# Sickest you've ever been?



## Sourpuss (Aug 9, 2014)

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## dragthewaters (Feb 9, 2013)

There was about a month and a half in summer 2011 when I threw up almost every time I ate and felt constantly nauseous, like I had food poisoning. Eating was a huge, painful, scary battle. I even had to get an endoscopy. It turned out to be stress caused by my relationship with my asshole boyfriend-at-the-time. When I left for college and at least partially distanced myself from that my symptoms immediately disappeared. They still come back every so often if I am under a lot of stress.

As for actual illness, there are several candidates. In sophomore year of college, I got either the flu or something very similar four times in about two months. It was about three weeks of class that I ended up missing and I ended up with about a 2.7 GPA that semester. I never got the flu as a kid but in college I was constantly getting diseases that involved sore throat/chills/body aches.

In junior year of college, I got this weird like...whooping cough thing at the end of the semester. My throat would be wickedly itchy and I would go into these coughing fits that would last literally 5 or 10 minutes and almost throw up. I remember being on the bus going home from college, and in my final exams, being so afraid that I would go into a coughing fit. My mom wouldn't even let me go to the campus health clinic because they didn't take our insurance, and since I had finals I didn't have time to go to a doctor that did take my insurance. So I just had to deal with that shit like, during my finals, and after I got home I was prescribed antibiotics and got it cleared up right away.

Also I feel you on the ear infection. Once, again in college, I had an ear infection that lasted six months. It was really nasty and regular antibiotics didn't cure it. My ears were constantly ringing and had fishy-smelling pus leaking out of them (sorry for TMI). Finally I had to go to a specialist and get my ears vacuumed out and the only thing that cured it were these massive 800mg antibiotic pills that caused so many side effects.

My health was really bad in college, because colleges are concentrated repositories of disease, and I was under a lot of stress at the time. It was so refreshing to NOT get the flu last year after graduating (and this year so far).


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## Lakin (Feb 4, 2015)

I'm going to interpret 'sickness' more abstractly and say I was the sickest I ever was when I was suffering through my binge eating disorder. BED isn't commonly known, but it's an eating disorder where you consume unusually large amounts of food. 

BED was like this little voice in my head that constantly chanted at me. 'Eat. Eat. Eat.' It was quite literally all I could ever think about. Sitting in class. 'Eat. Eat. Eat.' Talking to my friends. 'Eat. Eat. Eat.' Driving home from school. 'Eat. Eat. Eat.'

I would consume, easily, 3000 calories a day or more. Note, I am not a male bodybuilder. I'm a teenage girl. My body is not built to contain that much food. I would often eat so much that I would be hunched over in pain, and yet, I couldn't stop. It was physical and psychological torture. 

I had a particular affinity to peanut butter, but if there was no peanut butter, I would eat anything and everything I could get my hands on, no matter how strange the combination. Corn chips in marinara sauce, icing on salsa chips, melted chocolate on bread. . .anything.

One of the worst parts of dealing with it was trying to get someone to take me seriously. I knew I had a problem, but I didn't really have anyone to help me. Whenever I would tell my friends, they would say things like, "Oh, everyone overeats sometimes!" or "That's not really a problem!" But it felt like a problem just a few hours later when I was binging on animal crackers from one of those large Costco tubs. It also didn't help that mother constantly blamed my 'lack of self control' for my overeating. I tried to tell her it was more than that, but she never believed me.

It was a rough time that lasted probably a little over a year. I'm not quite sure how it ended, but I'm happy to say I don't have BED anymore and that I now have control over my eating. I don't have the perfect diet by any means, but I no longer have that little voice in my head. I no longer walk through the door to go immediately to the cupboard so I can scarf down food. It's a good feeling to no longer have food and eating control my life.


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## youngspectrum (Mar 29, 2013)

Hospitalised in Berlin due to a drug overdose. Passed out in a bathroom and came in and out of consciousness over the next several days.

Bleeding gums. Mouth sores. Couldn't eat. Couldn't talk.

Too tired to stay awake. Too scared to sleep due to my night terrors being worse than my reality. Couldn't stop sweating. Living hell.


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## stargazing grasshopper (Oct 25, 2013)

I fell through the ice while cross country skiing along a pond last year, I was soaked from head to toe & had to ski the rest of the way home which resulted in my getting sick for approximately a week or so. Prior to last year's illness, I hadn't been sick for over ten years.
I rarely suffer illness but when I'm ill it kicks my ass, luckily I work from my home office & so last year's illness wasn't that big a deal except that I was too miserable to be near.


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## aef8234 (Feb 18, 2012)

There was that one time where I ate some food from a grungy gas station on the rush trip to texas.
I was glued to the toilet for 8 days.

I heal very quickly in various ways, so the longest I've been sick is a week-ish.


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## Sporadic Aura (Sep 13, 2009)

I've never been hospitalized due to sickness. 

When I was like in 5th grade I did have a fever of like 102-103, and it was pretty rough. I was out of school for almost 2 weeks. And basically just in bed.

