I also like the word „Wetterfühligkeit“, that means that you are sensible to changes in the weather, like air pressure when it get‘s rainy or phenomena like „Föhn“ (downslope winds in the mountains). You feel dizzy and drained and also have headaches.
Magen-Darm in my experience at work is that it's almost exclusively colleagues with little children in daycare, who bring it back home from there and infect their parents.
The first 3 month your child is in daycare, you can expect the family to be taken down 2-3 times. It drops to a couple of times a year when in Kindergarden. My sons' Kindergarden thought is was too much, so they started a serious Hand Washing Campagne. It worked brilliantly! Margen-Darm disapeared!
I had Norovirus twice within the first two years our son being in daycare and not again since then. However, my younger colleagues seem to get it quite frequently and it’s definitely an excuse to call in sick. I call that the bottle flu.
When I was first in Germany, with little knowledge of the language, so many people answered my question of “Wie geht es Ihnen?” with “Ach, mein Kreislauf” , that I thought it was just a standard reply such as “I’m fine, thanks”!
However, I think there was good reason for the reply: it took me and other newcomers to the city (Aachen) a long time to acclimatise and we suffered the feelings of tiredness, brain fog, the inability to get going. Perhaps it’s something to do with the climate there, or the air pressure. I got used to it after a while. Another remark often heard was “Wetterfühligkeit”
„Magen-Darm“ is also what you tell your employer if you don‘t want to go into the details of what‘s really going on with you. It could be anything from not being in the mood for work to a real medical condition that is too personal to talk about.
@@nobodysgirl7972 Because we are Germans. We need a reason for everything. Even if it not required to give one. You will be disrespected if you don't give any reason, because that means you have something to hide. Giving the "Magen-Darm" means, you are obviously lying, but you are socially conscious enough to not say "i wont tell you why"
@@philippthaler5843 I am German as well. And to me it means the should not be asking. Also what goes along with it if you say you're suffering from Magen-Darm I'd be afraid they'd expect me to be back after mire than the typical 3 days
@@nobodysgirl7972 They wont ask as an employer. Like requiring you to tell you why you wont come in. They ask for conversational flow. It is considered rude to not ask "what's wrong", because that suggest they don't care about you. It also gives you the opportunity to tell them, if it is actually serious and they might need to know. To accomodate for future needs. You come back, when the docotrs notes say you come back. If your fake diarreha lasts 3 weeks. that's how it is^^
Most of the things you mentioned must not be serious, but you always have to take them serious. As a teenager i started to get Kreislaufprobleme nearly always, when the weather is hot. All i heard was like, just drink enough and you will be fine. I started to question myself, if that could be a psychological condition, because I knew my feelings, but nobody, including the doctors seemed to believe me and some relatives even said, that i just did not want to go to school. Then i got my first epileptic episode. I had many since that time. Always on hot days and i had always those typical Kreislauf symptoms before. Today i know, that can ibe a forshadowing of an epileptic episode for me. But the symptoms are the same
About culture and migraines: When I was a kid in the 90s rural Germany my mom had regular heavy bout of migraine, up to throwing up and fighting to get to the bathroom without falling due to low blood pressure. It was never treated, she had suffered for decades at this point, every three weeks. When anybody mentioned Migraine in social gatherings it was always riduculed with a sneer and usually treated as an excuse - like uppclass housewives declining sex in the evening. When I studied physiotherapy in Netherlands in my 30s I was quite amazed how easily students talked about being a migraine patient, even the guys! And it was treated like just any other painful illness and of course, treated medically! So, yes, social environment.
Migraine is a truly awful condition, often worsened by certain foods - cheese for example - and I've known people who actually suffer blindness during an attack. It sometimes helps to keep a food diary to see whether any specific food triggers it, and really I've never known any English person to belittle it. It can also benefit sometimes from gentle massage of the neck, as tension there can cause headaches, nausea and migraines.
Feeling unwell is often vague. It makes sense that different countries there are different all purpose explanations . Brain fog nausea lack of energy abdominal discomfort diarrhoeah vomiting dizziness are common symptoms for a huge number of illnesses
Actually fear of "Zugluft" is not unknown in the UK. Fighter pilots in WWII often wore scarves in order to avoid getting a stiff neck. This was not a trivial condition for them as their lives often depended on being able to turn their heads to spot approaching enemy planes coming up behind them.
Fighter or bomber pilots were exposed to cold air at altitude or when flying at night and needed thick leather jackets, scarves, etc. You cannot compare the conditions in which they flew with either conditions in current day passenger aircraft or with ground conditions.
It's not only in Germany that anyone opening a window is greeted with screams of Es zieht! When I used to holiday in Switzerland you could be in 30 degree heat but if you opened a train window the whole carriage full of people would scream Es zieht at you. In Germany, though I discovered the dread condition of Niederblutdruck. Nobody talked about Kreislauf but God help you if you had Niederblutdruck - low blood pressure. It was treated incredibly seriously. I told an English doctor this and he had hysterics - everybody in Britain is being told to lower their blood pressure!
Well if you have chronically low blood pressure, or a problem with stabilising it, it's no fun at all. It's genetic, and seems to be more frequent in Germany. Its unpleasant, but much less dangerous than high blood pressure - in that I agree. :)
@@koschmxNo but it was constantly discussed - people would complain of losing weight (when they needed to!!) and if my blood pressure had to be taken for any reason, whereas in England I'd be congrstulated because I didn't have high blood pressure, in Germany there'd be sucking of teeth and saying I had low blood pressure. No they didn't shout at me about it but you try being in 30 degree heat and getting shouted at for opening a window when there's no air conditioning
@@koschmxRe David Thewlis, me too! I don't know whether things have changed, but years ago when I Iived in Northern Germany I couldn't get used to not being on first name terms with friends of the same age until you had waited to go through a special ceremony after a period of time. Uptight wasn't in it! But England isn't too brilliant at the moment unfortunately.
Regarding Hörsturz: Up front - I‘m not a medical professional, but have been a medical intern and my ex-husband suffered from „real“ Hörsturz. Hörsturz is said to be likely an ametrohaemia of the blood vessels in the inner ear. It‘s practically an „ear stroke“. There are quite a few things said to cause a Hörsturz, which can reach from benign things like simply too much ear wax to ear infection, to acoustic trauma (e.g. exposure to loud noises like a sudden really loud bang or constant exposure to loud music), to quite severe thrombosis or even certain brain tumors. Even a malpositioned cervical vertebra can be the cause. My ex’s Hörsturz came from acoustic trauma. He used to be bass player in a metal band (constant exposure to loud music) plus he suffered from a blast trauma (reaching back to his days in the military). For him it wasn’t just a one-off, but a recurring condition. I’d guess because he had developed quite a weak spot by having several conditions that caused a Hörsturz. It certainly didn‘t help his cause that he smoked a lot. Having said this, though there are quite severe causes to develop an ear stroke, quite a few of them are kind of „self inflicted“ like loud music or unhealthy life style like smoking or just not cleaning one‘s ears adequately. In my opinion, though, it‘s a social phenomenon that germans complain about suffering from Hörsturz a lot. Since the causes of a Hörsturz are so varying, even a benign short bout of feeling pressure in the ear, having a few seconds of ringing accompanied by a short decline in one’s hearing ability can be called Hörsturz just the same as something more severe and longer lasting, the use of the word has become very common for anything even remotely resembling the symptoms of a Hörsturz. Plus it sounds very dramatic, doesn‘t it? Quite similar to the phenomenon of migraines. Migraines are severe and sound very dramatic as opposed to (even a very bad) ordinary headache. In general I guess it can be said that germans do like to complain about just anything and everything and exaggerate the severity of things. Plus if we (yes I’m german too) hear someone tell us about their health issues, we tend to filter some „key words“ and immediately associate our own experiences with their‘s and voilá! we have now Migräne, Hörsturz or Zug too. From there on it‘s like a self selling item. Regarding einen Zug abbekommen haben: Getting a stiff neck from draught is actually quite common and also not illogical. Though some people are more prone to stiff neck than others. The constant air flow on an exposed part of one‘s skin - in this case the neck - causes the body to cool down in that area which causes the muscles to tense. That is a natural body reaction to lowered body temperature. We all know this from shivering in the cold. The body tries to heat up through muscle contractions. In case of catching a draught it‘s just not the whole body and thus not „bad enough“ to actually shiver, but bad enough to cause muscle contractions, which over an extended amount of time will cause stiffness. As for catching a cold from exposure to draught… well that‘s more complicated and convoluted. God I hope I remember correctly what I learned back in my days as a medical lab technician… So, the air is full of germs and viruses, which we are constantly exposed to. Usually nothing happens, right? Correct, but usually the air around us is fairly calm and has a constant temperature. When we now open a window - let‘s say in autumn - the cooler air outside flows in faster than in summer when the inside and outside temperatures are similar an it is full of viruses and bacteria that due to the lower temperature are „slowed down“, or inactive. So there are already two things out of the ordinary: higher and more rapid air flow plus all the little inactive critters in the air. We get blasted with an extra amount of bacteria and viruses. When we inhale them and introduce them to our bodies, the conditions for the little devils to thrive become ideal. The mucosa is warm and moist which they love and they wake up and get to work… and we get sick. So yes there is definitely such a thing as getting sick from a draught, but it usually only happens when there is a significant difference in interior and exterior temperature and air humidity, thus it is usually during autumn and winter. I hope this helps.
Thanks a lot for this detailed comment. I have heard Hörsturz described as a stroke of the ear before and I think that's the best way to think of it. The example of your ex makes a lot of sense and makes me think I should tone down my music more often. Thanks a lot and enjoy the rest of your Sunday
@@britingermany Thank YOU for your content! Your videos are entertaining and informative. I also like that you‘re not as „hyper“ and „affected“ as many of the content creators on RUclips. Have a good Sunday too.
@@britingermany Thank YOU for your content! Your videos are entertaining and informative. I also like that you‘re not as „hyper“ and „affected“ as many of the content creators on RUclips. Have a good Sunday too.
Good morning everyone. I hope you're doing well. Have you encountered illnesses or conditions which seem to be more common in Germany than elsewhere or is it just me? Wishing you all a lovely Sunday!
Good morning! Busy already on sunday morning😀 I'm with you on the hot/cold and draw/Zug dispute. Both are manageable by clothing according to the onion or babushka principle.
If someone around me said they they had kreislauf and had to lie on the floor and elevate their feet because of their symptoms of weakness and feeling shaky or dizzy, I would think of low blood sugar levels. I frequently get this when I have made a poor choice of breakfast foods. I have a snack of high protein and low sugar foods, rest awhile, and soon feel better. I find it interesting how the culture affects the person's outlook on health. This was a great topic. It gives a great insight to living in Germany that is not often covered by other bloggers. (I am American of German heritage.)
