Hypochondria Weekly

I was convinced for long time that I had lead poisoning. This was back when we owned a two family house in Albany, and I spent a lot of time scraping and sanding surfaces covered in old paint.

As with any older building, the exposure to paint chips and dust while working was unavoidable.

According to Wikipedia (the official Keyboard Krumbs research department) the symptoms of lead poisoning include, “insomnia, delirium, cognitive deficits.” Hmmm. Sounded like me. It seemed the more I worked, the stupider I acted.

This brought on nagging thoughts of how the lead may have derailed my career path. What could I have achieved if not for the lead poisoning? Did it prevent me from getting  a master’s degree? Writing a book? Starting my own company?

We’ll never know.

The new obsession is toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can be picked up from your cat. You can actually get it from handling their poop or changing the litter. And there’s new evidence that it could make you nutty.

It all hit home when I heard this researcher on NPR:

Basically, we found that having toxoplasma raises the risk of schizophrenia about twofold, compared to the rest of the population. Toxoplasma probably functions through a pathway called dopamine. We know that dopamine is abnormal in schizophrenia, but the reason why it’s abnormal is not really completely clear. Another behavior which appears to be altered is the individuals with toxoplasma appear to take more risks, in terms of driving a motor vehicle and also being a pedestrian.

I’m beginning to think that maybe a little less information about health might not be a bad thing — but if I get hit by a car, write this on my tombstone:

The cats did it.

16 thoughts on “Hypochondria Weekly

    1. It’s extremely hazardous to babies as a pre-natal infection. This is how my wife got me to start doing the litter boxes 23 years ago…

  1. Kev,

    I call the Eye the Eye because, well, the Eye is the Eye. Finest blogger in this area. Top of his game a few years back. Still a fine read.

    I have known the Eye as the Eye for a long, long time. That will not change. My respect for the Eye will not change.

    If you dislike my calling the Eye the Eye, well, don’t read my posts. It’s either ignore my items or gulp (legally prescribed) Valium the size of horse pills and talk the matter out with your shrink, kid.

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