The Frying Pan

2:57 AM

@Cerberus Honestly? I was drunk enough that I didnt feel much pain. It was more of a surprise than anything. I lived there for like 2 years without incident.

Also this is great

oops wrong link

uproxx.com/webculture/2015/08/gay-couple-attack-revenge-soho

Also good new, my car is fixed 3 days ahead of schedule. I got it earlier in the evening. :D so happy

Cerberus

3:13 AM

@Jay That's nice.

@Jay Congrats!

Gigili

7:55 AM

@Jolenealaska Thank you for the link :)

Jolenealaska

8:42 AM

Hi everyone, I'm moved in. No Internet yet. My car is registered.

rumtscho

10:35 AM

@Jolenealaska good to know everything is moving along as it should

I just realized that your "Internet cafe during business hours" arrangement is somewhat inconvenient for Europeans who like to chat with you :(

Cindy

Hi @rumtscho.

rumtscho

hi @cindy, how are you?

Cindy

Good, and you? How is your ear?

rumtscho

still fluctuating within the usual range from quite bad to almost OK. But the situation with the doctors is complicated.

I'm visiting a neurologist today, and will ask him if he can determine the extent of existing damage to my vestibular system too (the appointment was initially made to exclude MS)

if he says he can't, I'll look into my options for a clinic specializing in Meniere

Cindy

I was so hoping that they would be able to help you more. Good luck today. Let us know how it goes.

rumtscho

10:42 AM

There are such clinics, and patients say they are good. But Germany has a two-tier health care system, and I have to find out which of these clinics work with patients with standard health insurance. The best one is a private hospital limited to patients with a premium health insurance.

Cindy

A clinic that specializes is a good idea.

rumtscho

@Cindy The problem is that nobody can help much. I've read an entire book on it by now, and already looking into the source literature for the Cochrane reviews. Even the best specialists don't know what is the cause, or how to stop the damage from happening.

Cindy

Our healthcare systems are quite frustrating, too.

rumtscho

The good part is that it can take a very mild course all by itself, and I'm not on a severe course now. It can worsen, but doesn't have to.

@Cindy Oh, I'm sure yours is much worse than ours. I've heard enough about it.

Did they manage to help with your persistent pharyngitis from several weeks ago?

Cindy

@rumtscho Any time you are dealing with something without a known cause, it's a tough situation.

@rumtscho The meds didn't really seem to help much. But it seemed to move to my ear and sinuses and then ran its course (I hope). Much better now than I was. :)

rumtscho

10:49 AM

The bad part is that the doctors are so certain of themselves! The senior physician at the university hospital decided to offer me a surgery a few minutes after hearing about my case from the junior physician (before even having seen me in person). And this is quite unconventional. The surgery itself is controversial, and it is usually done in much more severe cases.

The meta studies' abstracts leave one thinking that surgery is no use, but when reading the full text, it turns out that real surgery and sham surgery had no difference in outcome, but that both produced an improved outcome!

Frankly, if a surgery helps me, I don't mind it being the placebo effect which helps

so now I'm looking to find the studies they excluded from the review because they were not a randomised controlled trial

Cindy

Yes, I had a different but quite similar experience last year. I had a leg injury with a severe deep tissue infection and a very large hematoma. After many months I was sent to a surgeon for a consultation and first thing I was offered surgery.

rumtscho

the most on-topic one was published in an obscure conference in 1990 and it seems that a single library in Germany has a physical copy of the proceedings. The Internet lets one find the proceedings tome, but it does not even know of the existence of the article itself. It's not on Pubmed or on Google Scholar. I'm quite certain there is no electronic copy of it anywhere.

For a PhD student in computer science, who is accustomed that "if a source is not on the Internet, it doesn't exist", this is quite shocking. And hard to navigate. I might have to go to a physical library and ask about postal library service (gasp!)

@Cindy oh, this sounds bad. I hope you have healed by now?

Cindy

LOL. Yeah, it's hard to imagine anything not being available online.

@rumtscho It is essentially healed. But I didn't have the surgery so I do still have a noticeable knot and discoloration that may or may not go away. They said if it did go away it would take a very long time, but it may be there forever.

rumtscho

Well, that's not too bad. I got a knot in my chin from a bicycle fall when I was around 10. It was easily felt on touch for the first 10 years or so, then became less prominent. But the main point is that it did not bother me at any time since healing.

Maybe it's different for other people, but for me, a scar is not really interesting in any way, good or bad. As long as it does not cause pain, I just forget it.

Cindy

This still hurts or swells on occasion but it is very manageable. When I first did it I couldn't even get a shoe on that foot for ~2 months. So this is nothing to complain about!

@rumtscho Ditto. I don't think about them.

@rumtscho I'm off to fix breakfast. Good luck with your appointment today!

user116848

11:09 AM

@rumtscho @Cindy Hello!

Transcript for