Hörsturz can impact on your health quite heavily. A former schoolmate had one before reaching her 20s and the ear that suffered the Hörsturz has lost about 80% of its ability to hear. And that is permanently. Another case: a colleague at work suffered a Hörsturz few years ago. His sense of balance was so disturbed, he could barely even walk. About Zugluft: I personally catch a cold quite easily when exposed to Zugluft. E.g. at the Karate club. When I'm in my Karate uniform, I literally wear only 4 pieces of clothing. My pants, the trousers of the uniform, the jacket of the uniform and the belt. All in all a very airy and breezily dress. And as you can imagine I sweat quite a bit while practising. And when somebody opens up the window, than I easily catch a cold. So I quickly close the window again. Only during summer, when it is warm outside, Zugluft is less of a problem. But during all other seasons it is a problem for me as I catch a cold very easily and that sucks.
@@wolfganglemke6312 Bitte was? Seit wann wird ne Erkältung durch Bakterien verursacht? Da hat wohl jemand in Biologie nicht aufgepaßt? Eine Erkältung wird durch Viren verursacht! Und die Unterstellung von hygienischen Problemen verbitte ich mir!
@@ralfhtg1056 Ja. Gut. In der Tat häufig durch Viren. Aber eben nicht durch Zugluft. Und wie schützt man sich vor Viren? Die WHO empfiehlt Hygienemaßnahmen.
@@wolfganglemke6312 Die Viren sind praktisch immer in der Luft. Zugluft und Kälte schwächen das Immunsystem. Gerade genug, um die permanent vorhandenen Viren in Form einer Erkältung ausbrechen zu lassen. Hat also nichts mit Hygiene zu tun. Denn ich wasche / dusche mich täglich. Zugluft löst also die Erkältung nicht aus, aber begünstigt diese mitunter enorm.
Just before moving to Germany decades ago nervous breakdowns in the UK were the thing. I was surrounded by people having them. I witnessed a bus conductor suddenly start shouting like crazy, threw his ticket machine onto the floor and then sobbed like a child. A work colleague of mine came to work in the middle of summer, it was 95 outside, dressed as if it was the middle of winter and just sat at his desk staring silently. A friend of mine told me his father had been heavily sedated before being brought to what he called the happy farm because he had sat in the living room for 3 days without once moving, eating or talking to anyone. When I moved to Germany it was heart problems and infarcts. within just months 2 of my work colleagues had infarcts and later died, my German grandfather died of heart failure and the father of a friend of mine dropped died at work of heart failure. When I heard that someone had suddenly died, especially if it was a bloke, I knew the chances were it was something with their hearts. BTW, Magen-Darm infection is no myth. I've had it on numerous occasions and can assure you, it's not just no fun, at least in my case I have had it so bad that I'd rather die of heart failure and have done with.
Kreislauf: I'm in my mid sixties, and all my live I have never seen a person lying down in the office because of "Kreislauf". I had this experience only twice with young women, one of them was pregnant and the other had a diabetic shock. The "draw": Yes, that is a fact. Maybe because we are not used to and hardened by air-condition technology and the continuous stream of air coming from that, but many people suffer from neck pain, after they had to sit within a significant air flow. I thought, that this is a common reaction to such a situation, but maybe it actually isn't? Hörsturz: Yes, I've heard of it, but I don't personally know of anybody who caught that. Magen-Darm: Is usually caused by bacteria or viruses. For some reason, these may be more prevalent in Germany than in other countries? I actually do know more people who frequently suffer from "Magen-Darm" sickness than I know people who often catch the common cold. I personally think that diarrhea and vomiting is more burdensome and straining than coughing and sneezing.
In Turkish culture over all we have the same business with Zugluft. I don't know if my peers impose the same thing on their children now but when we were kids that was one of the first things we learned to avoid for self-maintenance. And in western parts of Turkey somewhat close to the shore (and definitely at all points on the shore) we have a situation like the Föhn-headaches I read in the comments to this video. It is a wind called "lodos" from the south or southsouthwest bringing temperatures quite high relative to the season. And when it is strong it may cause structural damage as well, and can cause poisoning by pushing chimney smoke back into the building where stoves are used. But it usually gives a bad headache and general brainfog. Unfortunately our health insurance system does not recognize this as a health problem so we get to brave a few days while the "lodos" blows. This was a great video and I will share it with my friends in Germany now. Thanks!!
Thanks a lot for sharing. It reminds me of a piece of advice I got on holiday in Italy. You should under no circumstances go swimming on the sea directly after eating. I think the teary is that the cold water gives you stomach cramps and could cause you to drown...I wonder if this is the case in Turkey as well.
@@britingermany Yes yes absolutely! It is still a no-no! But we also prefer to chat over finished lunch and have Turkish coffee and relax a bit. The sea can "sometimes" wait! 😄
@@britingermany You know what is the "real" reason for that smart advice? The "Kreislauf" 🤣, why? Because your stomach etc needs about one third of the "bodies energy" to digest, this also is the reason why most people, depending on the food they had, tend to be very "sleepy" after eating 🥱 ... Back to the "Kreislauf", when been in the sun/or shade, as it's hot etc and then one will go into the "cold(er)" water after a meal it could strain the heart/blood pressure/Kreislauf, therefor one could get a "Kreislauf Kollaps". Have a nice day 😉
The perception of illnesses, pain, mental health etc. is definitely culture related. Kreislauf/Hypotension: every 3rd-2nd human will once in his life time suffer from hypotension that leads to fainting. Especially young woman (standing a lot during work, vene insufficiency, not drinking enough of water, loss of blood during periods...) and elderly persons (dehydration + in consequence relative overdose of blood pressure medication and more serious organ related conditions) are at risk. Summer season, humid and changing weather is provoking blood pressure disregulation. In summer, GP offices are full of Kreislauf patients. It depends on your personality, cultural and socioeconomic background if you see the necessity to see your doctor because of a little dizziness or not. Magen-Darm/ Gastroenteritis: common all over the year especially parents of children that are in Kindergarten but also for people who have different problems but hesitate to be honest to their GP will present with symptoms of Gastroenteritis - it's a safe diagnose that justifies a sick note from 3-5 days. Mostly the shame/stigma of social (appointments at court/ Jobcenter/ care of older relatives) or mental health related problems (anxieties, addictions, bullying, burn out) bring patients to lie about Magen-Darm. Hörsturz/idiopathic hearing loss: not as common as the first 2 conditions but often related to work overload, too. As you cannot work in most cases without proper hearing, it's natural you get time off work to recover. I'd rather give patients with a potential risk of developing a serois mental condition 2-4 weeks of work than not giving him some time to sort things out and end up treating a fully established depression/burn out. Zug/Rücken/steifer Nacken - stiff neck: back ache related sick notes cause one of the highest costs in Germany... in most cases it's caused by unhealthy body positions during work or not enough physical activity+overweight. People suffering from pain can be very sensitive and demanding when it comes to the duration of sick notes and getting perscriptions to physiotherapy. Especially younger Germans hesitate to take pain killers even short term. Patients often want massages (no evidence) instead of doing activities that will relax the muscles on a daily basis. The older the patient is and the more the patient did work physically in his life time there is need for further examination and treatment. Also, neurological symptoms need to be examined and treated properly. When it comes to pain I see the biggest differences between cultures. Also, language barrier plays a role. I have lots of problems to understand especially Arabic people. Oftentimes I cannot differentiate if the patient is in full pain and needs more medication or being in pain is a synonym for I need help because of other social or mental related conditions I cannot phrase differently. The more you go to the East the more pain excepting people tend to be. That may be the Eastern German who goes by bike to the hospital with a full cardiac infarction collapsing in the ER or the Polish patient that just wants to get some pain killers for stomach pain while having a full pancreatitis and is at the edge of sepsis. People from English speaking countries want to get a lot of information preferably to their convenience all in English. But the concept of symptoms-diagnose-treatment differentiates drastically depending on what kind of health care system you were brought up in (e.g. NHS in GB vs. the US). Northern Americans are more open to take pain medication as well as antidepressant medication and lifestyle medications. When young Americans present with back pain they often want to have a CT scan asap because this is what would be expected in the US. It takes some time and empathy to convince them that it's not always the first choice to put X-rays on a fertile young human being and there might have been more economic interest of the radiologist back in the US than actual use and help....
When I was work with elderly people, they often did feel well and had „weather“ , Schwester “das Wetter!“ so simelar to Kreislauf. Not feeling well/ feeling off. I do think it is straining if the temperature is changeing 10-15 degree in 12 hours. The more stress you have or you have an underlying condition you are more sensitive to those extreme weather changes. Maybe continental Europe is different in that regard?
A recommendation: Read Katherine Mansfield's "In a German Pension" about her stay in Bad Wörishofen. The stories are over a hundred years old but they are so funny, also mentioning particular German habits like discussing your bowel movements and such. A good read!
I read that recently. It was a very good observation of the German mentality and attitude to health matters from an English point of view. A bit long-winded for today's reader, but I enjoyed it.
Perhaps it has got to do with the fact that people know of a set of possible illnesses like 'Magen-Darm' or migraine and they try to fit in their own negative experience (I'm sick!) into this system of categories. It is difficult to un-think things! Old Buddhist story. A novice asked an older monk about how to meditate, the experienced monk explained to him what to do, how to breath, how to sit and how to direct the thoughts. At the end, he said - most important of all: 'don't think about elephants!!' I guess you know what happened to the novice who hadn't thought about elephants for the years previous to this instruction 😉
I think that fits very well, we know common illnesses and their symptoms, so the first thing to communicate to someone who has to know is 'I might have x'. If it's something else than it can be discussed in private if your boss, colleagues or friends need to know. It's always better than to use google and having more stress that way.
HI, I'm german and I really like your point of view on our country. When I was young I worked at Volkswagen in the production - and I hated it. In that time we had the possibility to stay at home for three days without going to the doctor (Drei-Tage-Regelung). But of course you needed a reason to tell at work. So I must admit, I really took the Magen-Darm several times a year. It is quite simple and it seems ok, when you come back to work three days later.
Pretty much the same in Austria. As to draughts, I used to make fun of my mum and her friends who always wore scarves and shawls, but since my mid 50s, I too notice more sensitivity in my neck to draughts, and I carry a thin one with me in my bag. As to Magen-Darm, or tummy upset, the runs etc. A few of our friends said that once they realised they were lactose intolerant, that condition that was so common before, 'went away,' as they avoided foods that would cause all sorts of gastro-intestinal upsets. I suffered from migraines a few days before my period, and it was just awful. After menopause, these diminished considerably. Regarding Kreislauf collapse, I also only learned about this condition here. Whenever someone got very or extremely upset, such a malady followed. It only lasted a day, at most two. Our daughter "learned" to say this in high school to get out of school early. :-) Am sure there are valid cases, but my observations match yours.
