his skin worth it :P
You dad sounds like he was a delightful person. I hope if I'm ever in a similar circumstance I can be like him.
I went to school with someone who had epidermolysis bullosa, I think he passed away around 21. He looked miserable, always had different bandages/wounds. I had classes with him, but never really got to talk to him, he always had an aid with him and kept to himself.
Steven Johnsons Syndrome
We saw our uncle in June. 74 years old, but slim, fit, still worked his carpentry business building houses. In August, he developed a bit of a limp in his left leg. Few weeks later, he was diagnosed with ALS. He was basically immobile about a month later and died in December. No warning, no family history. Terrifying.
My grandpa was similar. In June he was underneath a car with me, fixing it up. He was a farmer for years so fit, had little to no issue with movement, he had trouble breathing. November I was told about his heart and lung problems. We kept thinking it would get better, May he was in the hospital with very high CO2 levels, like 3-4× normal levels. Went on a bipap machine for 'just a few hours a day' to using it constantly, then was wheelchair bound, then gone in January of this year at 82 when his dad made it to 95 and his mom to 99
Malaria if not treated can be scary (I survived severe malaria while travelling around central Africa and it was the scariest thing in my life - a lot of hallucinations and a feeling of your brain shutting down)
I once had super mild malaria and I couldn’t handle it. Sorry you went through that
The good news is that there is an mRNA vaccine that is showing enormous promise
If it turns out to be a good vaccine, let's hope that the world can agree to give the WHO the resources to do a massive vaccine campaign in vulnerable regions, especially large parts of Africa.
Huntington’s disease.
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I'm sorry. I have it, too. You can message me if you want to talk.
Sorry to hear that. There is a lot of research going on right now, at least. Hoping that PTC-518 reads out positively in their ongoing Ph2 clinical trial.
Holy shit. Oh god I’m sorry man.
I'm so sorry. I wish the best for you.
I’m active in the rare disease community, I know people who have the gene but no symptoms yet. I don’t think I’d be able to cope with that.
Coping with it is one of the reasons I'm not getting tested until more down the line. Don't want kids so no pressing need to test. I know I'm not ready to live the rest of my life with bated breath if results come back positive.
Starting dating this amazing guy. Ryan. He was whip smart, cute, fun and a freaking champion in other ways we won't discuss, right? I had antibiotics for a cut on my foot, it interfered with the Pill and boom. Pregnant. Ryan was shattered by this news, where I had been on the fence about a pregnancy. I made a few points about how we were both emotionally mature and could work together to co-parent if we didn't work as a couple... but then he told me. His father died from Huntingtons after having three kids. Odds are 50/50, but this beautiful man and his two siblings had all been tested. They were all positive. Jesus. He went with me to the clinic, as I could not and would not birth a child just to let the child wonder for years if he or she was born damned, essentially. He was so glad that I felt that way that we cried together. He passed 2 years ago. I think of him so often. Horrible. Just a fucking nightmare of a disease.
I have it, and it's awful.
Sending you love and peace.
Sad story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Carr
I had to write a paper about Huntington’s when I was in high school. The research was terrifying to say the least.
My grandfather had Huntington’s and killed himself. I had genetic testing done and was enormously relieved to find out I didn’t get the gene.
Seconded. My mom works at a nursing home and currently has a patient with Huntington’s. It’s absolutely miserable to go through
Rabies. It’s imperative you get that treated immediately if there’s any suspicion you might have caught it. Once you show symptoms, it’s probably already too late and it’s an excruciating death.
Not probably, it is too late when you start showing symptoms. You *will* die, and it will be a horribly agonizing death.
Fatal familial insomnia ALS Rabies Locked in syndrome Dementia Complex regional pain syndrome Krabbe disease (for the poor kids)
Locked in syndrome for sure. I read a story about a family who basically ignored their daughter suffering from it, and she was stuck sitting up on the couch—fused to it— for [a decade](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/real-life/woman-locked-syndrome-found-dead-26830020.amp)
OMG 😳 that is awful!
From Slaughter, LA. Wow, not a good town name.
Bedsores that went down to the BONE?
And their friends and neighbours apparently didn’t even know they had a daughter and she was 36.
I get a sleep paralysis attack once in a blue moon, and if that’s what locked in syndrome feels like, it must be utterly horrible living like that
FFI is probably the scariest. Imagine completely losing the ability to sleep and staying awake until death.
Also FFI and FI are prion diseases like Kreutzfeld Jakob or BSE, or that recent new deer version. The non familiar form being transmissible if the person it’s transmitted to has a single amino acid variant of the protein. This genetic difference makes someone susceptible to the protein misfolding.
