Category: Health

I’ve had bad side effects to vaccines in the past. Can I get a medical exemption somehow?

Your doctor, who undoubtedly has:

  • all the details of these bad side effects, written up in your medical records,
  • all the details of all the medical treatment you received as a result of the bad side effects recorded in your medical records, and
  • all the results of investigations into the precise cause of all these bad side effects attached to your medical records,

should be able to advise you on whether you qualify for an exemption, and will be able to give you an official certificate of your exemption from vaccination.

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As a man, I want to understand one thing about periods. Are they actually that bad? Or are they sometimes used as an excuse, maybe for work or tasks we don’t want to do, for creating sympathy on the other side? (Just asking, no offense)

Mine were awful.

Once, I collapsed in school, and the school nurse thought I was having a seizure. I was lying on the floor, twitching, unable to stand up or speak. OMG embarrassing. Painkillers, even those designed for period pain, couldn’t even touch it.

I later came to realise that my stupid body had fooled itself into thinking I was in labour. The pain came in waves, gradually increasing in frequency. I read up on natural childbirth, and tried the techniques I read about – breathing, staying active as much as possible, etc. That helped, though it still meant I couldn’t do much else, like study or work. And once the pain resolved itself, I was so knackered all I could do was sleep.

Eventually, a doctor listened, and recommended I had a D&C. After that, I never had that kind of pain again. I still had pain, but it was occasional, and only uncomfortable. I never had to take time off from my normal schedule to deal with it.

Since then, I had a baby. It ended in an emergency c-section, but up until that, I had natural labour, no pain relief or anything, just walking around and breathing exercises. It was a piece of cake compared to my period pain.

Does anybody even know what gluten-free means? Where was “gluten” in the 80’s? Where were peanut allergies in the 70’s?

Your ignorance doesn’t make any of that true.

My mother’s best friend in school died of anaphylaxis, at 14, in the 1950s. Coeliac disease – first described by Areteaus of Cappadocia 2,000 years ago – was linked to gluten during WWII. One of the Pharaohs died of an allergic reaction to a bee-sting. A physician, John Bostock, characterised hayfever in 1828.

Incuriousness puzzles me. When I realise there’s something I don’t understand, I find out about it. Why do you, instead, post insincere rants disguised as questions on Quora?

Why does the NHS cover the cost of levothyroxine in the UK?

The NHS provides a medical exemption certificate to people who need levothyroxine, waiving the standard prescription charge that patients have to pay for most other drugs. Other medications covered by the certificates are for serious life-threatening conditions like cancer and diabetes.

Just posting to give the perspective of someone who actually suffers from an underactive thyroid.

I first realised that there was something seriously wrong with me when I fell asleep at the wheel of my car, driving down the M6 in England.

I wasn’t tired. It was around 9 o’clock in the morning, and I’d had a good night’s sleep. I had been driving less than 20 minutes.

Luckily, I came to almost immediately, and was able to get off the motorway swiftly. I parked up, and sat there drifting in and out of consciousness for the next four hours. I filled up on coffee and continued my journey without incident.

I saw my GP as an emergency, and within a few days was on levothyroxine. Amongst the many other benefits provided by this medication – and there are many – I’ve never fallen asleep driving since.

I would consider levothyroxine to be most definitely a life-saving medication: the lives saved, however, are not limited to my own.