I guess lifestyle and age does play a role. I grew up in the countryside and now life in a city. I do get colder quicker than I used to. When I visit my brother he is often walking around in a T-shirt whereas I need a warm coat.
If you are looking for quintessential german word here is one for your collection:"wetterfühlig" a person who is particularly sensitive to changes in the weather (like Fön) or can be struck down by the draft. Also no-one wants to call in sick to work with "I have my period, feel like I have a knife stuck in my stomach, a crushing headache and may cry or scream in fury at the drop of a hat"... having a migraine or magen-darm is so much easier for your boss to read, it is basically a social contract of 'don't tell, don't have to know' 😂
My worst case of Magen-Darm was at a conference in England and it started in the crèche our three-year-old child was at. It was so bad she had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance. When she was discharged after a week, it was the end of our conference, but then my wife and I both got it the night before we were supposed to drive back to Germany - which was completely out of the question, so the university where the conference had been gave us a house to stay in for ten days. There we were, all alone on a university campus over the Christmas holidays and New Year in a giant house with about fifteen rooms, no food or drink, with a little child that had just recovered from the worst diarrhoea and vomiting I have ever seen. I don't know how I managed, but the shopping I did that afternoon was terrible and I was extremely thankful for the customer toilets at that particular Safeway's. 😉
German living in Greece here, who lived in Italy before. Have discovered that Greeks and Italians suffer from άγχος /angoscia, which is actually just a feeling of high negative Stress. We don't even have a word for that in German as far as I know. Greeks also seem to get panic attacks a lot lately. They're on the rise here. Italians complain a lot about "cervicale" (stiff neck). Magen-Darm is not as popular in both countries as it is in Germany, but it is common in little children and their close relatives.
Could that be translated as "anxiety" which is also often heard in English nowadays and I think the Germans just use the English word. "Stress" and "Burnout" have also been assimilated into the German language.
@@jackybraun2705 yes in English anxiety is the proper world I think. Greeks also use the words "stress" and "burnout", so they are not synonyms of άγχος, because they don't involve a sense of fear, wich is associated with άγχος. In German the proper term for it would be "frei fluktuierende Angst" according to good old Freud, but it's not an expression you hear a lot in Germany.
Also i believe your normal body temperature plays a role in how much sudden changes of weather effect you. Also with how much they feel cold no matter what. or stiff neck aswell, since it would change your body posture and how much you stiffen up your muscles without noticing. i myself complain very very rarely about such things, and my normal body temperature is actually at the higher end. 37,3°C~ while from others that i know, they are more at the lower end of 36°C. where others are usually always cold, i complain about the opposite. when i come in from the outside and it was cold there, and my room is warm i am instantly sweating and im super warm and i usually wanna get out of my jacket ASAP. but it doesnt have to be super warm in the room, just.. not cold.
Einspruch! 1. Kreislauf: sudden drop in blood pressure; especially young women suffer from this and are prone to dizziness or even fainting when riding a crowded train for example. I am sure if you ask young women in England that they know this condition. 2. Zug: I know people who easily get either a stiff neck or a sore throat when they get a draft. I myself don’t like Zugluft as I am always cold. Then again this is something - like the „Kreislauf“ - that you as a male do not suffer much from. 3. Hörsturz: I am quite astonished that this should be typically German. You say yourself it is called idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss ( ISSHL) so maybe it is just that the German term is more catchy? Or Germans are more aware? BTW, migraines are unfortunately quite common and I know people (including myself) who have to call in sick because of migraines. 4. Magen-Darm: I guess this depends on your environment. For many years this would have been an alien term to me but once I had small children we had terrible outbreaks of „Magen-Darm“ induced by viruses like Rota or Noro. Now that the kids are all teenagers it is a thing of the past. It is not „Lebensmittelvergiftung“ which you get from salmonella and such and which I only ever got outside of Germany. No small kids, no nasty viruses. So be aware that you are a male without children and thus several of these illnesses will not affect you! In any case, there are certainly cultural differences about ailments. I was always amused when my Irish workmates complained about a „head cold“. Or spaniards that are prone to „corte de digestión“ (cut-off of digestion, e.g. when taking a cold shower or plunge after eating).
Wow! The whole aversion to drafts is also a thing here in Italy! I don’t get it. You really notice it in buildings and public transport during the summer when it seems that air conditioning levels are at their lowest levels. Totally different than the “freezers” that I experienced in office buildings in the US. I distinctly remember having to wear a sweater inside the office or going outside to get warm because it was so cold. Ironically, though I never got sick. This video made me think about how for years I slept with a fan blowing about 10 inches from my face because I couldn’t go to sleep without air blowing on me.
I had a Hörsturz once, curious enough it was in the area of lower frequencies. I could not hear my flatmate talking when he was sitting to my right, he had a deep voice. Everything else was fine. My doctor said it was the result of stress and my body decided that an ear inflammation was the right thing to get my attention. My hearing normalised after about a week or two. Think of it as Tenosynovitis of the ear. Sitting in a draft, or under a very agressive airconditioning vent can lead to tense muscles or a bit of the sniffles, others might even lose their voice. It is curious considering the tendency for airing out rooms (although you're not in the rooms at the time) and the idiom that 'there isn't bad weather, just bad clothing' for going outside, that a cooling system can play such havoc on the German body. It happens, especially in the summer. Sometimes it overlaps with the warm/cold temperature discussion. Anecdote to this: When I finished my vocational training I got a room allocated more or less just to myself. I decided that 17° was a fine working temperature in mid July and because of that hardly any of my colleagues ever took a step into the room. Migranes are a serious thing, at least if they are not an excuse for normal headaches or low interest. I'm talking lying in a dark room with a damp cloth on your eyes and a bucket for spew besides the bed. It is a mostly hereditary thing, you can get medication and, at least in my family, it happens about once or twice a year. It mostly affects women, but I have a hunch that 'migrane' is often used to not have to say menstrual pains or something less charismatic on the illness scale. Magen-Darm and grippaler Infekt often are interchangeable, you're feeling under the weather, your stomache is upset and/or you have the runs, maybe a bit of temperature, sniffles, sore throat, you name it. You might have eaten something that tasted a bit funny, but to err on the side of caution you get a few days of sick leave, if it gets worse than you will hopefully not have infected your coworkers at least. It's not fun to have twenty or thirty people from an open-plan office at home with diahrroea at the same time. And as was mentioned, Kreislauf seems to mostly affect the young or growing, as well as the elderly. For some it is accompanied by dizziness, think of it as getting up to fast and that feeling of vertigo, for others it's just a general excuse to complain a bit and fish for sympathy. Of course it could be a symptom of something else and you should see a doctor if it keeps happening to you. Edit: Speaking of cultural things, I don't know anything in the greater German cultural sphere that would equal the 'case of the vapors', that at least must be a very Anglo-Saxon thing.
I'm Brazilian and lived for 8 years ... I mean 4 years in Japan and 4 years in Okinawa. Magen-Darm in Japan is something quite common like cold or flu. My flat mate got one and whithin a cople of day she gave it to me. Our toilet has never been so busy ... I don't remember anyone telling they got Magen-Darm here in Brazil... Wash your hands before putting them in your mouth. Cheers.
Aww Ben, a good one again. Love the twinkle in your eyes talking about this. Believe me, if a language has terms for diseases, the people will have it." Begriff", what a wonderful German term, to grap a situation or something else by naming it, you'll have a subject to "have" it or talk about it. The "Magen-Darm" thing is the standard "excusion", if your collegues don't feel like working PS: Hörsturz is a very severe disease, that will make you loose your ability to hear...Just like a stroke by the heart, that may cause your death. Keep on healthy ( hart auf die 40 zugehend ☺, cwtsh. Martin
Our body sends us signals when something goes wrong. Our culture decides which signals we choose to react to, and how we talk about it. Case in question - a "Hörsturz" is generally seen as a sign that you have too much stress, are way too hard on your body, and are lucky not to get a stroke or other organ failure.
Hörsturz ist mostly caused by a blood clot in the inner ear, it is similar to a stroke, a pulmonary embolism or a heart attack that are also caused by blood clots. Hörsturz can get better soon if the blood clot gets dissolved quickly, but it can cause lasting hearing loss if it isn't.
As a German in the UK currently suffering from a stiff neck due to Zug on the bus, this video reminded me of my gran when she'd complain about a draft and would glare at no one in particular while tightening her scarf around her head and neck. Now, decades later, I can feel her pain. As a child, I didn't mind Zugluft but now I get headaches and a painfully stiff neck from drafts. Not sure if we've collectively invented this illness and kept telling each other it's real until it became a thing...
God I hope not! On the other hand it is normal to develop things with age. I have become “softer” and more sensitive to temperature since living in a city
@@britingermany Did you keep getting sick (colds) when you first moved to Germany? I constantly got colds when I first moved to the UK - new germs, I guess! Side note: One "health" thing is much better here for me than in Germany: I'm not getting itchy skin from midge bites in the UK and mostly get hardly stung at all whereas I would get regularly eaten alive in G. Must be some kind of genetic variance. Bodies (and location-dependent health) are weird!
I always experience a headache when the föhn comes over, unlike any headache I have in the UK. The Frankonian way of dealing with it seems to be to drink more beer which does work
@@britingermany It only gives you a headache if you stop drinking the next morning. now, i dont mean drink all day, but one beer in the morning to counter it (as wrong as it sounds) actually helps. you wont feel it for the rest of the day. Now, if you got drunk before, your body *will* still feel that way, but your headache will get less actually
Young women seem to have more problems with the (blood) circulation, mostly during the menstrual phase, sometimes because of uneaten meals or after an illness (cold, gastrointestinal "inventory" = diarrhea/vomiting). And yes, small children up to the 1st or 2nd school year often bring gastrointestinal infections or colds home with them.
Hi. In my experience it has to do with what diseases are "socially accepted". In the UK, migraines are accepted as a reason for being ill, when in fact they are just ordinary headaches. In Germany it's the same with "Magen-Darm", even if it's really just an upset stomach, a little nausea or mild diarrhea. "Kreislauf" is accepted as a reason for dizziness, while "ate too little" or "too little sleep" would be answered with: "it's your own fault, kindly pull yourself together". Although I am a native German, I have never been able to fathom the secret of the German fear of "Zugluft".
