... just saw the strangest advertisement. Medical one, gave a list of symptoms, y'know, the usual.
The odd part was that it claimed that 250 million Americans are infected. Now, usually that would mean just the USA (which would mean that roughly 80% of the country is infected with... whatever it was.), but even if it included all the Americas, that's still an infection rate a little over 1 in 4.
Ad didn't say what what the disease was, and there was no way in hell I was going to click on a link spouting a factoid like that, but I... I'm kinda' curious what it was, now. Is... is there anything out there that actually has that level of dispersion? Is this like that old factoid that something like 200% (or 120%? Something like that.) of the USA has a mental illness?
would this be the add?
I suspect this isn't a real disease, just a set of generic symptoms to get hypochondriacs worried. Let's see.
Mouth ulcers and white coated tongue point mostly towards a bacterial infection of the mouth, but mouth ulcers are veeeery poor evidence for a disease since they enjoy forming on their own irritatingly often in some people (read: me) due to neurotic immune system. Tongue coloration... really? OH NO! I AM SURELY INFECTED WITH A LETHAL DISEASE, I JUST DRANK MILK AND MY TONGUE IS WHIIIIIITE!
Fatigue: most commonly flu/cold, both viral infections, maybe a parasitic infection of some sorts. Viral infections should exhibit fever, and it isn't listed, though.
Itchy/burning eyes: reeeealy vague, but since it's just 'itchy' and not 'red' or 'OH MY GOD MY EYES THERE IS BLOOD IN THEM AND IT'S BLACK' (actual thing in some cases of trichinellosis) I'm assuming it's not conjunctivitis. Most commonly that would simply be tired eyes, for the skeptical , and in case of disease fever can result in something like that but again, since fever is not on the list, it's presumably not a symptom.
Constipation or diarrhea and bloating: irritated bowels.
Itchy skin and rashes: Some internal parasites, fungi, bacteria. But that makes me wonder why separate the two.
Genital itch: external parasites along with all the above.
Mouth ulcers/Gut craziness/Eye itchiness combo resembles symptoms of something like ulcerative colitis.