By Joe Kassabian

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say everyone (no really, the one guy reading this) reading this article knows how to use the internet. I’m going to go out on a further limb and say you’ve probably seen, used, or at least know of Webmd. For those who don’t WebMD is a website where you can go when you’re sick, type in all of your symptoms and through its brilliant computing formula it tells you what might be wrong.

You can clearly see why this might be a bad idea in a country where several million people don’t have health insurance. While I have full insurance (thank you government!) I rarely use it, which seems to be the case for most people. For whatever reason sufferers of  hypochondria (A mental condition which makes people think every single cough, sneeze, or fart is a terminal illness) do not have health insurance, meaning they probably turn to things like WebMD then go running off thinking the sky is falling because they got the shits from eating cheap mexican food.

So me, being the smart ass I am, decided to enter the most common ailments I could think of into WebMD and see just exactly I was going to die.

So You Have..

Diarrhea. Seems simple and straight to the point. We’ve all had it wether it be from a late Taco Bell run or that case of beer you crushed the day before. Its pretty unpleasant, having to run to the bathroom so often and having every single person you know or live with knows exactly why you’re doing wind sprints to the throne room so often.

This one is pretty self explanatory even if you’re not a medical professional. Replace the fluids you lost by via explosive shitting and try to carry on like normal, except staying a little closer to a toilet than normal. One more important note: Do not even attempt to fart.

WebMD Says…

You’ve been poisoned by Ricin, a highly toxic naturally occurring protein that was created from castor bean oil for the sole reason of killing the shit out of humanity. Created and used during World War 1 and further used during World War 2 killing thousands of people. But I highly doubt any of you water-shit sufferers are veterans of the World Wars.

Maybe the Soviet Union put a hit out on your ass.

Ricin became famous after the Soviet Union used it to kill dissent Georgi Markov and a few others during the cold war. While they were never directly linked every victim just happened to bump into a KGB agents and stabbed by something (in the case of Georgi Markov it was a pellet the size of a grain of rice). Bad news, there is no known cure and normally kills in less than a week.

Oh but on the bright side it might just be Toxic Shock Syndrome.

So You Have..

A hangover. You went out with a group of friends and got hammered (either that or this story is a lot more depressing), you wake up in a puddle of vomit without a clear memory of what the hell happened and probably have to put on sunglasses to fend off the violent light from the inside of the refrigerator.  Cursing your friends for letting you drink so much, you push the rather obese woman out of your bed and try to find something to eat.

Unfortunately the mere scent of that hot pocket you tried to microwave makes you puke into your own hands. Around this time you swear you will never drink again, pray to whatever deity you believe in that if they just make this horrible pain go away you will worship them and become clergy.

WebMD Says.. 

Lupus! Holy shit! Lupus is an autoimmune disease that makes your own Immune System attack healthy tissue and systems in your body.

While there is no known cure, unlike our last entry it is highly treatable and the Soviets wont shoot you with it.  Treatment consists of an AIDS-like cocktail of drugs to help your confused immune system and the total avoidance of sunlight, as it causes huge flare ups in other symptoms. It also causes intense fatigue, meaning you will probably spend most of your time inside. Lupus won’t directly kill you but since you have the immune system of the boy in the bubble the next time you catch the cold will also probably be your last. Hey, speaking of the cold.

So You Have..

A cold. The Common Cold is one of those things that with all of our science and medical breakthroughs we still haven’t really figured out. You know deep down inside that your running nose, cough, and headache is just that but you are a hypochondriac and since your annoying common illness hasn’t gone away over night you must be dying. You jump on the computer and..

WebMD Says..

The fucking plague. Is WebMD trolling people now? Like someone suffering of the goddamn plague is going to jump on the nearest internet connection and try to figure out whats going on when blood is rocketing out of all of their orifices and they are stroking out. The plague killed most a third of the whole human population during the middle ages, but that was the middle ages, that shit has been wiped out for centuries anyways so I think you’ll be fine.

Oh wait, in 2012 a man in China died from the plague…after eating a dead rat he found on the side of the road. Okay that sounds pretty stupid. So as long as we aren’t all Chinese peasants who eat random road kill we find we should be just fine. Shit, in 2012 two cases were reported in the US? Maybe you really do have the plague.

So You Have..

Your foot fell asleep. Either you slept on it wrong or were just sitting indian style (native american style, whatever) you can’t feel it and you sure the hell aren’t walking on it. That pins and needles tingling as you annoying shake it to get the feeling to come back can be a real pain in the ass. You have no idea why this is happening, because either you have spent your entire life standing up or possibly you’re the guy from Memento, so you quickly turn to WebMD.

WebMD Says..

Wernicke’s encephalopathy. I’m pretty confused as to how a goddamn brain disorder came from your foot falling asleep but here we are. This normally happens to people with drinking problems or people who have survived a couple of rounds of chemo. Just when you think having a foot fall sleep is annoying you know what is way worse? Brain edema and memory loss on par with Alzheimer’s.

So suddenly your minor foot annoyance has your skull filling up with blood and that nagging feeling that you’re forgetting something all the goddamn time. Maybe you need to lay off of WebMD, or at the very least stay the hell away from me.