xSiNNx

Please explain how you got the infection, how long you've had it, and how you came to discover it. Also, symptoms?

I'm sure I am not the only one around here with teeth issues that would be interested in this information.

Edit: Just want to add here that like many who replied to my post, I have terrible teeth. I always have. Brushing, flossing, etc etc etc just doesn't help, they are too far gone, and dental insurance in America isn't cheap. I have had numerous abscessed teeth over the years (I am 27 now; anyone else see a trend in age in these comments?), and I have always wondered if I would have bad symptoms if things ever got bad enough to possibly be fatal.

I mean, are you CERTAIN to get severe swelling? Or a fever? I have light pain from time to time, it is just an ache in the jaw, and usually subsides rather quickly.

Due to a lack of health insurance, when I HAVE had abscessed teeth, I usually self-medicate with antibiotics (buy them at an animal feed store or the like), and I have been ok so far, but I know I am pushing it, I'm just not sure how FAR I am pushing it.

This is awesome.

I had a LOT of trouble in school. I just failed and failed and failed. I had absolutely no interest in learning what was being taught, which resulted in bad grades and poor attendance. Of course, those lead to teachers noticing and trying harder to force the curriculum down my throat. This cycle repeated ad infinitum.

Now, I can’t say I really know what my problem was with school learning, but I know that it never interested me in any way, and no one ever tried to figure out how to change that.

I of course dropped out at 15, and never looked back.

Looking back now, I have absolutely no clue how I got so lucky, but I ended up finding my own way to learn. As you put it: a self learner.

No one in my life was a self learner. No friends or family were interested in knowledge in any way. On the contrary, most everyone around me shunned knowledge, which just baffles me more, because I had somehow learned how to learn.

From around 15-16 years old I started sucking down any and all knowledge I could get my hands on in the topics that were of interest to me. Thankfully, this wasn’t a phase. I spend an inordinate amount of time reading books or researching how things work, how to do things, and why things are how they are, and while I can’t quite call myself successful, I can certainly say that I narrowly avoided spending my entire life as an ignorant, stupid, proudly-uneducated dude, and I am so fucking thankful for that.

The point of my way-too-long backstory is to say that there are kids out there that have that spark somewhere within, but it must be discovered. Some of us, for one reason or another, have no natural interest in education/knowledge. But a good teacher like you has a chance at helping these kids find that hunger within them and taking advantage of it.

These days I can’t even fathom how I once thought that history was the stupidest waste of time and attention the human species could possibly come up with to teach. Stuff that already happened, and happened so long ago? Who gives a shit! What do I care? These people are dead. What the hell am I gonna need to know any of this for? Only teachers would ever use this information in their work!

This is how I thought at the time, and that’s just one subject. It was insane how useless it all seemed to me.

Now I spend more time reading about history in some form than is healthy, and not only do I love it, but find it all fascinatingly fun to learn and imagine.

And again, this applies to everything. Science? Oh my god I hated science. “I’m not gonna become a scientist, I don’t need to know this crap!”

Science is the most incredible discovery in my life! How the shit did I ever get by without understanding ANY of it?!

Point is: thanks for being rad, and please keep doing so. I never had a teacher that didn’t hate me, and wish I’d had one I could remember fondly. I’m glad there are kids like me growing up that -do- have one to look out for them and help them learn in a way that works for them.

Learning to self learn is absolutely invaluable!

Yeah, it's quite depressing honestly. :\ But the products are actually the same. Not like 'made with the same ingredients', but actually the same.

As in, you can buy Penicillin for "fish" which comes in 500mg capsules, JUST like you get from the doc :)

I can vouch for this :/

As someone with a 5 figure medical debt in my 20's , how do I sign up?!