It looks like I have Herpes

[smackaholic]

WTF couldn't you have announced this earlier? I could have used a good long shot in the death pool.

[Dinsdale]

Uh, that sounds more like scabies.

HPV

[Trampis]

The wife had scabies while we were dating. NOT COOL. Little red dots in say two inch lines. Iched like hell.

Though I never showed any symptoms I was also treated for it to be cautious. I think the stuff I used was called Lydane? Anyways, it was a pesticide and I rubbed that shit all over my body...every square inch. Had to clean all my bedding and vacuum my couches,car, etc to try to get rid of the little buggers. Never did have any hint of it on me and it soon went away on the wife though the scars were there for a year or so.

[PSUFAN]

The wife had scabies while we were dating.

Sounds like a deal-killer. You must have been desperate.

[Trampis]

The wife had scabies while we were dating.

Sounds like a deal-killer. You must have been desperate.

Ah man, my wifes a saint. Treats me and her son real well and shes sexier then all get out. Doesnt drink, not fat ,and lets me do as I please.

She went through a period there where she seemed to "get" some weird shit. Like whooping cough. Cracked a rib she coughed so hard. It pissed her off that i didnt get that from her either.

She also had lasic eye surgery and that didnt go so well either as she ended up with a "ridge" instead of a nice new oval. A year or so latter she says her eyesight is better than before, but for awhile there she would cry herself to sleep wondering why she had "elective" eye fuck up.

[Terry in Crapchester]

I have never had that medical condition. Damn, it feels good to write that.

First time for everything, eh?

[Diogenes]

Shingles is one of the reasons I quit taking the immunosuppressants (methotrexate) that I was placed on when I came down with rheumatoid arthritis.

Get better.

[Dinsdale]

The technology is too new. I'll probably never get laser eye surgery. Maybe in 50 years.

They've been doing it in one form or another for 60 years... longer than they've been doing kidney transplants.

[Dinsdale]

I guess it brings the question -- how long does a procedure have to be performed with an extremely low occurance of complications before it's "safe"?

I'll have them eyeballs hacked one of these days. And make no mistake -- while I'm about one tough mofo, afraid of almost nothing -- I'm quite sure when they strap me down and threaten to burn up my eyeballs like something out of a low-budget horror flick, it's a safe bet I'll be crying for my mommy.

[Van]

I've had two Lasiks surgeries. I was neither near nor far-sighted, I just had really bad astigmatism, so my basic vision sucked. The first time I had the surgery, it definitely corrected my vision. Problem was, it added a new issue: I now see multiple halos around bright lights at night. Whereas you drive down the freeway and see nothing but red tail lights, I see a mini-LSD trip of red phantasms. It's especially bizarre during a rainstorm, with the rain drops adding their own crazy prisms to those lights. The moon looks particularly interesting to me, as do neon exit signs in theaters. You see one moon; I see parts of four.

The doctor claimed to have done thousands of treatments, and he'd originally assured me that I was a good candidate for that treatment, despite my astigmatism. Afterwards, he seemed at a total loss as to what had happened. He gave me the impression that he'd never heard of such a result. So, he did a second treatment. No change. The vision was still fine, and the halo-ing effect was still every bit in evidence.

He eventually told me that my astigmatism was just too severe, that it had created anomolies within the procedure; anomolies which amounted to tiny seams where the laser had made its cuts. It's those tiny seams which cause my distortion.

Oh, and by the way, no, you don't feel anything during a Lasiks procedure. Other than the discomfort of having your eyes clamped open, there's no pain, nor any sensation of feeling at all. The doc gives you a numbing agent for your eyes, then your eyes remain wildly dialated for a few hours, post surgery. You go home wearing Yoko Ono shades. You're not supposed to drive yourself home, but in a pinch, you could.

The doc ended up sending me to two other specialists, who both agreed that there was nothing more that could be done for me, at least under FDA approved procedures. They all indicated to me that there was a new procedure available in Europe, Wavefront Technology, which is what I would need, but that the procedue hadn't yet been approved by the FDA for use in America.

My doc told me that I'd need to wait until that procedure was approved for use here, and to just sit tight. He told me to check back in with him every six months, to see if the procedure had made its way here.

As many of you know, Wafefront Technology is now available in the U.S. Basically, it's the same thing as Lasiks, only whereas Lasiks might hypothetically take a map of your eye measured at ten points, Wavefront would map it out at a thousand points. The procedure is essentially the same, it's just much more accurate.

Unfortunately, my doc is still telling me - and we're now five years down the road - that they haven't gotten the procedure dialed in yet to the point where it would be effective on my level of astigmatism. I hear Wavefront Technology commercials all day long which claim to be effective on astigmatism, but my doc is saying it's a matter of degree, and my degree of severity is too great.

But hey, in the meantime, I've become nearly blind as a bat when it comes to reading. With all the reading I do, including all the reading at a computer, my 'old age' presbyopia has set in, something fierce. That was always going to happen anyway, irrespective of eye surgery. One has nothing to do with the other. The surgery doesn't prevent the natural effects of aging.