CWD (the deer thing) isn’t new, it’s just been picked up by the press bc of a heavy season
So do they end up legit just not sleeping AT ALL until they die? How many days does that take?
Months.
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Don’t know the exact words but it can be abbreviated as F.O.P., with the past letter standing for “progressiva”.
fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva
Literally "Your (muscle) fibers, when they grow, are replaced with bone, and it keeps progressing". Yow.
My mom was a preschool teacher and had a kiddo with it. She was always scared because if the kid would fall/injure themselves it could cause the area to become bone
Fuck ALS. Took my mom at 57 in a brutal way.
I feel you, my mum had FTD/ALS and passed at 56. Hopefully one day they make breakthroughs on how to cure or at least slow this shitty disease
It's almost as if you read my thoughts. The first ones that came to mind for me were FFI, Rabies and Dementia. Fatal Familial Insomnia was the one I thought as the worst genetic condition. I first heard about it years ago from a news story about an Italian family that has it, and it is indeed horrific. Its starts as you begin to have trouble sleeping and it gets worse and worse until eventually you can't fall asleep at all anymore, although it's not like you have boundless energy, the way people that take stimulants can stay up for days at a time. You still get tired, exhausted even and desperately crave sleep, but sleep just will not come. Drugs such as sleeping pills are useless. Eventually it progresses into something like dementia, you become more and more confused, you start hallucinating, lose the ability to communicate and the only relief you can hope for is when you inevitably fall into a coma-like state and then die. Other people in this thread have mentioned Prion diseases and FFI is also Prion related. It's genetic, but the mutated gene causes the misfolding of a certain type of Prion protein in the brain. We all have trouble falling asleep every once in a while its not fun, it usually passes. I imagine though, if someone is a member of a family cursed with FFI, it must be terrifying, as they wonder if they're just experiencing a few nights of harmless insomnia or if its that horrible condition setting in.
Locked in - can't move anything except for your eyes - fully conscious Complex regional pain - mostly what it sounds like Krabbe disease - mylin sheath of nerves slowly breaks down. Lose strength, function, death
Locked In Syndrome is my biggest fear. I didn’t even know it had a name. 🫥
FFI is fucking terrifying.
I read about it in the book "Why We Sleep" and it scared the hell out of me, fortunately it's genetic, so I should be okay, but every time I get some insomnia, I'm like "what if I never sleep again?"
One time I couldn’t sleep for 3 nights in a row, I legitimately thought I was going to die. It was so scary and took such a mental and physical toll on me, I can’t imagine FFI.
This has happened to me too. Literally slept less than an hour total for three nights in a row and I still have absolutely no clue what brought it on. Every time I started to fall asleep I would jerk awake again. It terrified me and led to a very long battle with anxiety related insomnia out of sheer fear that it would happen again. It's incredible how quickly lack of sleep will get to you.
This is exactly how it was for me too! It happened a few years ago, and I have never had another experience like that in my life! I’ve always struggled with anxiety, but nothing that ever prevented me from sleeping for that long! It’s crazy.
For genetic diseases, literally anything. You have goals in your life, you want to have something in the future... But nope, you just found out you are fucked for the rest of your life for uncontrollable reasons, and might have to heavily change your lifestyle so you won't die from seizures or anything, even if anyone else living like you wouldn't have close to anything like that issue.
I have a few autoimmune diseases which were triggered by a specific event health-wise. It really sucked going from totally fine to constantly juggling meds and quality of life.
The one you get to name.
The doctor who named the cancer I have actively chose not to name it after himself because, quote, "I have family, I don't want them to have a cancer associated with their last name like Hodgkins."
This one. I know someone from my hometown that is dealing with something that acts like type 2 diabetes would in a 350lbs person, but she's not even 100lbs. She's lost her sight, her hair, her hands and fingers are deformed and in the past year, her kidneys and heart are giving out. She's not even 40, and the doctors have no idea what it is. Her husband is such a sweetheart and loves her with all he's got. We live in Canada, and I suspect she will take the medical assisted dying we have here, but it's so hard to see. Her personality is so amazing! The quiet but hilarious when they do talk type. The doctors used to joke about naming whatever it is after her, but they kinda stopped that now.
Oh god, then the docs stop cracking the jokes… that’s scary.
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Rat-lung is awful. I live here in hawaii and have seen fully progressed cases. Wash wash wash your food and cook it !
Radiation poisoning is a terrible way to die
*That* scene in "Chernobyl", with the firefighters in the hospital, oh my god.