@@britingermany I had endless discussions with my collegue which was sitting at the window (me not), complaining about the draft, but she wouldn't want to "change" the place with me. Whenever I said "but what do you do outside as there is a draft most of the time?" her answer used to be "that's different".😳 About the "Hörsturz": it's like a "Innenohr infarkt", but also can be triggered by "sudden very loud noise or music etc" and I expierenced that at a concert which hadn't started yet, I was just passing by those huge man high speakers while out of a sudden the sax player was testing the system. All I can say it was like a hot needle in my ear, extremely painfull and afterwords that ear fellt like "stuffed up with cotton". I had a loss of 40% of my hearing, had to "plug up" my ear for nearly one year until it was back to normal. The "Innenohrnerven" are very fragile, therefor "no noise" at all ... If ever you have anything wrong with your ear: you've got 24 hours, from then on the chance of "repairing" the hearing shrinks day by day. Have a nice day 😉 Edit typo/autocorrect
Migraines (my-graines in the US, me-grains in the UK -although you didn't use that pronunciation) are not ordinary headaches. Although of course some people may call regular headaches migraines as an excuse.
Heh, you might want to look into what a migrane actually is... It doesn't even have to include any (massive) headache, it _can_ be "just" severe dizziness and loss of vision. But the actually severely painful "versions" are like a thunderstorm in your head instead of a moderate rainshower (the "regular" headache)... No idea whether you've ever had severe toothache, but if you had - imagine five or ten teeth like that, but in your head.
I had suffered from frequent migraine attacks for a long time - they were hell. Luckily I haven't had any for a long time, and I don't miss them. So I get pretty pissed off when someone just claims they have migraines when it's clear they're ordinary headaches. That's exactly how I also feel with depression, which unfortunately I suffer from quite often. The difference between depression and being down is like that between a real high-fiber virus flu and a common cold (aka "men's flu".)
One big element in health is your mindset. Mentally stressing out about things can do the same as the same stress (strain) . In addition to the psychosomatic element, the subconscious can’t differentiate between a real danger to life and a perceived one. Toughening yourself up definitely keeps you healthier. Truly believing that a drop of rain on my forehead would make me sick, used to get me sick in bed for two weeks, every time I was caught in the rain…. dispelling this in my own mind has made all the difference. If you have a stressed out way of thinking, nit-picky, perfectionist, what have you will make you physically ill and exhausted. That’s my observations and experience. I’m no expert. 😊
Wow thanks for sharing. Definitely your mental health has a huge effect. That’s why some people burn out and others don’t even though the situation and circumstances are very similar.
Usually you don't say you have "Kreislauf" but some combination of words like Kreislaufprobleme or "Mein Kreislauf spielt verrückt". I also had that (rarely). Mainly after a long hot bath or around getting sick or after some sickness if you start too quickly. You feel the heart is racing and you are near fainting if you stress yourself anymore. Laying down helps. The other way around with Zug. It's not "einen Zug" you just say "man hat Zug abbekommen" without article. It's sometimes an explanation if you don't know why you get sick. I also watch for that. As I'm diving I really observe my ears because they need to function 100%. And with "Zug" there is a good chance that they won't work OK. One reason many divers on boats wear hoods even in summer. Not just "Hörsturz". You would say "er hat einen Hörsturz". Migraine - we had a colleague who regularily would need to go home because of that (and I believe him). He even tried different food and other changes to get control of that. Gastroenteritis can be caused by a virus not only by bad food. From WIKI: "Gastroenteritis is usually caused by viruses; however, gut bacteria, parasites, and fungi can also cause gastroenteritis."
Hi there, I know a lot more people suffering from migraines then from "Zug" or "Kreislauf" but I am working in social care. We don't argue about open windows because we don' t realy work in offices. We also don't react to.low boodpressure with lying around, because it simply is impossible to manage a bunch of children in that position. If you have a job, in which you don't sit that much at a desk, low bloodpressure shows itself different. I believe we have a lot more headaches because of this and dizziness. As far as I know "Hörsturz" is the german translation for (acute) tinnitus and when I heared of people having had a Hörsturz it is a combination of worse hearing and a beep you hear. When it is cared for soon and expertly, and you are able to relax (by not going to work for example), it can go off completly. If you ignore the acute phase, you are normally left with a cronic tinnitus. Does this explain the different perspective on this in great britain and germany a bit? Thanks a lot for your videos.
Hello. Yes I think the job you do definitely plays a role and if you are more active then you just probably won't notice a draught. I think Hörsturzt is hearing loss not tinnitus. I believe you literally just loose your sense of hearing but I could be wrong. What does seem to be the case is that it is stress related and slowing down usually helps to heal it in most cases
I thought the temporary deafness thing was usually due to ear wax. I did experience this the first time I flew in a commercial aeroplane. I had a holiday in Tenerife and was partially deaf the whole time I was there.
That's a completely different problem. Temporary loss or reduction of hearing due to strong air pressure changes (in planes, or driving a car down a hill) causes the ear drum to become inflated and not react to incoming sound as strongly anymore. This can usually be resolved by opening the Eustachian tubes connecting the inner ear to the throat, e.g. with a big yawn, which causes the pressure to be relieved.
When a plane is starting to take off or to land the "air pressure in the cabin" is changing (like going onto high mountains), therefor you have to "de-compress" the pressure in your ears = close the nose with your fingers and "blow" with your mouth until you hear a "plop" in your ears, it's for protecting the "ear drum", or you do the same by "pretending to yawn/same mouth movement", that has the same effect onto your "ear pressure". Could be that you have to do that "procedure" various times until the plane reached the wanted hight. Enjoy your flight next time 😊
@@WooShell When descending to ground level (increasing atmospheric pressure) the best way to fix hearing loss is to force pressure though the estuation tubes by doing what astronauts do: like blowing up a balloon only without the balloon or allowing any air out of your mouth or nose, which you can actually do with internal muscles. Otherwise it will probably clear itself slowly with time.
@@britingermany Actually, it‘s not a real stroke in the beginning, but reduced circulation. When you don’t do anything about it early enough, eventually it can become a stroke of the ear.
I experienced Hörsturz when I was around 13 years old, due to parental abuse. I was slapped across the face, but was hit on the ear. My hearing on that side is duller than on the other, and that has been the case for more than twenty years. It'll remain that way for the rest of my life. So, violence is one cause for it. Loud explosive noises are another very common cause, and so are inflammations of course.
Vielleicht ist es ja nur die deutsche Sprache, die hier mit zusammengesetzten Hauptwörtern, die Krankheitssymtome so blumig macht. In englischer Sprache muß man seine Krankheitssymtome umschreiben, während in man in der deutschen Sprache einfach ein neues Wort "erschafft". "Kreislauf" hatte ich als pubertierender Jugendlicher auch, weil ich niedrigen Blutdruck hatte, was mein Arzt mit dem starken Wachstum in der Pubertät erklärte.
I can identify with two items in this video. My mother, who came from a German family, was obsessed with draughts when I was a child… all draughts had to be eliminated because they caused colds… later, a few years ago when I was getting drunk with a German woman in a bar, I said that I felt cold. She looked concerned and said “maybe you have a … mmm… circulatory disturbance” which sounded very alarming at the time. I’ve never heard of such a thing in England.
Since I have come to Germany, I have become very susceptible to changes in the weather: "wetterfühlig". Any rapid changes in weather and temperature really affect me. I can only assume it is because I came from a very Continental climate in the American Midwest to a much more maritime-dominated climate.
It took time: Part of it was becoming sensitized to the pollens, part of it is age and part of it is that I learned to pay attention to the "Bio Wetter" rubric in the weather forecast so I knew which symptoms it was appropriate to complain about. "This high pressure system is giving me terrible headaches"
@@Ralphieboy I'm sorry to hear that !! Have you tried, when feeling the headache coming/early, to drink mineral water without gas/room temperature? As more water the brain gets, as "happier" it is. Sometimes people get a headache because they haven't been drinking enough over the day. Good luck and all the best 🙂
Oh yes, I have been duly and repeatedly warned that drinking carbonated water with ice cubes in it will give me stomach cancer and cause me to die slowly and in great pain...
Hello there and welcome. It's quite a complex topic but in general I would say it is good. Generally you can see a doctor or specialist if you need to without much waiting time and in the majority of cases your employer contributes 50% of the costs of healthcare. I haven't really done a video on it before but there are quite a few already out there
@@britingermany yes, I have seen that there are a few videos on that topic about. I love Germany, used to live near Düsseldorf, now in Scotland 🙂 do you get back to the uk often?
In the UK, I was surprised to see a lot of ads for „non-bio“ laundry detergents. They were for products without enzymes, because those were supposed to make you ill. The funny thing is that nobody really talks about that in Germany. It‘s just a hype in the UK
@@britingermany and I was supriese that in the UK people seems to be afraid of fresh yeast, which cannot be bought at supermarkets as active yeast is considered to be dangerous for your health as well. I am still looking for places where I can get it. We are a German family living in the UK and I love your channel!!
I've experienced "Kreislauf" myself several times. Sometimes when I was taking a bath in a very humid room and I ought to become very active in a matter of seconds. But it can be, when you just woke up in the middle of the night and get up too quick to go to the bathroom. That dizziness isn't normally very dangerous but you just have to sit down a few minutes. Maybe plus you drink a cup of coffee or something like that. The thing with "Zugluft" mostly is, when the environment changes from cool to hot or the other way around very fast. With this you can catch a cold.
I find it funny that you connect illnesses in Germany to them being covered by the (still pretty good) German health system 😂. Or by yourself not having been effected by a certain illness (Magen-Darm). The first reasoning is like “if there is no one hearing the noise you make then there is no noise” while the second is like “if I didn’t get it it can’t be bad at all”. 😊
Well regarding the first point that is exactly it. If it is not covered and not considered a legitimate illness...then you won't hear about it...and it won't enter the debate...I'll concede the second one, that's just my personal experience and doesn't bear much weight.
People get often tinnitus from stress. I think that this "Hörsturz" thing is closely related to temporary tinnitus events, as it is often associated with hearing a noise and being unable to hear what people are saying, similar to when you have pressure on the ear from going through a tunnel in a train or changing altitude with a plane.
It could be related. Although I’ve read it’s very much like a stroke of the ear, which is why some people can recover fully and others have permanent damage
I struggle with Magen-Darm for years.... many have it because of food-intolerance and/or a so called "Reizdarm"... I do have a Reizdarm, but it´s also somatoform in my case.... I signed up for a clinic and can´t wait to get there.
@@britingermany may I tell you, that I think, you are extremely attractive? Or is this inappropriate?.... yes, I will get the treatment, thank you.... the question is just, when.... if I´m lucky it will be middle/end lf April... but it also can be later.
