"Vintage" Illnesses aka "I'm Old Fashioned whines for a moment".

[imoldfashioned]

There are some illnesses I think of as sounding "vintage". For instance, when I was a child I had scarlet fever. My mother, knowing nothing about the disease except that Beth from "Little Women" died from it, went into a panic but, obviously, I recovered.

Well, now I've got another one--I just got back from the doctor with a diagnosis of shingles. Who the heck gets shingles any more, I ask you (except, now, me)? I've got a rough, painful sore on my cheek the size of a coaster and I have a job interview tomorrow! Makeup will help but I still look and feel like I've been burned. Although I'm taking medication the doctor told me it will probably take 3 weeks to heal. I've also had to call everyone I've touched in the past week because the virus that causes shingles can also chicken pox if someone hasn't already had chicken pox. I never realized how many people I touch!

I know there are folks on this board with far more serious illnesses and I'm really lucky that this will (knock wood) be an inconvenience for a couple weeks then go away but I just had to vent. It's so strange how one day you're fine and the next day something bizarre can come out of nowhere, isn't it?

 

[Diamondback]

It is--on the other hand, yours should make a full recovery, so I think I can speak for everyone in offering thoughts and (for some anyway, myself included) prayers for it to be a swift one.

Not trying to arrogate the role of spokesman to myself, just don't know of anybody who'd disagree here.

 

[Foofoogal]

Pooh. That is not nice. I hope you feel better soon.
Immune systems that are weak will get this. Maybe you are stressed about the job and this brought it on.
Hope you get the job and then try building your immune system up.
Rest, good food, water etc.
http://www.aftershingles.com/shingles.html

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Why didn't they destroy those petri dishes?

Never did I dream tuberculosis would come back but it did. Probably had something to do with selfish jerks not believing in vaccinating their spawn. Or not, I don't know, I discontinued persuing my Masters' in nursing.
Before hubby was shipped to Iraq he was injected with smallpox, since the Iraqi bad guys bought it from the Soviet bad guys when the Communists went broke and had a garage sale. Grr. The hole in his arm was gross, I helped him keep it clean.
My boss had shingles, she was mentioning the other day the incredible pain. Yow.
My dad and uncle were born to replace my grandparents' two little boys, Buddy and Junior Black, who died during one of those epidemics of something back in the late teens, early 20s. At a family reunion I read a very sad account of the double funeral with tiny coffins.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I had Rubella as a kid; they put my in an 'oxygen tent'. My Mother had Scarlet Fever as a child; she could never be in a room painted green since that time! My Dad survived the Influenza epidemic of 1917 in Philadelphia but many of his neighbors were quaranteened and died.

Currently I have friends with the 'vapors', the 'Bazooties', 'dropsy' and 'whooping cough' - no 'consumption' yet though!

(Oddly enough though, they just found 'Black Death' alive and well near Flagstaff AZ, just a week ago! That's Bubonic Plague to you homeopaths out there!)

-dixon cannon

 

[Josephine]

(Oddly enough though, they just found 'Black Death' alive and well near Flagstaff AZ, just a week ago! That's Bubonic Plague to you homeopaths out there!)

-dixon cannon

Yep, the groundhogs out there have it. House MD had a show about it last year, a woman got a dog from a breeder out there, the dog had fleas and the fleas were a carrier from the groundhogs.

 

[TraditionalFrog]

imoldfashioned,

Sorry to hear of your shingles and I wish you a speedy recovery.

My 95 year old great aunt for one has shingles. She got them shortly after she turned 95 in February (I have heard of unwanted birthday gifts, but this is ridiculous). The last I talked with her she is on the mend, finally. She still lives alone in her own house. You wouldn't think she's 95!

She had scarlet fever and diptheria both at the same time around age 11. Quite a lady, she has shared much with me about this era and some from slightly before. She remembers WWI as a little girl.

She misses the way people used to dress and most of all the old fashioned manners!

 

[TraditionalFrog]

Beginthebeguine,

I'm also sorry to hear of your malady. A speedy recovery.

Speaking of smallpox, I hear (not joking), cow pox is a good antidote.

The epidemic you speak of was the Spanish flu (avian type) that spread across the US around 1916. My great aunt didn't take ill but several of her siblings and her mother did. Her mother almost didn't make it. Thankfully, she did.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

I'm not a good writer.

Thanks, but once again I confused someone: I don't have a malady. I have been know to cause much pain to other people, especially in the neck, however. Yes I think it was the Spanish Flu, I shall have to ask my big sister.
Another old-timey illness might be whooping cough, but a lot of children who come to the library with their mothers seem to have it.

 

[Harp]

Best Wishes

Hoping for your quick recovery!!!

 

[LadyStardust]

I'm so sorry for your feeling unwell! I really hope you get to feeling better very soon.

