Things you're amazed aren't more widely known/ common misconceptions perpetuated by popular culture etc

[wangernum]

This isn't about how the young people at work don't know what the capital of Spain is, or that the petrol indicator on the car dashboard tells you what side your petrol cap is on, etc. More things that you didn't know at one point, but having learned about it (or more likely - experienced it yourself) can't see why it isn't more widely known.

My examples:
Diagnosing of gallstones. My GP failed to diagnose my dreadful gallstone pain, in the end (after suffering for years) I asked a forum like this about my symptoms and loads of people said it's probably gallstones. I went to a different GP and said 'I think it could be gallstones' and it was - got the gallbladder removed and not had a problem since.
Anyway, since then I realise the symptoms are fairly obvious (I know it's hard to describe pain but from my own experience I know what sort of questions to ask) yet there are always threads on here about how gallstones didn't get suggested by a doctor/got missed, a friend of mine also had similar experience just not knowing what this indescribable pain was. How on earth do doctors not know to suggest/check for gallstones? It seems really common?

Other misconceptions:
Waters going just before you're about to give birth (most people who've had children probably know this isn't accurate! My waters had to be broken when I was in labour!) This still happens on TV all the time!

Schizophrenia = multiple personality disorder. It's not.

Breastfeeding - so much I had no idea about! How painful it can be to start with. That babies need feeding all the time! I did an NCT breastfeeding class and I still felt that it was based on a lot of assumed knowledge (that I didn't have!). Even calling formula feeding 'bottle-feeding' but it not actually being about feeding from a bottle but the fact it's formula not breastmilk.

Colic - that it's a medical problem or indigestion, reflux etc. It's hard to tell from a lot of the stuff that's written about it but it just means lots of unexplained crying (usually at certain times etc, well it was in my experience). I actually found that 'purple crying' was a better explanation: purplecrying.info/what-is-the-period-of-purple-crying.php

Bit more obscure but d-mer.org/ - D-MER - very specific feeling of sadness when breastfeeding. I wish I'd known about this with my first baby!

Another example might be anyone that still thinks 'common-law wife' is a thing. Although I don't see many people using that phrase apart from to point out it's not a thing (legally etc)!

Misconceptions: People with disabilities get benefits, your siblings and in-laws would definitely tell you about any disabilities or illnesses, and disabilities are obvious.

Reality - much more complicated, many people don't want to tell family about illness or disability so as not to worry them or not have to hear about sister's hairdresser's best friend who took these miracle tablets and...
Filling in forms and fighting the system to get disability benefits was about as tough as my PhD thesis.

Also misconception - that young adults don't have pain or disabilities, or that the amount of equipment someone has shows how 'bad' their condition is. Colleagues are very good but still assume I use a walking stick on bad days and I'm in less pain on other days.
In reality the stick is for wobbliness, which doesn't correlate for pain, and I'm more likely to remember the thing when in less pain as on high pain days I'll be frazzled for the school run and definitely not returning home to get it!

@AlexaAmbidextra that's what I meant. blush Just read the thread title again, I got it the wrong way around.

Sparklingbrook 😂

You can only use a defibrillator if the heart is in atrial fibrillation

iklboo. Ventricular fibrillation.

A standing order is for a fixed amount and a direct debit is variable

So many customers used to come in to amend their direct debit and were completely horrified that we couldn't do it.

It's a whole other thread though-customers being annoying at the bank.

@AlexaAmbidextra that's what I meant. blush Just read the thread title again, I got it the wrong way around.

You didn’t get it the wrong way round sparkling - the thread title covers both “ways”. I think that’s why this thread’s a bit confusing...

Sorry, yes. Wrong chamber

Thanks @MayFayner that makes me feel a bit better. It's been a very long day.

The 'twit twoo' owl call is actually made by both a male and female owl calling to each other - the female makes a 'ke-wick' sound and the male answers with something like 'hoo-hoo-oo'.

That migraine always involves headache.

My late DH had severe migraines - lost coordination, lost speech, lost comprehension - never had a headache.

Even when he was taken to hospital in an ambulance because the symptoms were so severe that it could have been a stroke, the doctors kept asking him (when he couldn't even understand what they were saying or form any words) how long he had had the headache?

Even when my DC and I kept saying he never has a headache with migraine they kept on about headache.....

That antibiotics can cure flu! They can't. They can only fix bacterial infections, not viruses.

That you can't get flu if you have the flu jab. You can, as the flu jab only protects against certain strains.

Heart attacks don’t feel anywhere near as bad as you imagine....so much so that you could ignore cardiac pain for days. And that it isn’t always central chest pain, or even pain at all.

Yes sorry for the slightly contradictory thread title!
I know the breastfeeding thing isn't obvious if you've not been through it - I found a lot of things to do with having a newborn (and pregnancy) totally new information when you kind of think you know a lot of it as people are having babies all the time. If you're like me and don't have close friends or family members having babies you don't see the realities of it. I remember someone on MN saying they thought you fed a baby 3 times a day at normal mealtimes!

@2monstermash when my husband and I got married he changed his name to mine. He had to change it to mine by deed pole before we married so he technically was already Mr March. To save any confusion the vicar only used our first names.

That an emergency c section is not an emergency but just one that wasn’t planned before labour

can't see why it isn't more widely known

There is no safe chemical. Only safe ways of using chemicals.

There is no such thing as "full fat" coke. Yet people say this. They mean "full sugar" but they don't think the difference matters. WTF do they think that?

Babies... people... are exposed to germs all the time. There's nothing 'overwhelming' about vaccinations compared to all the other exposures we get.

People LIE online. They lie in real life too, but their lies on forums (like MN) are harder to spot. Assume all is lie until it seems more likely to be truth (teenage DC are better at spotting this than I am).

Most health things that doctors investigate turn out to be nothing at all.

Old windows aren’t thicker at the bottom because glass flows downwards over hundreds of years. It’s a myth.

www.cmog.org/article/does-glass-flow

There is usually no ‘reading of the will’ when someone does - and this certainly doesn’t happen at the funeral!! It’s simply a plot device to get the content of characters wills’ into tv shows.
I’ve been a probate lawyer for about 10 years and have never, ever read a will to an audience of expectant friends and family members. Shame, it always looks fun on the telly!

You'd think the clue for a defibrillator is in the name, wouldn't you. It stops fibrillation

I always thought people said 'full fat coke' a bit tongue in cheek and jokey, they don't mean there's fat in it. They just want to differentiate between that and diet?

That there’s no such thing as ‘without chemicals’...and that lots of natural things are not good for you.

My waters were broken manually both times I gave birth and neither was an induction. Midwife just thought it would speed things along.

That the mother doesn't have the right to stay in the family home until the youngest child is 18 following divorce. In reality if one can't buy the other out the house will have to be sold

There's really no such thing as "firsts" in a child's early development. It's all just a very gradual increase in abilities. There is no meaningful difference between whatever you call their first smile/step/word/whatever and the one that came before it that was 99% the same.

Babies are perfectly capable of smiling at birth, it's not automatically wind.

See also that some can lift their heads at birth; they're all different!

You can have mild flu. In fact you can have flu without a single symptom. You can have colds worse than flu.

Flu does not = incapacitated necessarily.