I can second that. Symptoms can have different causes. I got problems like that when I was in my twenties. My first thought was lactose, but the problems persisted even after I gave up all kinds of milk based products. Next thought was other food allergies, so I went to the doctors. The test resulted in no allergies, but the problems persisted. A few weeks later I got a call from the doctor. While there were no reactions to the different food groups something else came up. I had very strong reactions to Histamine, which every person shows a reaction to and is used to validate the other food testings. But mine was way harsher. So now I know that I am intolerant to Histamine, which is in pretty much all foodstuffs in different concentrations. I can take pills to suppress the reaction for a bit, if I am at a social event and am not sure what is in a dish, but eating a banana would result in painful cramps and a few hours not far away from the toilet. The not so fun thing? An intolerance to Histamine is not a recognised illness and hardly anyone knows that it exists. There is hardly any information what you should or should not consume and good luck if your family or friends remember. The insurance doen't chip in for the pills either. Wish you all the best and that you can get good help at that clinic.
It is fine to air a room but then the door needs to be closed. The same thing is the background for the fact that Germans hate airconditioning units that not only howl all the time but blow cold, moist air down on them or into their backs.
I definitely have experiences with some of these sicknesses. I know the Kreislauf part well. I have it almost every time after the doctor takes a blood sample from me. I also have that on other occasion. It starts with me sweating like i am in a sauna all of a sudden and an increasing feeling of dizziness. Also my face loses all it's colour according to people who observed this. With the Zugluft thing i am not that sensitive but i did have a stiff neck at some occasions. My mum is one of the really sensitive people, she is very careful when she picks her seat at a restaurant for example that there is no draft there. I thankfully never had Hörsturz but from what i gathered it is mainly a reaction to stress. One of my colleagues recently had a minor one. He was off work for a week and then he came back. So it really there definitely is a range of how long thes effects last. But he did say that it was a reaction to stress in his case as well.
Yes I heard the stress related explanation for Hörsturz as well it's just funny that this doesn't seem to manifest in the UK. It's more back problems or headaches there
I'm not a health professional, but I'm a paediatrician's child, so I grew up soaked in jargon and things doctors don't necessarily tell their patients, as well as work anecdotes that weren't even anonymised most of the time. So, one thing I was made aware of is that sometimes it's easier to slap a diagnosis onto a patient and send them away with symptomatic treatment than do in depth testing to find out what's really wrong, as long as it doesn't seem like the patient is in immediate danger. And I don't know about the rest of the world, but in post-Soviet countries there was (and still is, although it's used a lot less these days) a particular diagnosis, which basically meant "There's something wrong, I have no idea what, but you don't look like you're going to keel over, so off you go", and almost everyone, me included, had it at some point. The possible symptoms of this "condition" were anything from blood pressure irregularities to digestion problems to anxiety and sleep problems to heart rhythm problems, etc. About catching a draft, you don't literally catch illnesses from air (unless there's someone coughing nearby), that much is true, but being cold is one of the things that negatively affects our immune systems, so that small shift might be enough to make your immune miss that one virus that takes root and makes you sick, especially when you're in close proximity to a lot of people, and I guarantee at least a few of them are asymptomatic carriers of something -- cold, flu, you name it. And, yes, I'm biased, because I'm one of those people who catch a draft at a drop of a hat. Or rather, I used to spend from late October to April in a constant cycle of "catch a cold - have to get back to work/school as soon as the fever is gone - get bronchitis as a complication - continue going to work/school with bronchitis - exhaust immune system - catch another cold" rinse, repeat. That's why miss Rona and working from home have had a huge positive impact on my health.
I was under the impression that it is different. I believe once you have tinnitus it stays forever whereas hörsturz is kind of like a stroke of the ear which you can recover from.
Headaches are actually a difficult issue. Generally it's a symptom not an illness per se. It can be induced by disadvantageous habits like drinking too much coffee or suddenly stopping it. Happens to me sometimes - my bad. I've observed that quite rarely but also quite consistently I can get a very strong headache when the weather changes. Usually people complain about a weather phenomenon called Föhn. It's a strong comparatively warm wind or storm falling from the Alps. During its dry phase you can experience an amazing sight because it causes a magnifying optical effect due to the shapes of different layers of air near the ground (1 - 5 km). Usually I can get severe headaches when the Föhn situation collapses to cold and very rainy weather. I started to experience such situations about 15 years ago. I never had such difficulties before and I grew up in this area. Luckily the problem doesn't show up with every Föhn - actually it's quite rare in my case. Most often that happens in spring or autumn. Migraine is an accepted headache illness with a comparatively clear set of symptoms. However there are a couple of more complicated illnesses causing headaches requiring thorough diagnosis and treatment, eg. cluster headaches. Unfortunately several of those illnesses are quite rare, have been discovered only a few decades ago and haven't received much attention until lately. They can become chronik. Hence recuring headaches occuring without apparent contribution of a patient should be checked by an expert.
@@britingermany I lived in Karlsruhe for about 12 years (university, first job). It's started after returning to Upper Swabia. So it's started even 25 years ago, not 15 (my mistake). There's a difference in altitude of about 200 - 400 m between Karlsruhe and Upper Swabia. Very different climate. Vegetation around Karlsruhe is about 2 weeks ahead of the one here. It was actually a reason why I've left Karlsruhe - summers are too hot and too humid there.
@@britingermany Yes, it does ! As we lived in Berlin for quite a while, the climate there is much "dryer" then over here in and around Bremen, as Bremen is surrounded by lots of moor/water. In Berlin the summers are hot and dry and he winters are cold and dry, therefor seem to be more "comfortable" instead of a summer where it's hot with high humidity or a winter, where the humidity "goes into the bones", meaning, it seems to be colder as it is. But I still prefer to live in Bremen 😊
@@britingermany im usually not the kind of guy who takes all that stuff about the weather affecting you serious, its probably just something people suspect when it really is just an unknown factor to them in their life, though i must say i do have more headaches in autumn and spring. at least then, when the weather is changing from day to day rapidly. like now. a few weeks ago we had constant rain, day and night, 3 - 5°C, then suddenly 2 days snow with 0°C and directly after that we have now 12°C~ and pretty ok weather. sometimes rain and always an ugly grey ish sky but its "normalized" if you will. and i do have a lot of headaches in these times. I must also say, im not really drinking much so it could be that, but on the other hand, i am never drinking much. and it still only occurs on these times usually.
Hörsturz for me is simply what happened the day I got tinnitus. Which sucks. I haven't checked the value of the data but a Google search says 13 % of people in the Uk vs 15 % in GER suffer from it... Pretty much equal.
I am German 59 years old and I have never experienced that someone had to lie down on the floor and put their feet up. You must have been working for a pretty wimpy company then. Statistically, hearing loss occurs just as often in the UK as in Germany. Maybe Germans don't like to talk about their migraine attacks, especially since many are aphasic during the migraine attack, like me e.g. Gastrointestinal is a popular excuse to get a day off on health insurance costs. This is difficult for doctors to control, most of the time you get your certificate of incapacity for work without an examination.
@@britingermany migraine, magendarm etc is basically just from people who get sick pretty often and dont really know the reason. like, "little" inconveniences. maybe you're eating something that you shouldnt, maybe your immune system isn't well and you just get a cold pretty often, much stress or what so ever. you get what i mean. its basically what you say when you dont know what it is, but you dont feel healthy. Kreislauf is the same when it comes to headaches or feeling dizzy. maybe low blood pressure, maybe not enough iron in the blood, maybe it has nothing to do with blood at all. so if it occurs often you play it off as Kreislaufprobleme
About drafts and people who wear scarves all the time: I am a "Frostbeule", too. I almost constantly feel cold. I have low blood pressure, and thus tend to feel dizzy when I abruptly stand up, or bend over to pick something up or whatever. It can go as far as me almost blacking out and having to grab on something to hold on to, to prevent falling. And when I really get cold (for example in winter), my whole body starts to tense up. It even makes breathing harder, because the muscles between my ribs tense up so much. Likely because of that, I'm prone to a stiff neck or back pain from "Zug", too. When I sleep, I always draw the blanket up to my ears, even in summer, or I'll wake up with a neck as stiff as a poker and raging headaches the following day, even if there is only a slight draft going on. The headaches can get as bad that I have to throw up. It's definitely no fun, and no insubstantial excuse for not going to work. And migraines are a thing here, too. Also as an excuse to take a day off. As is any illness or malady that is not severe enough to go to the doctor and can be cured by a day of rest. Still, I have experienced every of those conditions save for the Hörsturz on a regular basis (Magen-Darm most likely being brought home by the kiddos), and it is no fun at all. Perhaps we Germans are just more likely to listen to our body and take seriously when it tries to tell us something. Would fit the German seriousness, wouldn't it? ;-)
Yes I think Germans visit the doctor more often, and not just when there is an obvious problem but also just for a checkup…which I do think is sensible. After all prevention is much more effective that cure
"Kreislauf": I only suffered from problems with my blood pressure during the last months of my pregnancy. If I overexerted myself, I started feeling dizzy/lightheaded and felt my heart pounding. Then I had to stop, preferably sit down for a few minutes until my body calmed down. But I have an underlying condition of hypotension (chronic low blood pressure) which is not as dangerous as the opposite hypertension (chronic high blood pressure) which often has to be treated with drugs. To my knowledge, both conditions have a genetic component, so differences in populations may be explained by this fact. The cold/warm debate can be explained by differences in anatomy. As a generalization: body fat in women and men is differently textured and distributed over the body. This leads to women always freezing and men always dying from heatstroke. Another cause for differences is in the thyroid gland. I was always a "Frostbeule", I constantly had cold feet in wintertime (despite warm boots and wool socks). I would warm my icy feet on my husband's legs. And then I got pregnant. Since then I only once had cold feet - when visiting a ski jump world cup event with temperatures of minus 15 Celsius at noon. So, I guess, there can be changes, but the source is a different physiology. "Magen/Darm" I've had it a few times in my life but all occurrences counted together more often in the three years when my children attended Kindergarten than in the remaining 54 years altogether. In Germany, most cases are related to viruses like noro. I only once had gastroenteritis because of bad food and that was on vacation in Spain. Migraines are common in Germany too. But there is a difference between headaches and real migraines; people refer to them accordingly. Is it the same in the UK? I always had the impression that Brits also speak of migraines when they actually mean severe headaches. Causations between culture and health care system on one side and sicknesses on the other? Possible, but I guess it's more likely to be awareness (which can be related to culture and health care, there you go). In a totally unrelated example: for many years, children with certain socialization problems were non- or miss diagnosed as unruly children. Their parents were branded/denounced as bad/uncaring/unable parents until a British health professional discovered a thesis by Dr. Hans Asperger (Vienna) and had it translated into English. This created awareness for a lot of conditions that are now subsumed under the label "autistic disorder spectrum". Only after doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists became aware of it, they started diagnosing people with it.
Hi thanks for sharing. Obviously pregnancy and young kids plays a big role. But I think you’re right regarding awareness. And as far as I know migraine sounds way more severe than a headache which I think is why people use the word migraine a lot. It just sounds more extreme but I think in many cases it is just a headache.