As for "vintage" illnesses, I think I qualify. I don't quite have chronic bronchitis, as I haven't had any bouts in the past 2 years, but I have had enough severe bouts that it's a fairly big concern in my life. My longest was the summer before 7th grade, when I was afflicted with it for close to 4 months. Now usually, I just have all the symptoms of it, including coughing, but thankfully not expectorating.

 

[imoldfashioned]

Thanks to everyone who sent me good wishes (especially one who knows who they are)--I bucked up, applied some makeup and had a good interview. I also got stronger painkillers today, which has been very helpful.

 

[pretty faythe]

Glad you had a good interview! Painkillers are the best thing in the world, thank goodness we don't live in the times before.....especially before aspirin and tylenols...

My 8 yo had scarlett fever a few years ago. I got such a kick going around and saying my daughter has scarlett fever, because so many people don't know what it actually is, they are just reminded of what they have read, ie Little Women, The Velvateen Rabbit.

 

[Joie DeVive]

Older illnesses can be a pain in the rear. Last winter I was laid up for a long stretch with pluresy (sp?). My mother laughed when she heard the diagnosis saying that she didn't know anyone was diagnosed with that anymore.

And yes, whooping cough is making the rounds again. I took over a classroom where both the teacher and her son came down with it. According to her, one version of the vaccine doesn't last as long as expected, so some people may need boosters.

I'm wondering though about the current smallpox vaccine. I know in the past they vaccinated people with cowpox for that. That's why most kids who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s have a round dent of a scar on one shoulder. It created a big sore kinda thing (like a giant chicken pox, sort of). Is that what they are still doing? Just curious.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

The ultimate vintage illness, and presidential to boot: POLIO.


.

 

[Paisley]

Nobel Prize for Dispelling Golden Era Myth

I had an ancient illness several months ago: an acute infection of Helicobacter pylori. It's been found in Egyptian mummies. What is H. pylori? It's the bacteria that causes most stomach ulcers. Many people have no symptoms, but I had diarrhea for two months and had to eat a bland but fattening diet. (I'm still shedding the fat I gained.) What's far worse, the bacteria can lead to stomach cancer, and the acid reflux the bacteria can cause can lead to throat cancer.

In the Golden Era, and up until the 1990s, doctors believed that ulcers were caused by stress and diet. But an Australian scientist, Barry J Marshall, thought otherwise and even swallowed a petri dish of the bacteria to prove it. He and his partner, Robin Warren, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2005 for their discovery. Read the story here.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Older illnesses can be a pain in the rear. Last winter I was laid up for a long stretch with pleurisy. My mother laughed when she heard the diagnosis saying that she didn't know anyone was diagnosed with that anymore.

And yes, whooping cough is making the rounds again. I took over a classroom where both the teacher and her son came down with it. According to her, one version of the vaccine doesn't last as long as expected, so some people may need boosters.

I'm wondering though about the current smallpox vaccine. I know in the past they vaccinated people with cowpox for that. That's why most kids who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s have a round dent of a scar on one shoulder. It created a big sore kinda thing (like a giant chicken pox, sort of). Is that what they are still doing? Just curious.

My husband told me they injected him and the other soldiers, before they were deployed to Baghdad, with actual smallpox so they would develop immunity to it. The only reason is that the Iraqis use smallpox as warfare, not because it is a disease amongst their population. The smallpox injection left a gaping half-inch festering hole in his arm which I saw in November, but which had healed last time I saw him in May. When I was getting my undergraduate degree in health education, TB, polio AND smallpox, among other things, had been eradicated. Our enemy USSR kept them alive in labs to use against us and when they went broke sold them to other bad guys like Iraq for warfare.
Glad you are feeling better, imoldfashioned.

 

[Joie DeVive]

My husband told me they injected him and the other soldiers, before they were deployed to Baghdad, with actual smallpox so they would develop immunity to it. The only reason is that the Iraqis use smallpox as warfare, not because it is a disease amongst their population. The smallpox injection left a gaping half-inch festering hole in his arm which I saw in November, but which had healed last time I saw him in May. When I was getting my undergraduate degree in health education, TB, polio AND smallpox, among other things, had been eradicated. Our enemy USSR kept them alive in labs to use against us and when they went broke sold them to other bad guys like Iraq for warfare.

Thanks so much for the clarification. It sounds like they are using an entirely different process. My Dad described his cowpox immunization as a scratch that made the described sore. Hopefully, the injection is even better protection than the old method. I'm glad your hubby's arm healed up. And I'd like to thank both of you for your sacrifices to our country.

It's sad to see these dangerous things used so recklessly.

 

[Twitch]

Yeah polio was the biggie of the 50s. First we got vaccinated in school en masse and then they came up with an oral vaccine. Lately we heard that those innoculations weren't a permanent defense.:eusa_doh:

 

[Paisley]

That oral polio vaccine was about the nastiest thing I've ever tasted. (I had it in the military.) For months after I took it, the thought of it brought back the taste and made me cringe.

On scarlet fever: that was the illness that caused Helen Keller to lose her sight and hearing.