The Internet, Blindness, Baldness, and Shrimp–A Cautionary Tale

So I got married six months ago. Like most brides, I’d striven for quite some time to be the most beautiful version of myself I could be. Not because of some anti-feminist, “This is my special daaay!” thing, but simply because I knew there would be lots and lots of pictures.

I hate having my picture taken.

Anyway, my husband and I thought it would be a good idea to leave the country a week after the wedding. Which was a good idea, although it meant saying farewell to the drug cocktail and wildly expensive elixirs that gave me (for the first time since babyhood) clear skin.

And that was okay.

Then my husband and I gallivanted around Europe for two months. I like exploring new countries. I especially like exploring their desserts. The cakes of Vienna! The–well–whatevers of Oslo! Czech pastries! Italian ice cream! The regional specialties of Switzerland! (And if you think all Switzerland has to offer is chocolate and cheese, try a Solothurner cake. They are heavenly!)

So the weight I lost to fit into my wedding dress? It’s back, and then some. Which is okay.

As it happens, I have quite extreme near-sightedness too. Many of my friends don’t know this because I always wear contacts. I love my contacts, although it took me several years to get used to touching my eyeballs daily (thinking about it still gives me the creeps.) Because I am a nice girl, it was quite a while before even my husband discovered the secret of my poor vision.

So, in the midst of our helter-skelter travel, my eyes became a little irritated. There were bumps. There was mucus. It was gross. Now, the bumps weren’t entirely new. I’d pointed one out to my doctor a year before and he’d said, “It’s probably a virus. I would just ignore it.” I mentioned the bumps to my mother, who said, “Oh, I know exactly what it is!” (She is a doctor, so I have to at least give her the benefit of the doubt when she says this.)

“Wash your eyes nightly with baby shampoo and you’ll be fine. It’s not big deal. You can keep wearing your contacts.”

Did I believe her? Of course not. I found a disease on the internet that vaguely related to my symptoms. It can be treated with steroids but is virtually incurable. And you cannot wear contacts ever again. So I stopped wearing contacts and worried about my impending blindness. I returned to wearing my for-emergency-use only glasses, which I’d bought thinking they made me look like a sexy librarian. They didn’t. Even reasonably attractive librarian was a bit of stretch.

So my husband was now married to a chubby, pimply midget in glasses. I looked all too much like I did in the eighth grade, and that was not a good look for me. But it was too late for my husband. He was stuck with me. And I still suffered from my grim, incurable eye disease.

So I recently went back to the US for a couple of weeks and finally got the medical attention I thought I so desperately needed. The diagnosis? Oily eyelashes. The cure? Washing my eyelids with baby shampoo. And apparently contact lenses make no difference whatsoever.

I should have known better. Some years ago, after starting the Pill, one of my friends began losing her hair. This friend planned to become a doctor. She is a winner of one of those scholarships that everyone knows by name. She’s a smart cookie. But she decided that she was losing her hair because she didn’t eat enough shrimp.

This friend had been a vegetarian for a quite a while at this point. And I hadn’t eaten shrimp for almost ten years at this point, so I was a bit dubious about the shrimp. (Despite my other problems, I’ve always had a lot of hair.)

“I read on the internet that iodine deficiency can cause baldness, and shrimp is a good source of iodine,” she explained.

“So is salt,” my mother said, wandering in for a glass of eggnog. We were eating a massive bag of Tostitos that very minute. “It’s the Pill. You might want to try another method of birth control.”

My friend looked mutinous. She started eating more shrimp and wearing more hats. On the bright side, she hasn’t had any babies.

So consider this a gentle reminder, as we head into the heart of flu season: Mr. Internet is not a doctor, and you should take his medical advice with a grain of (iodized) salt. And also remember that beauty is all too fleeting.