I Had No Idea The "Unusual" Thing My Body Did Was, In Fact, Not "Normal," And I Feel So Validated By These 24 People Who Had The Same Experience
As someone whose body has, on more than one occasion, done something that made friends, family, and doctors look at me in horrified confusion, I can confidently say it can be an isolating and jarring experience.
^ Actual text I got from a friend
Once a month, I invite my fellow strange-body-havers (sorry we don't have a cooler name, y'all) to share the unusual things their bodies do that they had no idea were, in fact, not normal until someone else told them. I'm proud to say it's created a nice community here on BuzzFeed, through which some readers have found names for conditions they've had all their lives, and others have simply learned that they aren't in fact, alone in having bodies that occasionally rattle the minds of medical experts. So, here are 24 "unusual body things" people shared with me this month that they didn't know were "unusual" in the first place:
1."I have synaesthesia and can see sounds. I only found this out about a year ago when I said to my mother, 'You know when you're listening to music, and you can see all the colors moving around?' She did not. I then asked my psychologist the same question, and he told me what it was, and I think that's pretty cool."
2."I guess I’m allergic to bananas. I once said to my friend, 'Isn’t it weird how bananas burn your tongue, but we still eat them?' She was very confused. I thought bananas were just very reactive, and we ate them anyway."
3."I am friends with a guy who gets flu-like symptoms whenever he ejaculates. He has an autoimmune condition and is basically allergic to his own orgasms. Absolutely wild."
4."I have several pores in my face that produce indigo-colored sweat. Not blackheads, not dirt, but the same handful of pores have done this for decades. Sometimes, I can squeeze out the colored fluid, and sometimes, it pools on my skin in tiny dots after a workout, but it's there! My brother has it, too; it's called chromhidrosis."
5."My whole life, my nose has randomly tingled when I pee. It happens in varying degrees of intensity, with it being more pronounced when I’m cold. I always thought it happened to everyone until I mentioned it to my husband once, and he looked at me like I had three heads."
6."I got 'musical ear' after having COVID. It's annoying, but not so much so that it blocks out other sounds or prevents me from sleeping. It sounds like organ music."
People with Musical Ear Syndrome will hear music playing even when there is no actual source of the sound.
7."My mom is allergic to the cold. No one is sure why, and it wasn't always this way. One day, she got a very bad sunburn, like it was almost a third-degree burn from the sun. Ever since then, she's had the condition. She was a restaurant manager, and it was so bad that she had to send others into the freezer for her."
8."Mallen streaks are genetic on one of my parent's sides. I didn't get it in my (head) hair, but one of my eyebrows is white! It's the same side as the streak my parent and siblings have on their heads."
Mallen streaks are also known as Poliosis.
9."I had 'Alice in Wonderland Syndrome' flare-ups as a kid. I would have a panic attack and have to lay on the bed with my mom 'til it passed because it would literally feel like the world would go flat. Like, blankets would feel paper-thin and have pointy/sharp at the edges. It was sooo scary. I still get an occasional bit of it if I'm overtired; when I try to fall asleep, suddenly the proportions of the room go wonky, and I feel dizzy and have to open my eyes to recenter things."
10."I have 'Red Ear Syndrome,' which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. One of my ears will randomly get BRIGHT red and hot. There are some triggers for it, but sometimes it happens completely out of the blue."
"Dumbest yet least harmful syndrome ever, basically lol."
"This happens to me, too! It’s like one of my ears is wildly embarrassed or just came in from cold air."
11."I have anosmia, which means I can't smell. It took until I was 13 for my parents to finally believe me, and they took me to an ENT for confirmation. It's congenital, so I'll never be able to smell, but it was interesting when COVID happened, and a bunch of people understood the life I've lived since birth."
12."When I get really tired, my knees hurt. It's been happening since I was a kid, and I’m in my 40s now."
13."When I get any kind of virus, my chin swells up like I'm some kind of cartoon wiseguy, and I need antibiotics to bring it down. So many blood tests and ultrasounds later, and we still don't know why it happens."
14."I found out that some of my body didn't grow. For example, your tonsils shrink when you become an adult. I had to have mine removed because they kept causing infections. Later in life, I had a bone scan done, and they found a dark spot on my chest. They were going to do a bone biopsy, but my doctor decided instead of doing something painful, they'd do a CT scan instead. It's a good thing she did, because we found out that my sternum is still that of a child. When you are young, your sternum is a bunch of small bones. As you become an adult, they fuse together to become one hard bone that protects the heart and other vital organs. Mine never fused together, and on X-rays, it looks like cancer."
