Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy (15 page)

Crying (During Urination)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I cry when I urinate. Tears literally stream from my eyes, like I’m peeling an onion. It is not painful nor anything, but I’m worried I have a rare disease. What’s your expert advice?

Pierre, Barcelona

No offence, Pierre, but this is really fucking weird. Here’s my prescription: 1) Keep a box of tissues in the can, and 2) Get a second opinion, ideally from someone whose name ain’t Ozzy Osbourne.

D.

Death (Stress Related To)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

My fiancé of two years—a wealthy Arab man—has been told he has terminal cancer. After trying to ignore the subject, I asked about his will (I’m no longer working because of the economic crisis). He told me that because he hates his family, he’s giving everything to charity. When I asked about me, he said I would get nothing either. I told him I was hurt, but he said he was more hurt, because he’s dying, and I asked him for money (I did feel like a jerk for asking, but I need a place to live). Who’s in the right?

Margaret, London

It sounds to me like your fiancé is angry about dying—it’s hard to blame him—and he’s lashing out. But you shouldn’t feel like a jerk, either. I mean, if the bloke’s giving all his money away to his cocker spaniel (or whatever his favourite charity is), who’s going to pay for his funeral? Is he happy to think he’ll be tossed into some government-run pit with a cardboard headstone? And if he cared about you enough to get engaged, why does he want you out on the street? Fair enough, he doesn’t have to give you every last penny he earned during his lifetime, but sorting out your digs for a year or two, to make sure you can get back on your feet, ain’t too much to ask. I can’t stress enough that people need to get these things down in writing early on, before a situation like this comes up. It’s normal to want to put anything related to death on the back-burner, but
everyone
needs a will. It ain’t very nice talking about the Final Curtain, but it’s a lot worse to have the conversation when you’re coping with a tragedy.

Dentistry (Basic Techniques)

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

I’ve been getting a lot of severe headaches recently and have been told that they could be caused by teeth-grinding. Is it possible to grind your teeth without knowing it?

Jennifer, Northumberland

You and I have exactly the same problem. I started getting these really bad headaches a few weeks ago, and being a hypochondriac, I thought, “Right, that’s it, I’ve got a brain tumour.” I was one stage away from buying myself a casket when my GP told me that I needed to see a dentist, not an oncologist. So that’s what I did, and now I’ve got these little rubber things to put over my teeth at night, so I don’t grind them in my sleep—which, to answer your question, is supposedly very common. I don’t wear them half the time, though, ’cos it’s a major ball-ache putting them in. I’d rather take an aspirin.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

If I rinse my mouth out with descaling solution (like the stuff you use to clean out a coffee machine), will it get rid of my plaque? I ask because my dental hygienist charges a fortune to do the same thing, and I’m trying to economize.

Peter, Lowestoft, Suffolk

If you think a scrape and polish is a rip-off, just wait and see how much they charge the idiot who comes in with no teeth left ’cos he gargled with sodium tripolyphosphate. They’ll still be sending you bills when you’re six feet under. In fact, this reminds me of the time one of my good friends tried to cure a rash on his Honourable Gentleman with bleach, ’cos he didn’t want to have to admit to his family GP that he’d been unfaithful to his wife. Needless to say, his missus soon found out what was going on, ’cos he spent the next month in hospital, screaming in pain.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

You and your lovely wife have great teeth… so white! What I’d like to know is: would you recommend using shop-bought whitening agents? As a smoker who drinks too much coffee, I’m badly in need of a non-celebrity solution.

Freda, Milton Keynes

I hate to break it to you, Freda, but my choppers ain’t real. All my teeth are screwed in: for cleaning, they just unscrew ’em and give ’em a good polishing. They ain’t falsies—they’re implants. I started out with caps, which means they file down your teeth to posts and cement fake crowns on top of them. But then the posts rotted away, so they gave me implants, which are attached to my jaws with titanium screws. If I had my real teeth, I’d look like Herman Munster’s ugly brother. I think growing up in Britain is partly to blame—I mean, we’re not exactly renowned for our teeth, are we? Even Harley Street dentists aren’t that good. I went to a bloke who does the royals’ teeth once, and I came out of the place looking like a racehorse. But the biggest problem for me was being a drug addict: it kills all your calcium, which is what keeps your mouth healthy. Getting back to your question, though: I ain’t got a clue about whitening agents, but it can’t do any harm to give them a go, can it? As for a “non-celebrity solution,” the good news is that you don’t have to be
famous
to see a dentist in Beverly Hills…

You just need a ton of dough.

Doctors (Issues Regarding)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

Do you think people should be allowed to rate their doctors on the internet, like they can rate albums—or do you think the medical profession is too important to be subjected to the kind of abuse you got in 1970 for the first Black Sabbath LP?

Sally, Glasgow

Honestly? I don’t know. I mean, my GP might give me a drug for something, and I might get better with no side-effects. Another person might get exactly the same treatment, and his head might swell up to ten times its normal size. So would it be fair if the guy with the massive head gave the doc a bad review? Probably not. Then again, if you were gonna have heart surgery, and the reviews told you that your surgeon’s last ten patients had croaked it on the operating table, you’d want to know that. The way I see it, though, a doctor spends years and years and serious amounts of dough to become qualified to make life or death decisions—so it ain’t fair if one person with a bee up their arse can ruin his career with a review that takes three seconds to write.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

Like you, I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac. However, for the past 20-odd years (since my parents died, and my newborn son needed heart surgery) I’ve had a phobia of anything to do with doctors, and I avoid them as long as the pain doesn’t become unbearable. My head tells me that I should take your advice and benefit from modern medicine, but unfortunately the coward in me is stronger. Any advice?

