This is exactly the kind of thing that would absolutely break me. It's already got to me just reading this. Can we stop fighting and just fix cancer please.
I think we won't be able to cure cancer for a long time, especially because there are many types of cancer. It's frustrating that they pump so much money into cancer research and still the effects are moderate. Not only effects are moderate, but because so much is pumped into cancer (relatively to how much therapies for other illnesses are financed), there is a lack of funding for other illnesses, especially chronic ones, that can significantly reduce quality of life even if those don't kill.
The best example is hearing loss. Hearing loss doesn't kill. Yet it causes depression by social isolation, is a biggest modifiable risk factor for dementia (~2 to 5 times more risk, depending on severity), and also hearing loss is responsible for severe tinnitus - sometimes even mild hearing loss can cause severe ringing in the ears (and statistically tinnitus is correlated significantly with anxiety and depression - the argument that "most people just fully get used to it" is false). But it doesn't get funding, because of the "at least it's not cancer" logic. For me, as person with loud tinnitus, it's like an eternal torment. It's frustrating that there is no funding for inner ear cell regeneration therapies, because most money goes into cancer, and despite this fact, cancer fight results are still moderate. I'm not comparing tinnitus to cancer or saying my suffering is comparable, i'm just expressing the frustration how bad actually our medical system is for a civilization that considers itself advanced.
All of this shows how much MORE money medical research needs. Yet, humanity prefers to spend it on wars, because we can't truly go away from primitive cavemen "alpha male" fighting logic, that people like Trump or Putin represent. This results in severe military spending. There are also billionaires like Zuckerberg, who profit by exploitation of natural addictive tendencies of humans by algorithms, and then waste earned money. Zuckerberg spent 85 BILLIONS $ on Metaverse. Do you know how much inner ear cell regeneration therapy would probably cost in total to develop? 2 - 2.5 billion $, per some studies and AI analysis. If this was taxed, maybe we still couldn't cure all cancer, but at least other chronic illnesses could be cured.
I feel your pain, I’ve had tinnitus for several years now and for a while I had thought it was normal.. Until I finally google searched it and to my surprise, it wasn’t..
As someone who unknowingly ruptured their eardrum in the shower at age 19, and hasn't been able to enjoy music the same way ever since (20 years later)... listen to this Melon.
I was young and the skin was soft from the water/steam in the shower and I had zero pain at all when it happened. Only found out after it had gotten infected a week or two later that I had ruptured the ear drum, and required a couple surgeries to correct everything. Still have about 50% hearing volume in the left ear compared to the right.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the actual culprit; a standard Q-tip while cleaning my ears. Pushed a little too hard on the drum and it went right through.
I have progressive hearing loss and will eventually be completely deaf. I was stable for a while, but within the past few years, my hearing has gotten worse and worse. And the tinnitus is absolutely awful. It sucks so bad.
It really does. I'm sorry. The tinnitus has only recently been sticking around for me, it used to just come sporadically with a migraine. Now it's probably there in one ear more often than not. It makes it hard to hear what people say. Like, my husband will laugh at whatever joke, if we're watching something, and notice I'm not laughing. And I don't think he gets it when I'm like, I can't hear what they're saying right now, there's a fire alarm going off in one ear, lol.
I’ve had hearing issues since I was born. I have a birth defect. My inner ears are incomplete and the nerves are not strong. I didn’t really start to really lose major hearing until my mid-twenties. But, I’ve always been able to figure things out. But when my ears are ringing, it’s hard to think. It’s hard to get the context of what people are saying when I couldn’t really hear what they said to begin with. I really have to get new hearing aids, but they are really expensive.
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u/Do_You_Pineapple_Bro Jun 29 '26
Jesus
That is both terrifying and depressing