Why is it that every time you get sick it’s a serious illness? Can you still remain calm after watching it?

People who seldom get sick and are in good health often suffer serious illnesses when they do get sick, which may even be fatal. Many people have this feeling, as if illness is a disaster with a fixed total amount, which is either transmitted in waves like "retail" or paid in lump sum like "wholesale".

The reason for this feeling is not because the amount of disease is fixed, but because our bodies have many "compensatory functions" beyond your imagination. While they silently help life overcome difficulties, they may also cause trouble by covering up the clues of the disease.

For example, the coronary arteries of the heart are the key to ensuring the heartbeat. The pain caused by coronary artery spasm is more like "angina pectoris", and the pain caused by coronary artery blockage can even be fatal, which is called "myocardial infarction". The former is a preview of the latter, and the latter is the outcome after the former loses control. Under normal circumstances, when the coronary artery is blocked by 50%, coronary heart disease can be diagnosed, and when it is blocked by 70%, coronary stenting is needed.

However, even when the blockage reaches this level, many people still don't feel it, because the heart is so important that it has evolved a skill. Once these important blood vessels are blocked, blood will be supplied from a newly established bypass. This is called "collateral circulation." People with frequent angina pectoris often have this skill rebuilt, so they may have repeated attacks of angina pectoris and be tortured by the pain, but they will not die immediately, and they may even live a long time with the illness.

On the contrary, those who have never suffered from angina pectoris, if they have high blood lipids or blood clots due to other reasons, their coronary arteries are suddenly blocked. Because the attack time is too short, there is no time to establish the "collateral circulation", and blood supply is immediately cut off. The myocardium immediately becomes necrotic, and the person may even die. Therefore, many people who have never had angina pectoris, although they seem to be in good health, are prone to sudden death from myocardial infarction. Fate does not give them a second chance to get the disease.

I saw a patient who, when rubbing his face with his hands while taking a shower, one of his eyelids did not open in time. He looked with the other eye open and was shocked! There was nothing in front of him, he couldn't see anything! When the eyelid recovered, he discovered that he had lost the sight in one eye. Because the other eye was helping him, he almost didn't know when he became blind. After going to the hospital for another checkup, he was diagnosed with glaucoma. However, because he sought medical treatment too late, the blindness was irreversible... Many glaucoma patients have similar experiences. For example, when playing with children, the children accidentally cover one of their eyes, only to find out that the other eye that was not covered was already blind.

All paired organs in the body, such as eyes, kidneys, and lungs, have strong compensatory functions. Therefore, even if one kidney is donated, it will not affect the donor's body function. The mutual support between the two eyes not only allows us to experience the world in a three-dimensional way, but also has the problem of concealing problems in the early stages of the disease.

The self-protection function of the heart, the most important organ, can sometimes lead to misdiagnosis. In addition, if a person is relatively young, all aspects of the body's functions are strong, including the compensatory function. The functional damage of some major diseases may be compensated by this compensatory function, and it cannot be seen from the physical symptoms. This is why they rarely get sick, but when they get sick, it is a serious illness.