Thats by far the worst I remember though. I hardly ever get sick.


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

I've never been hospitalized either. 
I suppose last year was bad enough, I had bacterial tonsillitis that caused me bronchitis and conjunctivitis in one eye. I also took the wrong antibacterial because my mother was afraid _augmentin_ would kill me because she heard that it killed an infant one time years ago -.- 
so my recovery was delayed and bronchitis was terrible as I couldn't sleep at night from coughing and it hurt like someone was putting a knife in my lung. 
And my eye was crying puss, but that was kinda amusing.
And it turns out, my tonsillitis could be because I've developed tonsil stones in one tonsil.
I used to get tonsillitis once or twice a year when I was a kid, but I hadn't been sick for ~8 years besides very mild colds, so it was very, very uncomfortable.

The rest of the year wasn't that good either since I had full blown IBS, probably due to also developing lactose intolerance. I did 2 months of treatment with drugs and dieting but it took a while to find out which foods I had to avoid. After the first therapy I had the brilliant idea that I could have my favourite smoothie of apple-pear-orange juice-banana and it caused me so much pain I couldn't walk. Then I had 7-8 bouts of diarrhea in a day and I took one too may pills of loperamide and caused a terrible constipation. It hurt so much I couldn't sleep and my doctor send me for belly U/S but fortunately it was nothing but constipation. I had to use glycerine suppositories and they barely worked. I think IBS was also largely due to a lot of anxiety I was experiencing, so it's much better now, though I don't drink milk anymore and I avoid high FODMAPs.


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## Wonszu (Sep 25, 2013)

I've been once almost hospitalised because of very bad case of tonsillitis. When I was small (around 7 years old I think?) I get tonsillitis three times a row within two months. I was constantly staying in home not being able to go to school regularly and being sick to the point I was throwing up and I had a high fever. What is funny is that my mom took me to hospital at night because I felt especially bad and I was shivering. The doctor didn't wanted to believe it was something worse than cold and that I am supposedly be fine. Just when she finished saying that to my mom I beautifully throw up oh her floor. As weird as it may sound mother was proud of me because she was ready to call the doctor out of her bullshit. I finally get the right medication and shots. Since then, after the sickness coming back and fighting it with shots I was never sick with tonsillitis ever again. My tonsils are devastated and look like a mine field but at least I gained a high resistance against this sickness.


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## Mee2 (Jan 30, 2014)

Misdiagnosed appendicitis. Operated on approximately 20 hours after it had ruptured. Good fun.


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## BlackDog (Jan 6, 2012)

That's sort of a toss up for me. I would have to say either when I had swine flu a few years back (five days in bed, which are a delusional, feverish blur), or when I got some kind of fever and severe throat swelling in Nicaragua. I tried to go to the hospital, but the locals begged me not to go - apparently it's not very clean and your are only supposed to go if you chop a limb off or something. The lady who sells shoes ending giving me some drugs though and I drank watermelon smoothies, wrapped in a sheet in a hammock for days. Delayed my departure from the island for almost a week.


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## Gossip Goat (Nov 19, 2013)

I had a nice cough for about a year. One day I ate a tums and it went away.

Also one day I got this terrible TERRIBLE stomach ache, I had to leave the store, I couldn't sit up right I couldnt have people talking near me, I had the runs all night and it was so painful, then I projectile vomited 3 times in a row while still on the toilet.


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## TheProphetLaLa (Aug 18, 2014)

Jiminy Cricket!


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## QuiteCharmed (Oct 10, 2014)

I had pneumonia when I was six and my left lung didn't really function for about a week. It was awful because I was nauseous, had a high fever and couldn't breathe well


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## backdrop12 (Dec 11, 2012)

I remember my sickest moment was on New Years day of 2009. I believed that I caught some type of flue and it was hell. Was very weak , had chills , could not walk , felt super fatigue , legs were in pain when moved, passed out sometimes .....it just was not fun.:crying: ( and what a way to begin a new year amirite 8D ).

Now one time you can technically say I was so-called sick was when we had a pool party at the end of 6th grade . Lets just say I never wore any sunscreen and had suburn all over my body . Could not return to school for 3 days . I could not even move without feeling excruciating pain ( now I never get sunburn anymore tho ...weird ).


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## xisnotx (Mar 20, 2014)

Three times come to mind.

1) When I cut my leg, just below my knee, so much so that I could see the bone...and the flesh of my shin was hinged off of my leg. I passed out after running home due to blood loss..but I woke up the next day. I needed blood transfusions to survive the injury and the surgery after. I was out for a good 24 hours and have no clue what happened. I had an out of body experience though, where I kind of realized I was outside of my body, but in the room, like up above. I felt like I almost left, you know? Passed on. I felt like I had that option. But, I opted to "go back to my body". And, from time to time, especially if I'm um...participating is certain jollies...I'll regress and experience what I was experiencing when I was blacked out. Like, I have had drams of surgeons frantically screaming at each other, yelling for people to "hurry up" and "sow better". I didn't quite put it together until later, when I suddenly realized I had been re-living my surgery. Before then, I just wondered why the hell I had nightmares/memories involving surgeons so often. I was 10.

