Gross out-- Not for the faint of heart

[Diane AKA Traska]

I learned something the other day: The Red Velvet Cupcakes at Starbucks are delicious, but will scare the heck out of you later, when your poop is blood red.

I laughed WAY too hard at that, and that was before I read the white text!

I didn't even notice the white text until I saw it quoted...but that's exactly where my mind when, thanks to previous run-ins with red velvet cupcakes/doughnuts/other yummies....

At that point, what can it scare out of you?

[Dr. F.]

I love my biologist colleagues.

I give you - an arthropod parasite that replaces a tongue:

http://arthropoda.southernfriedscience.com/?tag=cymothoa

[Diane AKA Traska]

That is AWESOME.  Creepy, but awesome.

Consider, though, that with a bit of selective breeding and genetic tweaking, these could replace tongues for people who lose them.

Downside:  Say goodbye to kissing or other "oral activities", like, ever.

[Reika]

I love my biologist colleagues.

I give you - an arthropod parasite that replaces a tongue:

http://arthropoda.southernfriedscience.com/?tag=cymothoa

I couldn't see the link at work. But it sounds like something out of the last part of the Laundry series by Charles Stross.

[JoW]

I don’t know if this fits best in Gross Out or Weird Things Your Pet Does.

I used to have a beagle mix who had an ear fetish.   She loved to lick ears.  Anytime, anywhere, any species.  I also had 7 cats in the house.  Every chance she got that dog would put one foot on a cat’s back and lick the cat’s ears.   The cats all tolerated it and one even liked it. 

Time passed and my dog died.  About a month later it became apparent that 2 of the cats had serious issues with excess ear wax.  I hadn’t noticed before because the dog had been cleaning their ears with her tongue. 

[Snooks]

I used to really enjoy cleaning cats ears out, I used cotton wool though not my tongue.

[Reika]

I'm allergic to spider bites. I rarely get bit, but when i do I get something like a boil that nothing can be done about, save for taking some sort of antihistamine, until it decides to erupt. At least, that's what I've been told by every doctor I've gone to when it happens.

Well, I got one heck of a bit on the back of my head under my hair earlier this week. I've been dreading that it'd finally start draining when I was at work due to the size of the swelling. Thankfully it waited until today, so I was at home and able to clean up the nastiness as it oozed out.

I was in the bathroom while in the process of removing some of the, er, chunks of skin and such so that I could use a little hydrogen peroxide to clean it out before putting some Neosporin on to keep it from getting infected. Poor mom chose to walk by at that moment as I pulled out a very large chunk of, well, stuff. She gagged and ordered me to stay away from her (even though it's not communicable).

She's still twitching every time she goes by my room.

[MOM21SON]

I had to have a boil surgically removed from my backside.  The core was 2 inches deep.  I have a nice cross scar on my upper right cheek.  The sepsis was not fun.  1 week in the hospital and 21 days of IV antibiotics as outpatient as well as a nurse coming to my house to pack my wound.

Boils freak me out now.

[ladyknight1]

When DS was very small, around 2 years old, he got boils all the time. We would watch them, keep the area clean, and drain them if necessary. One boil kept refilling and we had to drain it a few times. One of those times, we were at the park and told us it hurt. We looked at it and it was huge and had a acid green color to it. We poked it with a needle and didn't have to squeeze, it shot puss out least two feet into the air. Poor DS!

[Reika]

Oh no, Mom21son, I'm sorry to hear that.

In this case, it really wasn't a boil per se, just my body having its usual allergic reaction to getting bit by a spider.

And your poor son, ladyknight1.

[ladyknight1]

He is now 14 and I make DH take care of any medical issues in that area, ahem. 

[MOM21SON]

About 2 years ago DS and his friend thought it would be cool to use wood as a slide.  DS ended up with a splinter but would not show us.  I let time take its course and one morning he woke me up in a panic.  The splinter had festered and exploded when he was sleeping.  His bed looked like a murder scene.

Ladyknight, a boil can only take so much of release and its like it grows a brain or something and starts growing inward.

[CrochetFanatic]

Oh dear lord...I just washed my face with water that was as hot as I could stand it...because, you know, I can't wash it with fire.  The dog was in an affectionate mood and decided to give me kisses, but her breath was awful...and I noticed too late that there was kitty litter clinging to the corners of her mouth.    The cats hate her, so we sort of rotate who gets to stay in the living room so that both they and the dog have a good turn every day.  When it's Daisy's turn, we turn the covered cat box to so that the door faces the wall, for obvious reasons.  We forgot to turn the cat box this morning. 

Stupid dog, those are NOT Tootsie Rolls! 

[mmswm]

Last night, about 2:30 am, I heard Lexi, the Mama Dog wandering around the main floor of the house.  She's not supposed to be in that area, and we have a 5 foot tall gate stretched across the doorway to the laundry room to keep her in overnight.  Anyway, knowing that she generally gets into trouble if she wanders at night, I raced upstairs to see what she was up to.  She had apparently decided not to go outside (she can get into the garage, and from there can go outside) and decided to poop right in the middle of the living room floor.  This was the biggest dog poop I've ever seen.  And it was mushy.  I swear the poop blob was bigger than two puppies combined (and they're almost 3 week old Goldens, so not tiny). Cleaning up doggie diarrhea at 2:30 in the morning is not my idea of a good time.

[siamesecat2965]

Not really gross, but a great book title I just bought "Puswhisperer: A year in the life of an infectious disease doc" I think it was .99 on Amazon (the Kindle edition). It looked interesting.  And gross.