Still, fuck, I can't even read a menu anymore, not without reading glasses. Just in the last year, I've noticed an incredibly rapid deterioration in my ability to see anything up-close. I can't even see the side fret dots on my guitars now. I can't even read the markings on my amp. I sure as hell can't read this screen.

I think it was Mgo, though it may have been PSU or Pogue, who long ago told me I would be blind by the time I was old. This was back when I first got the Lasiks surgery. Well, at the rate my vision is deteriorating, he may be right.

[PSUFAN]

I guess it brings the question -- how long does a procedure have to be performed with an extremely low occurance of complications before it's "safe"?

I'll have them eyeballs hacked one of these days. And make no mistake -- while I'm about one tough mofo, afraid of almost nothing -- I'm quite sure when they strap me down and threaten to burn up my eyeballs like something out of a low-budget horror flick, it's a safe bet I'll be crying for my mommy.

I had cataract surgery - and the surgical process was really almost nothing. I agree with Van - the Dinsenator can handle this.

[Katy]

I had cataract surgery

WHOA. Really? You're so young.

[PSUFAN]

Yep, when I was 34 - strange, but not totally unheard of.

[Katy]

Yep, when I was 34 - strange, but not totally unheard of.

Well...glad yer better now. :D

[smackaholic]

lasik may work quite well, but, i'm with chip on this one. of course, i don't HAVE to wear glasses just to get around as do many. maybe i'd change my tune if i did. i have glasses and they certainly improve my vision, but, for the most part i still get along with out them fine.

[Smackie Chan]

But hey, in the meantime, I've become nearly blind as a bat when it comes to reading. With all the reading I do, including all the reading at a computer, my 'old age' presbyopia has set in, something fierce. That was always going to happen anyway, irrespective of eye surgery. One has nothing to do with the other. The surgery doesn't prevent the natural effects of aging.

Still, fuck, I can't even read a menu anymore, not without reading glasses. Just in the last year, I've noticed an incredibly rapid deterioration in my ability to see anything up-close. I can't even see the side fret dots on my guitars now. I can't even read the markings on my amp. I sure as hell can't read this screen.

That sucks, dude. Hope something comes down the pike soon in the medical community that can reverse or impede the progress of your vision loss.

[Van]

Smackie, it's just normal aging, exacerbated by how much I read, especially at a computer. A large part of the problem is that a year ago, during the NFC Championship game between Arizona and Philly, my brother gave me some reading glasses. They aren't prescription glasses, they're just cheapo magnifying glasses. Well, they work. They work so well that I quickly became spoiled by wearing them, to the extent that I also started wearing them to read at the computer.

A year later, I've become totally dependent on them. When I take them off, my ability to read is completely shot, compared to what it was only a year ago. He gave me those glasses because I was struggling a little to read the small print on the menu. I was there a week ago, and I now can't read that same menu at all. I have to hold it completely at arm's length just to make anything out, and by that point it's too far away.

This is how bad it's gotten...

My mom wanted me to take her to IHOP. She was in the mood for their blueberry pancakes. So, I take her there, and we order our meals. When the pancakes arrived, I went to grab a syrup dispenser from the little row of syrups they provide at each table. I knew the red syrup was strawberry, so that was easy. I wanted maple, and the other four bottles were all the same basic color of syrup. On the lid of each dispenser was some little script saying 'Maple', 'Butterscotch', 'Blueberry', etc. Well, no matter how I held those little dispensers up to the light, I simply could not make out the lettering. Mom had taken off to the restroom before the food had arrived, and after trying for about three minutes to read those fucking dispensers, I finally called the waitress over and asked her to show me which one was the maple.

Unless it's a place like Denny's, where they have those big pictures for the late night drunks, I fucking have to bring reading glasses with me now, just to go to a restaurant.

[Van]

Dude, like I said, I can't see the dots on the side of my fretboard...and the guitar I just got has no fret markers on the fretboard. No dots, no little birds, no blocks...no nuthin'. It's completely unadorned rosewood, except for those little dots on the side of the board. I can't see 'em, from up-close. If I don't hold that bad boy as low as Jimmy Page or Slash, I'm fucked.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

If I don't hold that bad boy as low as Jimmy Page or Slash, I'm fucked.

Bring it into the bathtub with you, see if that helps. Don't forget to plug it in.

[Derron]

Shingles is one of the reasons I quit taking the immunosuppressants (methotrexate) that I was placed on when I came down with rheumatoid arthritis.

Get better.

Ahhh yes...one of those great wonder drugs..they wanted me to start taking for the ulcerative colitis...it may or may not heal you, it may or maynot give you caner, you may or may not have to take it the rest of your life....it just did not seem like a good choice....I took a pass

[Rootbeer]

Is there no one on this board with a Roofer troll to weigh in on this thread?

Roofer was one of my favorites back in the day. Where is that guy, btw?

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Roofer was run.

[titlover]

i had that shit a few years back. got the rash on teh left side of my body. basically the outbreak follows the nerve pathways from your spine around one side of your body across your ribcage. i didn't itch or have a fever but holy shit my ribs were fucking sore as hell..... and it lasted almost a damn month....feel better...