2) When I had malaria. I was 10. I experienced "malaria delirium" and I swear I had gone quite mad. Like, strip off all my clothes and go running about in the middle of the night mad. I had to be restrained a couple times. Also, I kept on falling off the bed. And, wanting to vomit when you can't...when you're crying because you can't vomit...it is not a good experience. Eventually, I slept it off and medicine did its thing. It's scarier now that I think about it because I've had a couple relatives die from malaria. I didn't realize how serious it can be...especially back then. I've had malaria like 5 times at this point...but never as bad as that. A couple times as an infant, and most recently I was 16. But, the last time, I didn't believe it was malaria because we lived in a city that was supposedly above the mosquito line. 

3) When I contracted Hepatitis B. I was jaundiced, and looked like death. I was hospitalized for about a week. I was 14. I felt just awful. Just horribly awful. I couldn't eat. I couldn't even look at food. Meanwhile, I was weak because I hadn't eaten in so long. So much thirst. I don't think I've ever been that thirsty...but I couldn't keep it down. I'd drink water knowing it was coming back up, just to have some comfort. I remember the night that I had..umm..become better. I don't know but I expelled so much gas...I stunk up the whole ward lol. 

And...bonus...

I once went driving around on forest roads on a whim. I quickly got lost and my fuel was running out, no food, no water. It's only at this point that I remember that a couple people die from getting lost in these forest every year, and that if my car gave out, given how lost I was, I was very likely going to be one of them. Thankfully, I found a way out.

After all that, I'm still here! Have to love that


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## Cephalonimbus (Dec 6, 2010)

Mee2 said:


> Misdiagnosed appendicitis. Operated on approximately 20 hours after it had ruptured. Good fun.


Me too... well in my case it was only a few hours after, but the reason my appendix ruptured in the first place was because those idiots failed to recognize the symptoms. It's unbelievable how incompetent some people are. At first they refused to send out an ambulance so my mom actually had to take a cab to the hospital, and then this asshat of a doctor didn't think there was anything wrong with me. I barely remember it though, I was only 3.

The sickest I've been that I can remember is about 6 years ago. I almost never get a regular flu or even a common cold, but sometimes I do get a rather atypical bladder infection. Peeing doesn't hurt, there's just blood in it and I get really really sick, like I can't stay awake for more than an hour at a time and just get really exhausted and weak. I recognize the symptoms well enough now to act on it quickly (cranberry extract seems to fix it in the early stages), but in this particular case I waited too long so it got pretty bad... I have no idea how I made it to the doctor on a friggin bicycle, but I did... almost passed out a couple of times.


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## VinnieBob (Mar 24, 2014)

i almost starved to death 2x due to then undiagnosed Celiacs, IBS and a few other food related issues
face was concave, veins were popping out everywhere
think pic of starving, malnourished Ethiopian


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## mhysa (Nov 27, 2014)

my immune system is garbage and i tend to get sick a lot, but i think the sickest i've ever been was either when i got a bad case of the flu in high school (during exam week too, i had to come in anyway and take all my tests), or last year when i had kidney stones. THAT sucked, especially since i had to deal with suuuuper painful UTI symptoms for about three months before they bothered to do any real testing to see what the problem was. they were pretty big, i had to get two surgeries to be rid of them. ugh.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

The couple of years I spent recovering from candidiasis. I was 45 kg, my immune system was shot to pieces, I was violently sick after meals, allergic to everything, and just about capable of sitting on a sofa glaring like a basilisk. Not the ideal way of spending one's mid-twenties.

The norovirus. This is the thing that they quarantine ships for. With my usual instinct for a dramatic moment, I collapsed in the middle of Melbourne Airport. I spent the next 24 hours projectile vomiting and with diarrhoea - my stomach was like a piece of frayed rope twisted in two different directions at once. I should have gone to hospital, but the airport doctor wanted me out of the place, and told me to stay with friends; I ended up passing the virus on to a family friend and her ninety year old mother. (About which I feel pretty rotten.)

The measles in primary school. I'd been vaccinated*, but still got it. A week of being sick, then off north with my father and brother to see my grandfather. My mother came up a few days later, heard me coughing and hacking in my sleep, switched on the light, and saw that my face was covered in lovely little red dots - which horrified her, because as a kid she'd gotten meningitis from measles, and been in a coma. 
*: It was a measles / mumps vaccination. So far, I haven't caught the mumps. Luckily. I don't want elephantiasis of the gonads.

(I got chicken pox a couple of years later. Fun! My mother put so much cream on that my skin gummed up. I had a better time than my brother, though, who spent an entire seven hour car trip to the Loire being sick, and then had to stay in bed at the auberge, while I dashed around Chenonceau and Chaumont.)

The 'flu thing I caught in Europe as a kid. It's fun watching metro train compartments rush through the room, and the walls move in and out. When I got out of bed, I fell over the bannisters, and plummeted two flights.


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