While there is still a lot that we don't know, like how to cure cancer and other illnesses, it's undeniable that modern medicine has come a long way.
So much so, there are many illnesses people get today that likely would have killed them without modern medical attention, antibiotics, and perhaps even surgery.
Redditor Inhalegoods**t asked:
"If it wasn't for modern medicine, what [would have] killed you?"
Chest Colds
"Pneumonia and Bronchitis."
- Coveinant
"Me too at five years old. I was hospitalized for days."
- Misspuddintane
Premature Birth
"I was born eight weeks early in 1973. I weighed three pounds. I'm lucky to be here."
- doggofurever
Anaphylaxis with Milk
"Milk…"
"I was born with something nobody really knows about because it’s really rare. It’s called Galactosemia, and it’s basically like being lactose intolerant, but it’s worse."
"If I had milk, I could die. When I was born, they didn’t know I had it, so my mom gave me milk just like a normal baby, and I threw up and started to become unconscious."
"My mom did CPR on me three times, and I spent weeks in the hospital as a newborn just to recover from a single sip of milk."
- bubbling_b***h
Guillian Barre Syndrome
"Guillian Barre Syndrome."
"My immune system turned against my nervous system. Think of your nerves as wires; mine got stripped of the myelin, which is like the insulation."
"Six weeks in the hospital and four years later, walking is difficult with zero feeling in my feet."
"My doctors and people I’ve talked to say they are mostly better after a couple of weeks. I spent that much time just having a nurse clean my bedpan."
- axendo
Early-Onset Diabetes
"Diabetic coma at the age of seven."
- 011_0108_180
"That’s how my son would’ve gone at the age of three… but don’t worry, we’ve been 10 years from a cure for almost 50 years…"
- UnicornGlitterZombie
Wisdom Tooth Troubles
"My wisdom tooth came in, got infected, and the infection was spreading towards my brain."
- ParsnipRude8503
"It's actually really amazing that your teeth and gums can affect both your brain and heart. I'm 23 and only recently learned this."
- Kingpinfanatic
HIV
"HIV."
- Ginshed
"Ufffff, this."
- Kaste90
"I've told my son that when I was his age, getting AIDS literally meant that you were going to die soon."
"It seems as far back to him as Polio wards seemed to me."
- Ginshed
Bee Sting
"I was driving down the freeway and a bee flew in through the window, directly into my neck, immediately driving its stinger into my neck. I’m extremely allergic to all bees, wasps, and hornets."
"I was in between towns. I was 20 to 30 mins from the town and last hospital where I came from and at least 30 minutes from the next town and hospital. I immediately started to swell where it hit me, and within seconds I was barely able to breathe."
"I managed to pull over on a turnout and suddenly recalled I luckily had my friend's extra Epi-pen in the glove box he had left behind. I jammed it into my knee and injected it. I passed out and woke up minutes later, heart racing like crazy, but breathing again."
- Different_Ad9336
Childbirth Complications
"I wouldn't have ever even been born because my mother would've died in childbirth with my brother."
- maplestriker
"Same for me, my mom had to have both my sister and myself removed as she couldn't give birth the traditional way."
- uitSCHOT
Hit By a Car
"Getting run over, three times, in the same year."
- Vast_Cartographer830
"I'm usually not one for victim blaming, but three times within a year? You gotta be more careful of the traffic, man."
- bodopi
"Getting run over three times over your entire lifetime is way too many times."
"Twice would be too many."
- KypDurronn
Basic Eyesight Needs
"Honestly, probably just the fact that I can't see more than a foot in front of my face."
- quirkytorch
"Shut. Up. My glasses broke two days ago. My repair kit should be here from Amazon tomorrow."
"Update: I CAN SEE I CAN SEE. ALL FIXED PRAISE GOD HALLELUJAH I CAN SEE. Praise Amazon too, I guess."
- sabboom
"If you can afford it, I would highly recommend a second pair of dirt cheap glasses. I used to wear glasses years ago and oh man, did that second pair save me so many times."
- nagesagi
Bacterial Infections
"A bacterial infection, for sure."
- idea_maxx_7777
"I got a skin infection in a small cut, cellulitis. I thought the swelling and itching was just a bug bite because I’m moderately allergic. Without IV antibiotics in the ER, I would have gone septic and died within a few hours after realizing something was actually wrong."
- 3aCurlyGirl
Ear Infections
"Childhood ear infections."
- hungrydruid
"This is a good one. I used to get them almost monthly, then mysteriously stopped after seven or eight years of being constantly ill."
- scalyreptilething
Asthma
"Probably asthma. If not, then breast cancer would've for sure."
- emotional_lemon8
"I wouldn't have made it to my fifth birthday due to asthma without modern medicine. Even still, the priest at the Catholic hospital I was in wanted to perform last rights on me due to the severity of one of my attacks. My mom refused them and I pulled through."
"By the time I hit puberty, I had outgrown it, and it's all just a hazy memory."
"As to breast cancer, my grandmother beat it twice and lived to 91 and died of completely unrelated natural causes thanks to modern medicine. I wish the same for you!"
- CBus66OR
Solved by Gatorade
"Dysentery."
"Most people back in the day died from diarrhea alone because it would f**k up the inside of their intestines and ruin their water retention, i.e. you dehydrate faster and easier and can't drink enough to fix it, which gives lighter diseases like the flu a chance to go for the kill."
"The funniest thing about the disease is the fact that it ravaged human populations for eons, and the solution is fundamentally Gatorade. It was comprised of readily-available resources we always had access to, but it wasn't until relatively recently that we had a strong enough understanding of nutrition, the human body, and medicine to realize we could literally just slap some flavored saltwater and electrolytes together and help somebody."
- SleeplessS**tposter
Modern medicine clearly has come a long way and millions of people over time, but it will be interesting to see how much more we can say has been saved in the next ten years.