Perhaps these illnesses or "Befindlichkeitsstörungen" are not more common in Germany than anywhere else, but it is rather more acceptable to speak about them than elsewhere.
The draft/air condition phobia in Germany is so frustrating and there is no way you can convince them otherwise. I have gotten in a U bahn car that was sitting in the sun before its first journey onwards ,and it was naturally roasting hot , so I opened many windows to air it out and cool it down only to have someone furiously slamming the windows shut as it ventured forward. I also had a experience of someone asking to shut the car window because of the dreaded draft while someone was smoking in the car.Dont get me started about air conditioning, Germans fear and hate it like the plague.
I‘m a fan of fresh air and have mostly one or more windows down when driving my car in the summer. I experienced regularly that especially women complain about Zugluft, even when only driving slowly and they also wore a heat and they didn’t have to worry about their hair styling.
German here, just commenting on my experience with this. Kreislauf: Yeah i heard it, but actually more like a little inconvenience. Cannot recall anyone actually being so dramatic about so that they actually laid down at work. Zug : It is actually not uncommon to get a stiff neck, but the draft is only the trigger in my case. I have a pre-condition (Spondylathrose) which makes me prone to having a sore neck or really nasty migraine attacks. Lack of physical activity, bad seating position at work also can contribute to "catching a draft". So some exercise would probably help much more and sustainably then wearing a scarf. Hörsturz : I know of it but i have never anyone talk about having one, except for making a joke about bad or loud music. Magen-Darm : The classic ! Yeah, try to pick up if it "miraculously" seems to be specifically prevalent on mondays. Usually you should not tell what you have when calling in sick (and it is illegal for the employer to ask) but some people feel obligated to give a reason (Which always puzzles me) and resort to this. It just sounds better then saying "i am hung over". I know that as my doctor told me about it after being his patient for 25 years in a private moment. People even tell that to the doctor instead of admitting to be hung over and the doctors know they lie. Although i guess many people are not aware that their doctors are seeing through it.
Why are people telling what is wrong with them, in Denmark we call in sick, saying, i'm sick, and the answer from your boss will be, okay, i wish you a fast recovery, they are not allowed to ask, and we don't tell.
Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is a type of hearing loss in which the root cause lies in the inner ear or sensory organ (cochlea and associated structures) or the vestibulocochlear nerve (cranial nerve VIII). SNHL accounts for about 90% of reported hearing loss.
Interesting Video. In fact, illnesses, or better, how they are precieved, expressed, caregorized, named and even felt (or not!), highly connected to culture, experience and history of people. There's even a whole scientific discipline, named ethnomedicology, which, besides other topics researched those differences. And as our world gets more and more diverse, there are IS a high demands for specialists dealing with exact those severe cultural differences, especially when it comes to the point, which illness is considered as 'real', 'severe', 'acceptabele', 'appropriate', 'cureable', 'cureworthy' or even allowed to have and to express, including which methods of diagnose and remedies are accepted, known and used in different regions (which of cause also includes geologicall botanical, chemical and historical differences). To make it short, aß each Region has it's millenia old history of medical practice, traditions and research and as this history of medicine ist closely connected to all kinds of historical, social botanical, geographic, economical, linguistical, ideological etc. circumstances, it can be quite difficult to find out, what a person is suffering from, and yes, even If there are some efforts to internationalize andcstandardize medical nomenclatura and diagnisis, this approach doesn't work very well, because a) this nomenclatura and even whole diagnoses permanently change, due to scientific progress and understanding of illnesses, and b) patients normaly don't express themselves in those kind of standardized medical language, but use a 'medical code' they've learned to use for certain issues and needs, they want to express and consider as 'belonging to the medical field'. In result, different symptoms are completely differently precieved, acknowledged, adressed, described and cured all over the world, so a medical doctor, or any other person dealing with 'medical problems' has Not only to know his physiology and standardized book of diagnoses and which of those diagnoses are acknowledged as 'offical' and therefore 'billable' for whom by each different medical system, but also how different patients from different regions do or do not express those diagnoses. And yes, this can get extremely difficult If you are not familiar with the (medical) culture of the region you are working in, or your patient was culturalized in, and IS in fact one of the big hurdles when it comes to implement foreign medical stuff, or dealing with patients coming from abroad. Like you've already assumed, the (self-)diagnoses mentioned in Your video are all closely connected to the psychosomatic and/or stress spectrum, and thats the exactly where Things get especially complicated, as especially in this area of medicine, different cultural standards, tabus, body conceptions, tradidional believes and traditions, framing of illnesses and many other cultural, social, ideological, economical,and even political phenomenons do intermingle and sometimes even cause certain symptoms, which can make it incredible complicated even for expierienced stuff in the medical field, which diagnosis could hide behind which descption or name of an illness used by a patient. So You're quite right in assuming that Brits and Germans can use a quite different nomenclatura and even do locate and discribe symptoms of one and the same diagnosis extreme differently due to their cultural background, even developing certain medical and pseudomedical codes, who are more or less easy to deciffer for insiders but a complete conondrum for people belongings to a different cultural region, group or even class. A good example is indeed the infamous German Magen-Darm, which literally refers to the gastrointestinale field on firstbsight, but also ist a strong indicator and accepted cultural code for a whole bunch of (working) stress related disorders. In other words, Germans normally don't discribe (or even regard!) their psycological symptoms as such, but refer instead to the physical cosymptoms of a mainly psychological diagnosis, which also means, Germans tend to oversee or simply don't recognize or accept and psychological symptoms at least aß Long they don't Go along with massive physiological symptoms. So If a German patient 'has' Magen Darm, Hörsturz or Kreislauf, this can be diarrhoea, tinitus or the reult of a high or low bloodpressure, nontheless, in the majority of cases, these symptoms are Just a physiological coeffect of a much more deeper -mainly but not exclusively - psychological or social or or symptom. And here's where Things get really complicated, because due to cultural conventions it can be increadibly complicated if not impossible, for medics and patients to talk openly about the 'real' cause of psychosomatic diagnoses. And yes, this not only refers to a very sinister historical past, but even more to German valued and working culture, which both are far away from some primarily anglosaxon myths about Germany as the Nonplusultra of life work ballance. In fact, there are highly concerning statistics refering to severall billions hours of mostly unpaid and non-officially registered overtime, which do make this myth highly doubtful and lead to the conclusion, that average German working hours per week so rather add up to somewhere between 55 and 80 hours rather than the official 38-43h, meaning, that for the majority of employees, against popular myths, there is no real division between Work and non-work, including at least 1-2 overtime hours per day and regular 'inofficial' working on weekends or during vacations or holidays Even more, all this is done in a highly dense and efficent, in short very German, working rhythm, which, in strong contrast to Most anglosaxon (and many other...) counties, does not include or even now more or less replaxing parts, Like Meetings, smalltalk or even breaks (in fact many Germans tend to Take aß little Break time aß possible and almost must be forces by their employees to obtain at least the minimum refered by law). And yes, this very dense and long, more or less unbounded 'worklife' which very often includes andcdetermines huge parts of Your private life and social contracts, along to my experience Not only caused a lot of the symptoms, problems and diagnoses hiding behind the medical codewords mentioned in your video, it can be a real challenge for migrants trying to work and integrate in German Firma and society, even to the point, that they deliver very simmilar symptoms and, sooner or later and with the 'medical expertese' of their colleges adopt a simmilar bodyconception,mtabus and medical nomenclatura than their German coworkers. And yes, it would be much easier, If they simply would use an internationally standardized diagnose number, but thats Not how those things work, even not in developing international standards and diagnoses, who, when You Look to older handbooks, also are highly dependant in how medicicians and scientists 'imagine' illnesses and diagnosis, due to their knowledge and cultural background. A highly enlighing example Out of my own everyday life was, when rather and son medical doctor working together but are trained and specialized in different medical fields and generations tried both to explain to me one and the same diagnosis, which got especially interesting because the older not only practises standard medicine but also homeopathie and other alternative stuff, and the Younger is Something Like a believer in Chinese medicine. In short, in the end I had at least 5-6 different diagnoses, with completely different names, refering to completely different bodyparts, cause, symptoms and medical traditions, which then at least in part, even more had to be translated into a language evryone of us three understood and, even more complicated and revealing, was accepted by the medical service aß billable.... So, yes, there are a Lot of different factors, why illlness(es) and diagnose(s) is/are concieved, detected, named, cured and 'meant' highly different in different parts of the Work, and even between different members of one Family, opposite sexes, classes and so on, even more as we now live in a highly diverse and globalized world, where many different and centuries or even millenia old medical systems and believes meet and intertwine. And no, at least in my oppinion, IT would be a huge lose If those differences would vanishing favour of one, globally standardized diagnose and cured system, even If this in some cases would make the Work of medicicians easier. Becaus each different and regional medical approach, system, scool and nomenclatura not only has grown and adepted to it's very own conditions and history, it also represents a unique and irreplaceable wealth of accumulated knowledge and understanding, closely connectedcto the individual needsm hopes, feelings, sensibilities, possibility and believes of each single medicicians and patient contributing to it. This is also, why ethnomedicology (wich under different names ist the Main scientific discipline researching those differences) doesn't refer sommuch tomright and wrong, but rather to the different ways and methods simmilar symptoms and challenges are imaginated, adressed and cured (or not...) in different cultures, eras and circumstances - and believe it or Not, sometimes a highly obscure, strange, disgusting and completely 'irrational' scripture, practice or reciepie, out of a region or age considered 'primitive and supersticious', can tried in experiments to be not only the result of severe research and knowledge, but also as a completely new approach in producing antibiotics, discovering Syndroms unknownnor overlooked by modern science or even force us to overthink our whole edical nomenclatura and systematization and and even the perception and immagination of diagnoses and their causes...
One quote from my old elementaryteacher: „es ist noch niemand erstunken, aber viele erfroren.“ So we where forbidden to open the Windows during classes. All because of the „Zug“ and „Erkältungsgefahr“… 😅 Magen-Darm instead can be explained with the high hygiene-Standards you find in germany (edit: Most european-countrys) The peoples immunsystem is just not „trained“ well enough and reacts quiet early and intensiv on small contaminations. (Edit: also it‘s a quick excuse for even trivial Malaise).
A British illness that always confuses me is the chest infection. I don't think we even have a term for this in German. I still haven't quite figured out what it actually is. A cold? Bronchitis? Pneumonia? Something in between? It just sounds so vague whereas in German we tend to name the specific part of the chest/throat that is affected i.e bronchitis, laryngitis etc.
This seems quite a silly comment. Chest infection is the term for infections in the chest - respiratory diseases - that are not as straightforwardly diagnosable as bronchitis, pneumonia, emphysema, or not a serious, which need a medical diagnosis. Colds can often go to the chest and lead to mucus build up and coughing. It is very common. It can pass after a few days or a week, and is not as serious as infections that become more life-threatening (pneumonia) or more chronic (bronchitis). It is not even slightly difficult to understand.