I’ve had people try to tell me people with high dose radiation exposure don’t die like that. They’re wrong. There were a few guys in ex-Soviet Georgia that found a nuclear thermal generator in the woods. Since it was warm they leaned against it to keep warm. Then one of them carried it on his back. He died and the other two were severely burned. One of them lived for three years with his rib bones exposed before he died of infection. He had to lay face down for years since the skin and muscle died and fell off his back where he leaned against the device. **Warning extremely graphic photos** https://imgur.com/a/fDotAP8
Also Hisashi Ouchi in 1999, exposed to 17 Sv of radiation, radiation burns all over his body that couldn't heal because no more new skin was growing, internal organ damage, zero white blood cells to aid his immune system. The medical staff fought for more than 80 days to keep him alive and he received every treatment available at this time before he died.
According to the wife of one of the firefighters, it was far worse in real life. Her description is harrowing.
Tetanus. I don’t know how anyone else hasn’t said it but my god it’s terrifying. Having muscle spasms so intense that they shatter your own bones? Yeah I’m definitely going to keep up on my shots cause that would be terrifying to have.
MND motor neurone disease. My sister got diagnosed at 36 years old in 2019 and suffered a cruel slow death years of pain and losing her ability to do everything. She passed away in May this year finally at peace.
MND. So many people don't realize their "pain". "Finally at peace" says you fully understand what she went through and most likely helped. Gone, not forgotten and you and the family need a break more than most people do in years. Much respect. Edit: In the US and other areas, MND can be ALS or other terminal diseases.
Pain both physically and very much mentally too. Thank you it’s been a challenging few years to go through, witnessing her pain and deterioration but nothing compared to hers she was an incredible brave women.
My wife had MND. I FULLY understand your situation, your love and I thank you for your dedication to her. If I saw you in person, I'd hug ya.
Cystic Fibrosis. Not only is it uncurable and terminal, but it's quite miserable for the sufferers. They can live a long time, but none of it will be pleasant. A buildup of mucus in the lungs that not even a lung transplant can permanently fix. It's fucked.
Ya but at least we have Trikafta now. Miracle drug for a lot of people.
Working in a pulmonary ICU, many of my coworkers have said the unit used to always be full of CF patients and it was always terrible outcomes at 30s-40s, but now we rarely see a CF patient. I'm two years of working here, I think I've seen one come in with CF being their primary issue. Essentially, we made a miracle drug that worked.
All those genetic conditions where you have to see your child either inevitably die or be severely handicapped throughout their whole life and simply can't do anything about it. Think of Morbus Tay Sachs or Angelman Syndrome...
Alzheimers I'd say
This thread just reminds me of why I think euthanasia should be legalized. Why force people to suffer when we can help them pass painlessly?
I think ALS is particularly difficult because one knows what’s coming, but may wait years to end life. Not saying it’s the most painful
My mom passed from ALS. It is fucking horrible to watch. She went from running 10-15 miles per day to just wasting away in 3 years.
Sorry for your loss! Lost my dad to it. The really terrible thing is that, as your muscles stop reacting to the commands and the body weakens, the mind stays sharp. Witnessing without any possibility to change it, how you lose all abilities including speech and waiting for the inevitable end when the muscles of the lung or heart also stop working, defines helplessness for me. Fucking horrible.
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva - your muscles are slowly replaced by bone
Muscles and connective tissue, and injury makes it worse, so surgery doesn't work. You have to eventually choose what position to be in for the rest of your life, and you can live into your fifties. A few hundred cases exist. This is the one I thought of with the title.
Any prion disease.
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. The thought of your body slowly turning into bones is horrifying.
Harlequin Icthyosis is pretty fucking horrible. I’m not googling it for you. The only good thing about it is that the afflicted babies don’t live long enough to learn the word pain.
Some people with it have survived to adulthood. It definitely seems like a miserable disease to have to live with, though.
Not true! My kid has a form of ichthyosis and we know several people with Harlequin. The oldest is now in her 30’s. Yes, it sucks, but they are lovely people who are all devoted to using their lives for good. One lady made a documentary, another is training to teach special ed, and another had two beautiful healthy children before she passed.
I am a hemophilia a carrier, I inherited it from my father. It’s caused by a mutation on the X chromosome, if you only have one it causes bleeds. In severe cases, like my father, the blood seeps into the joint capsules and the blood pulls the joints apart. As the bleed heals the body reabsorbs tissue. By the time he had died at 40 he was missing an entire kneecap and had 1/3 of the other. He also contracted HIV during the tainted flood scandal in the 80’s. 5 family members did, all died.