Christine, Germany

If you’re too afraid to go to the doctor ’cos it brings back painful memories—or ’cos you’re worried that you’ll get bad news—there’s only one solution:
don’t go.
Simple as that. Go to the pub instead. At the end of the day, Christine, only you can make the decision. The thing is, though, if you’re afraid of getting bad news, isn’t it better to get it earlier rather than later? The only reason my wife is still alive is because she got bad news early. That meant she was able to get to her cancer before it spread any further and killed her. And, speaking for myself, if I don’t go to the doctor on a regular basis, I’ll just drive myself nuts about every little twinge and ache. It sounds to me like you’re already worrying yourself sick. So why not take a deep breath and make an appointment?

Dribble (Excessive)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’ve started to drool at night while asleep, meaning I wake up every morning to an unpleasantly damp pillow. Is this normal at my age (early 60s, like you), and is there a cure?

John, Essex

Believe me, there are much worse ways to wake up in the morning than with a soggy pillow. If you’ve reached your early sixties and that’s the only thing you’ve got to complain about, I think you’re doing pretty well, to be honest with you. As for a cure—try blow-drying the inside of mouth dry before going to bed. Or put a raincoat over your pillow-case.

E.

Ears (Ringing In)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I have two boys in a metal band and they’ve been practicing in my home for the past four years. Now I have ringing in my ears. Any advice?

Grace, Miami

A classic case of heavy
metal-itus
. I suffer from permanent tinnitus because of all the headbanging I’ve done over the years—which means I’ve now got this constant ringing in my ears, like a “WEEEE!!” noise, but louder. It’s also made me somewhat deaf (or “conveniently deaf,” as Sharon calls it). The sad thing is that there’s an easy way to prevent tinnitus, and it’s called buying a pair of earplugs. Do it now, before the damage gets worse.

Eyelids (Quivering)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

When I’m very tired, my eyelids quiver. It’s quite embarrassing—is there a way of stopping it?

Lucy, New York

You’ve gotta listen to your body, man. If you stayed up all night and ended up with a headache and an upset stomach, you wouldn’t think twice about what to do:
you’d go to bed
. But a lot of people who only get five or six hours of shut-eye every night can’t believe it when they need half a gallon of espresso just to get out of bed the next morning. Clearly, in your case, your body is screaming at you that it wants more rest. I’m exactly the same way: I might be the Prince of Darkness, but if I don’t get my afternoon nap, I’m useless for the rest of the day. That’s why Europeans invented the siesta.

F.

Farts (Storage Of)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

A new book claims that during the Great Plague of London in 1665, people were told to store their farts in a jar and sniff them if they felt unwell. Have you ever attempted to do this? How would one go about storing an outbreak of gas in an enclosed space?

Ellen, Beijing

It always blows my mind, the things people used to do to themselves before modern medicine. Could you imagine, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and the newspaper, going, “Darling, pass the jam jar, I’ve got a bit of a headache.” Then again, if you didn’t have aspirin, what were you supposed to do? And no, I’ve never tried this myself—I might be crazy, but I ain’t
that
crazy. When an ill wind blows in my house, I’m more worried about opening the windows before Sharon gets home than trying to save it for later.

Flies & Other Insects (Swallowed)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I recently swallowed a fly while horse riding. Now I’m in a panic: will give me an awful disease?

Nicola, East Finchley, London

I know how you feel: I was riding a motorcycle once with the visor up, and a bumblebee went down my throat. Not that it felt like a bumblebee, mind you—at the speed I was going, I thought I’d swallowed a fucking pigeon. People think that eating a bat is bad, but, believe me, inhaling a bee at 70mph is worse. The next day my epiglottis swelled up to three times it’s normal size and I had to get an injection. Now, that wouldn’t happen with a fly. But the big problem with a fly is, you know it hasn’t being doing anything pleasant lately: it certainly ain’t been down the local spa, drinking honeysuckle tea. Flies eat turdburgers and bathe in their own throw-up. But don’t freak out too much. Remember, cats eat flies all the time, and it never seems to do
them
any harm. So give it a few days, and if you feel okay, you’ve probably got the all-clear.

G.

Germs (Public Loos)

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

What’s the point in washing your hands in a public loo if you have to open the door on the way out using a handle that’s been touched by hundreds or thousands of other people who didn’t wash their hands? I’ve tried getting around the problem by pulling my sleeve over my hand when I touch the door, but that’s disgusting, too.

Chris, Newcastle

At last—
I’ve found someone else who gets as freaked out about this as I do. I can’t fucking stand it: there you are, scrubbing your hands at the sink, but then to get out of the bog you have to grab a handle that the guy in front of you who didn’t bother to scrub up has already used. I mean, let’s face it, the average door knob in a public toilet has seen more dick than a Turkish knocking shop. Like you, I’ve also tried using my sleeve—but all you’re doing is putting the germs somewhere else. I get so wound-up about it, I’ve been known to rip the entire roll of paper towel off the wall and use that. But the point is,
you shouldn’t have to—
they should make the doors in public toilets swing OUT, so you can open them with your foot. It ain’t fucking rocket science. That way, you go in there, wash your hands, do your business, wash your hands again, then you’re on your way, germ-free. If I were Prime Minister, this would be my first law.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

Regarding unhygienic door handles: I’ve come up with a design (patent pending) for a new kind of germ-free knob—when squeezed, it releases a dab of antiseptic liquid into your palm. Might this solve the problem?
^*

Tranquility, Oxford

As long as I didn’t end up with a hand like a snail’s arse for the rest of the day, then yes. (Maybe the antiseptic stuff could be a spirit, so it evaporates?)