Sorry, but I find this rather patronising. If you haven't experienced these illnesses it doesn't mean they are made up. Lots of teenagers suffer from Kreislauf during growing spouts. Low blood pressure is a condition that can be fixed with medications just like high blood pressure. As somebody who suffered a Hörsturz I don't find it a laughing matter. I lost my hearing due to stress and had infusions for a fortnight and a high cortisone therapy. I still have a tinnitus as a result of that and I had to find ways to cope with it. If these medical issues were just imaginary our health system would not pay for the treatments. I don't think we've got a good work life balance at the moment in Germany. Most workplaces are rather stressful and the lack of specialised workers doesn't help.
I totally agree Silke and it was not my intention to be patronising. I just find it fascinating that these kind of illnesses are not talked about in the UK. Sure there are other things like migraines or back pain but there must be some cultural factors that are influencing the way we perceive and experience certain conditions
The diagnosis of circulatory disorders is often made before the causative disease is identified. Often it is later found that thyroid disease, heart disease or diet is behind it. Gastrointestinal diseases can be contagious under certain circumstances. Therefore, employees in hospitals and nursing homes are strictly forbidden to come to work if they have gastrointestinal diseases. Hearing loss is usually a pretty advanced signal from your body that you need to slow down. For most, it starts with tinnitus, a constant ringing or buzzing in the ears, which is a clear sign of ongoing stress. However, each person's sensitivity to stress depends on many factors and is therefore totally variable. Some people are extremely sensitive to stress, some are not bothered in the least. 🤷🏼♀️ Why some people are afraid of drafts is usually completely incomprehensible to me. However, it is possible that someone gets problems with the muscles, because they contract, if there is a strong draught for a very long time. And many people exaggerate the strength of their headaches. What they call migraine, I throw in a tablet and go to work. Migraine puts you flat for several days and comes in episodes for many patients. Sometimes it's frequent, sometimes it's just once a year, but I'm definitely not going anywhere with it.
Magendarm is what I say I have when somebody is nosy and I don’t want to tell them why I really called in sick. Nobody questions why you didn’t come to work when they think you were throwing up.
Another difference: If you report headache , the German would offer you a glas of water, the American rather an Aspirin or Tylenol or whatever. They are much more easy going with medicine.
I can remember a work colleague turning up (in the middle of Summer) wearing a scarf around his neck all day. I thought it was some kind of fashion trend but he told me he was "erkältet". He wore this scarf all week until his cold went away. Typical Doits!!!
"Sudden idiopathic (or sensorineural) hearing loss" is a serious condition which doctors in the UK know about, but as you say there's not really a common term for it
Just have a look how much compensation you get for what and dive into the subject "Rechtsschutzversicherung" ... Then you will understand much much more.
I notice, as you mentioned 'Hörsturz', Germans seem to have more native german expressions for things, while in English often you use the original latin doctors language in daily life. German doctors almost speak two different languages with patients or with fellow-doctors. Terms like "appendix", "thyroid" or "tonsils" are not used by German folks, but by German doctors. Simpler terms maybe a reason Germans are more familiar with a number of deseases.
@@britingermany You can see this when you watch a child growing up from 1 to 3 years and when it is constantly learning words. As soon as it knows a word of something, his mind is going more around this thing, more focussed, more interested. So we Germans are more focussed on the illnesses with these "nice" words 🤪 Aborigines/Indigenous people who live in a jungle are able to see and distiguish between much more different green shades where we would say "this two leaves have the absolute same shade of green", but what is not true, AND these people there have for every shade of green (we can't distiguish) an own name and scientists say, the name is essential that you can see and realize it. That's because red was the first colour-word humans ever created (because of blood and meat and fire), and blue the last, because there is barely something blue in nature, that is important for humans. Before there was the word blue, the people said only "the sky is bright (or dark)".
Having "Kreislauf" is a super rare thing around here. I have heard people complain about the thing in the past, but not seen one having it. Zug leads in Germany to a cold. And having a cold is just the start. You get the flu and then you die - almost. This is because Germans have largely not understand that colds and the flu are caused by viruses and not a breeze. Unfortunately, some people can still get a draft when the air is 30°C or more. We Germans are weird.
I would love to see you explain how on earth people go to the doctor in Germany? I've never seen a doctor's surgery in Berlin, only chemists and alternative health places. I have always assumed that in order to see a doctor there, if you need one, you have to go to the nearest hospital?
Half way through to the sensitive neck lady: imagination, in particular serving a personal cause, can be very strong. Regular neck muscle stretching routine (and there are awesome videos about it) for a few minutes in the morning sort out the neck pain quickly. If not, it’s necessary to get it check professionally. And then the colleagues lying on the floor at work, I think it is more a thing of one colleague did it, and others followed. But then again, the monthly cycle comes in, and as a male, I cannot have an opinion about it. But I can imagine that it effects can be rather uncomfortable. Going for the second half of the video now. 😊
I am surprised that people feel the need to inform their employer about why they are calling in sick. By law, you just report sick, and that’s it. No need to explain why. The employer has no right to ask about the reason. You just inform about your return as soon as you know it (doctors notice).
I think that depends on the company and the team. People certainly had no problem telling me what kind of illness they had...sometimes with photos to boot
"Kreislauf problem haben" You never felt dizzy when standing up after sitting still for a log time? Never had cold hands while sitting for a while? Never get off from work an thought that your feet feel heavy? Being tired can lead to low blood pressure. Suddenly moving after resting for ha while can give you low blood pressure for a few minutes. And so on. People, especially women, are made aware of early signs of low blood pressure from young age. But only a fraction of low blood pressure incidents lead to fainting. So actions to counter it doesn't do much in most cases but didn't do harm. So it's often used as a tool to get some time to rest, even if the reasons are unrelated to low blood pressure. "Im Durchzug sitzen" Superstitions will allays be a cultural thing. And many aspects around hair and draft are based on the medieval superstition that smells can carry illnesses and cures. This is based on the observation that people get fewer illnesses if they live in an environment that don't smell bad. This carries over to today in the notion that moving hair can benefit or harm you depending of the "type" of hair. To agree what "type" air people encounter when opening a window is the source of many discussions. "Hörsturz" It often describes the loss of the ability to hear a range of frequencies temporally or permanent. It can result in hearing "fake" sounds like hissing or beeping. It's a creatively common occurrence, but many don't even notice it if they aren't primed to watch out for it. It's prevalent in our family. Every one had at lest thee in his lifetime. I had my first when i was 15 and had to live with a annoying constant high pitched beeping until i got sound therapy for that. Even with preventative medication i lost around 15% of my hearing in the last 30 years. My mother lost nearly 50% and has hard time understanding people because the loss are in frequencies people speaking in. This is not really what people normally describe as partly deaf. I can hear very well in the not affected frequencies. But i have a hard time hearing some car horns.
The video was about the difference of not saying "I'm dizzy", if you are dizzy. You immediatly convert it to the more general diagnosis "Kreislauf". Germans don't tell their symptoms, they tell their analysis.
I've never heard of stress related hearing loss: it reminds me of goats who are subjected to a sudden fright and go rigid and fall over with their legs sticking straight out. I know from personal experience that heavy stress causes gut distress. Yeah emotions cause all manner of physical symptoms.
while i fully believe that some people overdo their "Durchzug" fear i personally feel like 3/4 of days i can sit in the "Durchzug" all day, while on some days when my throat is already sore or scratchy, i would really prefer to just sit it out without cold air blowing over me. If you are already developing some kind of cold, actual cold temperatures might make it so it fully develops into one. So if some people experienced being sick after having been in "Durchzug" they might just play it way too safe by just complaining about "Durchzug" all the time, even when it wouldnt matter in that case for Air conditioning my experience has been that most germans only think of ones that are set far too cold, they never think "its 30 outside lets use an AC to make it 22 inside" they just picture coming into a 16 degree room sweaty on a 30 degree day, which i think most people would dislike i really had to do some convincing in order for my parents to get an AC after they have had solar installed with lots of leftover electricity
Kreislauf or better Kreislaufstörungen are just a semantic abbreviation for feeling week and/or dizzy or just not feeling up to it. When I have a Kreislaufstörung and I measure my blood pressure it is always completely normal. So it's not a real thing.
@@britingermany Of course there can occur or do occur really serious circulation problems. But in that case people would rather say "O man, my blood pressure is way up" or something like this. And indeed people do get hospitalized with Kreislaufstörungen, mostly old folks in hot weather. What I refered to is that everyday usage for feeling unwell.
@@britingermany Well in my case it certainly is - my blood pressure is rather low and at times might drop further. Measurable. But dizziness can have a lot of reasons, eventually. So there also might be cases where something else is behind it.
Many of those German "Kreislauf"- problems are simply panic attacks or the fear of getting frightened. "Zug" often has a similar reason, it's just a tension caused by stress. Don't add an article to this word, though. It's just "Zug bekommen".
@@britingermany It was a bit tongue in cheek, but as an Austrian, who has visited the UK many times, I really did feel a "draught" quite often in my rooms in B&Bs or older hotels.
@@alestev24 I thought as much. I can take it 😉. I grew up with frosted window panes on the inside of the glass...I've actually gotten totally soft in comparison to my brother. He's still in T-shirts up until November whereas I'm rated up in a thick coat
Low blood pressure is not unusual in the UK. I had it in my youth. My son went to hospital for a day. For my family it is genetic. Low heart rate and blood pressure is just a thing. It gets a big thumbs up during health checks. In the UK you catch a chill not a draught but it is the same thing.
I also like the word „Wetterfühligkeit“, that means that you are sensible to changes in the weather, like air pressure when it get‘s rainy or phenomena like „Föhn“ (downslope winds in the mountains). You feel dizzy and drained and also have headaches.
Yes I also know some people who are also sensitive to the cycles of the moon and can's sleep at certain times of the month.
Magen-Darm in my experience at work is that it's almost exclusively colleagues with little children in daycare, who bring it back home from there and infect their parents.
Good point. That definitely plays a role
The first 3 month your child is in daycare, you can expect the family to be taken down 2-3 times. It drops to a couple of times a year when in Kindergarden.
My sons' Kindergarden thought is was too much, so they started a serious Hand Washing Campagne. It worked brilliantly! Margen-Darm disapeared!
I had Norovirus twice within the first two years our son being in daycare and not again since then. However, my younger colleagues seem to get it quite frequently and it’s definitely an excuse to call in sick. I call that the bottle flu.
Margen-Darm is just another excuse to stay at home...