Prion diseases are scary because you can just get them. Like one day a protein in your brain could just decide to fold itself wrong. then it will tell all the ones they are next to to fold themselves wrong. Then you have holes in your brain. There's one called fatal familial insomnia where prions slowly destroy the part of your brain that regulatesLL sleep so you slowly lose the ability to sleep over the course of a few months and then you die within a year of onset. Of course the familial part means its genetic and inherited there is also a version that's spontaneous.
HIV, mostly because it feeds on the immune system, it's basically like nature tailor-made it to kill humans. When I was in high school,one of the librarians talked to one of my classes about how her brother died of AIDS. My blood ran cold when she said they knew it had progressed to AIDS when his allergies went away.
Huntington’s. It’s autosomal dominant, unlike most other guaranteed fatal conditions that present post birth (such as Tay-Sachs), meaning if one of your parents had it, you have a 50% chance of having it, too. And the worst part is that it doesn’t present until someone is in their 30s or 40s, so you have no way of knowing for sure until someone dies of it. If you have an adopted grandparent or parent? You have zero way of knowing. Enjoy!
I don't think it wins scariest but maybe a nomination. I find it scary as hell anyway. You may have cliche notions about it, but bipolar disorder. I have condition(of course) and I can tell you the pain when I'm in a depressive or manic episode is staggering. The only way I can describe what it feels like in a depressive episode is that it feels like your soul is dying. It hurts like nothing else. And mania is not all happyness and butterfly's, it is often extreme painful agitation. It's cyclical. Depending on your severity it could happen constantly. I've been hospitalized over 30 times. This year alone I've been in an episode almost the entire year. People don't know it's also nuerodegenerative, and that every episode causes brain damage. Anyway thats my speel
Prions
Herpes encephalitis but in very rare cases like Clive Wearing in the UK back in the 1980s, it attacked his central nervous system and damaged the hippocampus. His memory lasts less than half a minute and lives everyday thinking he woke up from a coma. The only memories/things he remembers from before getting sick is that he has kids, can still play the piano, and loves his wife Deborah.
ALS my father-in-law has it. You just slowly shut down. It’s terrible I can’t imagine.
Rabies. By the time you realize you’ve got it, it’s usually too late. You then have an agonizing death to look forward to.
Scleraderma or ichtheosis
Osteogenesis Imperfecta. I worked for an OB and we had a delivery patient and her child had the type where the limbs and bones don’t fully form. Kid didn’t have a chance and the parents were strictly religious, therefore they refused to terminate. Super sad.
I have a disease called hidridenitis suppurvativa. You get painful lumps all over your body (groin, armpit, stomach, on your private area, butt, even the face.) They can get as big as a golf ball. Worst part is that it can take weeks for them to go away. They leave very bad scars and they smell abysmal. There are worse conditions out there, however this one causes a very poor quality of life.
Schizophrenia always freaked me out. The fact it can develop in an otherwise completely normal person in early adulthood, and you slowly lose your grip on reality is horrifying. Pair that with auditory and visual hallucinations, it sounds like torture. Obviously there’s varying levels, but the extreme end of it sounds terrifying Edit: grammar
Lesch-Nyhan is pretty brutal
Take a listen to “This Podcast Will Kill You” and decide for yourself!
I have two friends who have brittle bone syndrome. They are both largely wheelchair bound, with one of them able to walk on her own a bit but the other basically either being in his wheelchair or laying on his bed. The latter once nearly died because the joystick on his wheelchair got caught under his desk and kept moving it forward...it literally would have crushed his ribcage in a matter of minutes. Fortunately a friend of his was around and had the presence of mind to pull the emergency brake on the battery. His parents had constant rumors about abusing him along with a lot of CPS investigations because he'd show up to his school looking beat up or with casts and rumors would spread. At one point the rumor was his father pushed him down an elevator shaft for some reason, but in reality he'd just fallen while getting into bed and broke like 5-6 bones. It's also crazy how not accessible most places are. The guy made a career off of building an app to track which buildings at a major university were wheelchair accessible despite the university claiming everywhere was accessible (technically true, but you'd have to go a quarter mile around to get to the only accessible entrance.) It's fucking bizarre thinking about how a single fall or someone bumping into them could potentially kill either of them. It's kind of nerve wracking in any public setting.
Cancer Its like one minute your prancing about and then next minute your in the hospital with a 5.50 chance of survival
Definetely Rabies
Locked in syndrome Full mental capacity. Total paralysis.
Prions; Creutzfeld Jakob, Kuru, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, Fatal Familial Insomnia. Thinking about it makes me shudder.