by Catriona Mills

I Shouldn't Be Out On My Own When I'm Ill, I Suspect

Posted 2 April 2009 in by Catriona

Ear infections are horrible. The cold, as well as settling on my chest and giving me a racking cough, has led to a secondary ear infection: a middle-ear infection, no less. Why? I have assessment to mark!

Plus, driving with a raging cold and a burgeoning ear infection is not fun. Driving with a raging cold and a burgeoning ear infection when it’s also pouring with rain is even less fun.

I also find it terribly difficult to concentrate when I’m ill.

When the woman in the chemist recommended that I take some kind of probiotic in conjunction with the antibiotics, to prevent all sorts of unfortunate side effects that I won’t go into here because they’re actually quite horrible, I paid no attention whatsoever.

Partly, it was because she was recommending Inner-health Plus, and I despise their advertising almost as much as I despise Lynx advertising.

(No, that’s not fair: I despise Inner-health Plus advertising in the same way in which I despise Dodo Internet advertising. Seriously, Inner-health Plus, if you’re going to use a seesaw to show how your product “restores balance,” your last shot probably shouldn’t show all the weight resting on one side of the seesaw, you know? And Dodo? The slogan “Internet that flies” is really stupid when your company is named after a famously flightless bird.)

Partly, this was because the illness and the increasing pain in my ear had made me spacey—and the increasing pressure of the infection meant I could only really hear out of one ear, anyway.

But mostly it was because I was suddenly gripped by a terrible fear that “probiotics” and “antibiotics” might just cancel each other out, and I’d be left with this ear infection forever.

See, having someone else take you to the doctor’s isn’t just to stop you from running over pedestrians.

Share your thoughts [5]

1

Matthew Smith wrote at Apr 2, 06:29 am

I don’t envy your current condition and especially the truly horrible and disturbing pain of an ear infection. I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humour though! You forgot to mention DoDo’s use of the skinny, scantily clad blonde woman with the big breasts blowing a kiss to the DoDo – although maybe I’m not up to speed on whether that is offensive anymore now that we have nu feminism. I didn’t notice anything like that in the Inner-health Plus ad. I’m pretty sure the combination of probiotics and antibiotics causes a time-paradox which culminates in the end of the universe.

2

Catriona wrote at Apr 2, 06:40 am

So I was right not to give in to the probiotic sales spiel! I have prevented the end of life as we know it!

I may be cutting off my nose to spite my face, but it felt a little like being at the hairdresser’s, where they try to induce you to buy all sorts of conditioners and shampoos to correct the horrible things wrong with your hair.

What annoyed with the Inner-health Plus was that they argued the body was unbalanced by showing a seesaw that was heavily weighted down on the “bad bacteria” side. But once you took Inner-health Plus, it showed the good bacteria flipping all the bad bacteria away, so the seesaw was heavily weighted down on the “good bacteria” side. Which, really, is just as unbalanced, but in the opposite direction . . .

Do we have “nu feminism,” now? Sigh. I imagine it’s much like the lipstick feminisms we’ve had before, which argue that it’s possible to be a feminist and still make yourself sexually attractive to men. Well, yes: feminism never said it wasn’t . . .

3

Wendy wrote at Apr 2, 08:42 pm

nu feminism is nu to me? should I be looking this up on wikipedia?

4

Catriona wrote at Apr 2, 10:24 pm

I’m hoping Matt will come back and explain it to us. But I think I’ll stick with old-school feminism: it still works.

5

Tim wrote at Apr 2, 11:42 pm

Their website isn’t very informative.

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