15."When my feet get very cold, my big toe on either foot occasionally dislocates, and I need to physically maneuver the toe back into place."
16."I’ve always teared up when I pee and have no idea why. I have to use an extra sheet of toilet paper every time to soak it up because it’s enough that I can’t see, and it’ll go running down my face. I found a very, very select few people online a while back that experience the same thing, but never any sort of explanation as to why or confirmation of it really being A Thing. I’ve been too embarrassed to ever mention it to a doctor since it’s benign, and I can’t imagine they’d know either."
"My eyes tear up when I pee, especially if I’ve been holding it for a while, and I always have to blow/wipe my nose when using the toilet. I figured it wasn’t a big deal, so I have never mentioned it to a doctor either, but it’s interesting to know other people experience it, too!"
17."My body is asymmetrical from the waist down. One leg and foot is slightly smaller than the other. I hate buying shoes because it's hard to find styles that accommodate my larger foot without falling off my smaller foot, but the difference isn't so great that anybody really notices. For the longest time, I thought jeans manufacturers were just horrible at measurements because the seam of one leg always seemed to be too long. I found out my right leg is actually shorter when I went to the chiropractor for some lower back pain."
"He straightened out my hips and asked if I knew one leg was a little more than an inch shorter than the other one. I have recurring pain in my lower back and knees, and I can crack my neck super loud. I am definitely very clumsy and can't run on a treadmill (it's hard to run in a straight line like that, lol)."
18."I get sneezing fits after a few drinks. Approximately three glasses of wine or four beers will do it, drunk or sipped at any pace. I wind up sneezing upwards of 20 times. Once it's over, I'm fine and can continue with what I was doing. It's frequent enough that the staff at my usual bar doesn't even bother saying 'bless you' until I'm done and will tell other patrons who do to wait because it'll keep on going for a bit. Only beer and wine do this to me; liquor and other alcohols don't affect me like that at all. My doctor thinks it's a mild reaction to the tannins."
19."In the morning or when I haven’t had anything to eat in a while, the roof of my mouth hurts SO BAD when I take the first few bites of food. It can be any kind of food, any consistency, and any temperature. It goes away after a few minutes, and then it’s like it never happened. My sister is the same way, and we’ve never been able to figure it out."
20."I have so many weird and frustrating health and body issues, but the 'wackiest' is my extra bones. I was born with an extra ankle bone and connecting tissue in each foot. Unfortunately, it caused me a ton of pain as a child, and while I've 'grown into it' as an adult, it's still a physical disability that causes strife for me. The extra fun part is that every doctor and specialist I saw as a child and adult had a different opinion about what was happening inside my feet, and I have never received or found a name for what it is."
21."Sometimes, I wake up, and I have very little strength. I can't fully clench my hands into a fist for a few minutes. I always thought this was normal, because my sister gets it, too. But one day, I mentioned it to my mom, and she looked so confused. Then I started asking other family and friends, as well as a couple of different doctors, but no one else seemed to get this. Weird."
22."When I had to keep a diary of how much I peed, I learned that I only peed 2 to 3 times a day, 1400-1800ml each time. They told me I should be peeing about 7 times a day, 200-400ml each time. They looked inside my bladder and did some tests, because apparently holding your pee can ruin your bladder. I told them I peed when I had to, and in the end, they found out I just had an abnormally large bladder..."
23."I can breathe very well in high humidity! One summer, I was walking my dog at night with my husband, and I was able to walk up the hill without wheezing or coughing. (I have asthma.) I tell doctors that I can easily breathe in 100% humidity, and they are always shocked, so I jokingly tell them that I'm part mermaid!"
24.Finally, "I have problems with local anesthesia. My mom thought I was lying when I was little and said I could feel the dentist pulling out my teeth. I cut the tip of my finger off in 6th grade badly enough to get stitches, and even after giving me local anesthesia, I could still feel them giving me stitches. They finally just had to give me fewer than normal stitches, because I could still feel it. One ER doc got curious and researched it, and we figured out it’s a real thing. I found a dentist who would book me a chair for a full day and would come back every 30 to 60 min and give me more anesthesia. Usually by about hour six, I would finally be numb. Now I do sedation dentistry, but it still requires loads more anesthesia and at least double the dose of sedative as a usual patient."
Does your body do any unusual things like these? If so, tell us about them in the comments below! You can read more stories like this here, here, here, and here.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.