Medical urban legends

1) Sleeping with a concussion increases risk of death (it is actually recommended to sleep to heal)

2) yellow #5 decreases your sperms account (false - U2 albums do)

3) hold your head back when you have a nosebleed

Black people have a higher tolerance threshold for pain and therefore don’t require as much medication as non-Black people

redheads on the other hand are weird about pain and medications. i can vouch for this.

Putting small amounts of Visine into someone's drink will give them diarrhea (it'll potentially put them into a coma)

3) hold your head back when you have a nosebleed

It actually causes the blood to drip down your throat, potentially causing you to choke.

if you swallow chewing gum, it'll be down there forever!

Green Tea helps ameliorate the symptoms of Seratonin Syndrome

Leaving a fan on in a closed room will kill you from lack of air or something

Sitting on cold concrete will give you piles (I dont actually know if this is a myth or not? lol)

nobody knows what the appendix is for

Don't swim for 30 minutes after eating because you'll get cramps

MAD MEDICINE
T. London doctor struck off for inveigling Turkish peasants to donate a kidney.
F.*Dr. C. Drew, a plasma researcher; bleeds to death when hospital turns him
(a black man) away. [Similar story with death of Blues great Bessie Smith.]
U. Hypnosis is a fake! Net says "Yes, no, zzzz". [But does remove warts.]
F. Flowers are bad in hospital rooms because they suck oxygen out of air.
T. (Wo)man takes huge quantity of baking soda as an antacid and ends up with
CO2 rupturing stomach.
U. Woman had "tree in the bedina" -- potato used as pessary, sprouted...
U. Woman had "Smiling Mighty Jesus" -- spinal meningitis.
U. Woman had "sick as hell anemia" -- sickle cell anemia
U. Woman named child "Nosmo King" after sign on delivery room door.
T. There're lots of stupid sounding names. I don't need to hear anymore of 'em.
F. There is a special ward for "Newky Brown" addicts in Newcastle General
F.*Person's hair turns entirely white "overnight" from stress.
T.*Some people sneeze when exposed to bright light ("photic sneeze effect").
Tb.You can catch diseases (crabs, lice, herpes, VD, etc) from public toilets.
Tb.Patient died when intravenously given Kaopectate.
U. FDA approval causes cancer.
T. Yes, we've heard of Coca-cola as a douche, but if you're that desperate,
you're in big trouble.
T. Coca-cola is acidic. Wow.
Tb.Drinking large quantities of deionized/distilled water over a long period
of time can screw you up due to ion imbalances.
F. Hair/nails continue to grow after death.
T. They appear to as the corpse shrinks.
F. Hair grows back thicker or faster if you shave it.
F. Woman sees doc with irritated eye. Sez a male stripper rubbed his pouch in
her eye. Doc checks and removes a louse from it.
F. "Ear lobe" repair is booming in NYC because thieves rip earrings off women.
F. Thugs hide under cars in malls and cut ankles of women returning to cars.
[See "The Slasher Under the Car" in TBT.]
Tb.Rat(s) eat face of child while child is near adult in poor side of town.
F.*An autopsy reveals big hairballs in lungs of a man who breathed in bits
of hair while he worked, and thus suffocated him.
T.*RT's wife's small hair ball nearly killed her. And she's got a big scar.
F. Girl dies of big hairball in stomach from chewing on ends of her braids.
[Above two in "The Hair Ball" in TMP.]
F. Mime has heart attack during act. People think it's part of act; he dies.
T. ...It happened to Tommy Cooper (though he's not a mime).
T. ...Brian Bringardner emailed a UPI report about this happening to Dick Shawn.
F. B.F. Skinner's daughter died/committed suicide/sued because of she was
reared in a Skinner box/special crib.
Fb.Left-handed people have shorter life spans than righties.
Fb.Women/people shouldn't sit on cold cement or metal 'cause it might hurt
their plumbing or cause piles.
F.*You can catch a cold by being chilled.
U. Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite.
T. Like with any celebrity, there are lots of rumors about her.
T. There're all sorts of rumors about the AIDS virus being developed by
various institutions.
T. The stories have generally been dull and boring.
Tb*Guillotined persons may remain conscious long enough to blink.
F.*Knuckle cracking will lead to arthritis. [Though you might get other probs.]
Tb.*...it may damage your hand in other ways see
http://www.panix.com/~iayork/knuckles.html
F.*Drunks are more relaxed, less likely to be hurt in car accidents.
F. A series of hospital deaths was due to a janitor who unplugged life-
support systems to plug in a floor polisher.
[See http://www.legends.org.za/arthur/cleanfaq.htm]

WIND-POWERED FANTASIES
T. Fin-de-siecle Frenchman,Petomane,got rich farting as music hall act.Fartist.
U. Blowback (blowforward?) from ignited fart, singed frat-boy's intestines.
U. Vet cut vent-hole in cow's flank, lit escaping gases, burned down barn...
...the veterinarian known as "James Herriot" claims this happened to him.
Tb.A patient's intestine exploded from cauterization during surgery due to gas.
T. A patient's intestine exploded during a colotomy.

I thought that putting your head back when you have a nosebleed is just to avoid soiling your clothes while waiting for the blood to coagulate. It's certainly more comfortable to use a tissue. But I doubt anyone has died after choking on blood from a nosebleed...

"Lack of air", carbon monoxide poisoning I suppose ?

the Bessie Smith story is disputed btw - xpost

A&E staff having to remove oranges or other items from places they shouldn’t be.

Oh that is 100% true. Ask anyone who has worked in the ER/A&E - object removal is very much a real thing.

Yes, best friend’s doctor dad who served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in WW2 delighted in describing, in minute detail, how he had to remove a beer bottle from the rectum of a patient without shattering the bottle in the process. He had many stories to achieve his goal of grossing out his daughter and her friends to the point where we were shrieking.

U. Woman had "Smiling Mighty Jesus" -- spinal meningitis.
U. Woman had "sick as hell anemia" -- sickle cell anemia

These arent med myths, these are just BoneAppleTeas!

I'm not surprised that a usenet faq from 1996 has errors