When I was first in Germany, with little knowledge of the language, so many people answered my question of “Wie geht es Ihnen?” with “Ach, mein Kreislauf” , that I thought it was just a standard reply such as “I’m fine, thanks”!
haha that is hilarious!!
However, I think there was good reason for the reply: it took me and other newcomers to the city (Aachen) a long time to acclimatise and we suffered the feelings of tiredness, brain fog, the inability to get going. Perhaps it’s something to do with the climate there, or the air pressure. I got used to it after a while. Another remark often heard was “Wetterfühligkeit”
Don't confuse "wie geht's" with "how are you" 😁
🤣🤣
Very true😂😂😂, it's the German answer to How r u when you are over 70
„Magen-Darm“ is also what you tell your employer if you don‘t want to go into the details of what‘s really going on with you. It could be anything from not being in the mood for work to a real medical condition that is too personal to talk about.
Why wold you tell them anything? It's none if their business and they should accept that and not ask
Right, it's just easier to mention that if you mention anything at all
@@nobodysgirl7972 Because we are Germans. We need a reason for everything. Even if it not required to give one.
You will be disrespected if you don't give any reason, because that means you have something to hide. Giving the "Magen-Darm" means, you are obviously lying, but you are socially conscious enough to not say "i wont tell you why"
@@philippthaler5843 I am German as well. And to me it means the should not be asking. Also what goes along with it if you say you're suffering from Magen-Darm I'd be afraid they'd expect me to be back after mire than the typical 3 days
@@nobodysgirl7972 They wont ask as an employer. Like requiring you to tell you why you wont come in. They ask for conversational flow. It is considered rude to not ask "what's wrong", because that suggest they don't care about you. It also gives you the opportunity to tell them, if it is actually serious and they might need to know. To accomodate for future needs.
You come back, when the docotrs notes say you come back. If your fake diarreha lasts 3 weeks. that's how it is^^
Most of the things you mentioned must not be serious, but you always have to take them serious. As a teenager i started to get Kreislaufprobleme nearly always, when the weather is hot. All i heard was like, just drink enough and you will be fine. I started to question myself, if that could be a psychological condition, because I knew my feelings, but nobody, including the doctors seemed to believe me and some relatives even said, that i just did not want to go to school. Then i got my first epileptic episode. I had many since that time. Always on hot days and i had always those typical Kreislauf symptoms before. Today i know, that can ibe a forshadowing of an epileptic episode for me. But the symptoms are the same
About culture and migraines:
When I was a kid in the 90s rural Germany my mom had regular heavy bout of migraine, up to throwing up and fighting to get to the bathroom without falling due to low blood pressure. It was never treated, she had suffered for decades at this point, every three weeks. When anybody mentioned Migraine in social gatherings it was always riduculed with a sneer and usually treated as an excuse - like uppclass housewives declining sex in the evening.
When I studied physiotherapy in Netherlands in my 30s I was quite amazed how easily students talked about being a migraine patient, even the guys! And it was treated like just any other painful illness and of course, treated medically!
So, yes, social environment.
Migraine is a truly awful condition, often worsened by certain foods - cheese for example - and I've known people who actually suffer blindness during an attack. It sometimes helps to keep a food diary to see whether any specific food triggers it, and really I've never known any English person to belittle it. It can also benefit sometimes from gentle massage of the neck, as tension there can cause headaches, nausea and migraines.
Feeling unwell is often vague. It makes sense that different countries there are different all purpose explanations . Brain fog nausea lack of energy abdominal discomfort diarrhoeah vomiting dizziness are common symptoms for a huge number of illnesses
Actually fear of "Zugluft" is not unknown in the UK. Fighter pilots in WWII often wore scarves in order to avoid getting a stiff neck. This was not a trivial condition for them as their lives often depended on being able to turn their heads to spot approaching enemy planes coming up behind them.
Fighter or bomber pilots were exposed to cold air at altitude or when flying at night and needed thick leather jackets, scarves, etc. You cannot compare the conditions in which they flew with either conditions in current day passenger aircraft or with ground conditions.
It's not only in Germany that anyone opening a window is greeted with screams of Es zieht! When I used to holiday in Switzerland you could be in 30 degree heat but if you opened a train window the whole carriage full of people would scream Es zieht at you. In Germany, though I discovered the dread condition of Niederblutdruck. Nobody talked about Kreislauf but God help you if you had Niederblutdruck - low blood pressure. It was treated incredibly seriously. I told an English doctor this and he had hysterics - everybody in Britain is being told to lower their blood pressure!
Well if you have chronically low blood pressure, or a problem with stabilising it, it's no fun at all.
It's genetic, and seems to be more frequent in Germany. Its unpleasant, but much less dangerous than high blood pressure - in that I agree. :)
@@koschmxNo but it was constantly discussed - people would complain of losing weight (when they needed to!!) and if my blood pressure had to be taken for any reason, whereas in England I'd be congrstulated because I didn't have high blood pressure, in Germany there'd be sucking of teeth and saying I had low blood pressure. No they didn't shout at me about it but you try being in 30 degree heat and getting shouted at for opening a window when there's no air conditioning
@@koschmxRe David Thewlis, me too! I don't know whether things have changed, but years ago when I Iived in Northern Germany I couldn't get used to not being on first name terms with friends of the same age until you had waited to go through a special ceremony after a period of time. Uptight wasn't in it! But England isn't too brilliant at the moment unfortunately.
Regarding Hörsturz:
Up front - I‘m not a medical professional, but have been a medical intern and my ex-husband suffered from „real“ Hörsturz.
Hörsturz is said to be likely an ametrohaemia of the blood vessels in the inner ear. It‘s practically an „ear stroke“.
There are quite a few things said to cause a Hörsturz, which can reach from benign things like simply too much ear wax to ear infection, to acoustic trauma (e.g. exposure to loud noises like a sudden really loud bang or constant exposure to loud music), to quite severe thrombosis or even certain brain tumors. Even a malpositioned cervical vertebra can be the cause.
My ex’s Hörsturz came from acoustic trauma. He used to be bass player in a metal band (constant exposure to loud music) plus he suffered from a blast trauma (reaching back to his days in the military). For him it wasn’t just a one-off, but a recurring condition. I’d guess because he had developed quite a weak spot by having several conditions that caused a Hörsturz. It certainly didn‘t help his cause that he smoked a lot.
Having said this, though there are quite severe causes to develop an ear stroke, quite a few of them are kind of „self inflicted“ like loud music or unhealthy life style like smoking or just not cleaning one‘s ears adequately.
In my opinion, though, it‘s a social phenomenon that germans complain about suffering from Hörsturz a lot.
Since the causes of a Hörsturz are so varying, even a benign short bout of feeling pressure in the ear, having a few seconds of ringing accompanied by a short decline in one’s hearing ability can be called Hörsturz just the same as something more severe and longer lasting, the use of the word has become very common for anything even remotely resembling the symptoms of a Hörsturz. Plus it sounds very dramatic, doesn‘t it?
Quite similar to the phenomenon of migraines. Migraines are severe and sound very dramatic as opposed to (even a very bad) ordinary headache.
In general I guess it can be said that germans do like to complain about just anything and everything and exaggerate the severity of things. Plus if we (yes I’m german too) hear someone tell us about their health issues, we tend to filter some „key words“ and immediately associate our own experiences with their‘s and voilá! we have now Migräne, Hörsturz or Zug too. From there on it‘s like a self selling item.
Regarding einen Zug abbekommen haben:
Getting a stiff neck from draught is actually quite common and also not illogical. Though some people are more prone to stiff neck than others. The constant air flow on an exposed part of one‘s skin - in this case the neck - causes the body to cool down in that area which causes the muscles to tense. That is a natural body reaction to lowered body temperature. We all know this from shivering in the cold. The body tries to heat up through muscle contractions. In case of catching a draught it‘s just not the whole body and thus not „bad enough“ to actually shiver, but bad enough to cause muscle contractions, which over an extended amount of time will cause stiffness.
As for catching a cold from exposure to draught… well that‘s more complicated and convoluted.
God I hope I remember correctly what I learned back in my days as a medical lab technician…
So, the air is full of germs and viruses, which we are constantly exposed to. Usually nothing happens, right?
Correct, but usually the air around us is fairly calm and has a constant temperature.
When we now open a window - let‘s say in autumn - the cooler air outside flows in faster than in summer when the inside and outside temperatures are similar an it is full of viruses and bacteria that due to the lower temperature are „slowed down“, or inactive.
So there are already two things out of the ordinary: higher and more rapid air flow plus all the little inactive critters in the air.
We get blasted with an extra amount of bacteria and viruses. When we inhale them and introduce them to our bodies, the conditions for the little devils to thrive become ideal. The mucosa is warm and moist which they love and they wake up and get to work… and we get sick.
So yes there is definitely such a thing as getting sick from a draught, but it usually only happens when there is a significant difference in interior and exterior temperature and air humidity, thus it is usually during autumn and winter.
I hope this helps.
Thanks a lot for this detailed comment. I have heard Hörsturz described as a stroke of the ear before and I think that's the best way to think of it. The example of your ex makes a lot of sense and makes me think I should tone down my music more often. Thanks a lot and enjoy the rest of your Sunday
@@britingermany Thank YOU for your content! Your videos are entertaining and informative. I also like that you‘re not as „hyper“ and „affected“ as many of the content creators on RUclips. Have a good Sunday too.
@@britingermany Thank YOU for your content! Your videos are entertaining and informative. I also like that you‘re not as „hyper“ and „affected“ as many of the content creators on RUclips. Have a good Sunday too.
Good morning everyone. I hope you're doing well. Have you encountered illnesses or conditions which seem to be more common in Germany than elsewhere or is it just me? Wishing you all a lovely Sunday!
Good morning! Busy already on sunday morning😀
I'm with you on the hot/cold and draw/Zug dispute. Both are manageable by clothing according to the onion or babushka principle.
@@michaelburggraf2822 of course! No rest for the wicked 😉. Have a lovely Sunday
I've read that only German speaking countries have the concept of Wetterfühligkeit.
If someone around me said they they had kreislauf and had to lie on the floor and elevate their feet because of their symptoms of weakness and feeling shaky or dizzy, I would think of low blood sugar levels. I frequently get this when I have made a poor choice of breakfast foods. I have a snack of high protein and low sugar foods, rest awhile, and soon feel better. I find it interesting how the culture affects the person's outlook on health.
This was a great topic. It gives a great insight to living in Germany that is not often covered by other bloggers. (I am American of German heritage.)
Hi Jeff thanks for stopping by. Yeah I think it was because they were trying to skip breakfast
Hörsturz can impact on your health quite heavily. A former schoolmate had one before reaching her 20s and the ear that suffered the Hörsturz has lost about 80% of its ability to hear. And that is permanently. Another case: a colleague at work suffered a Hörsturz few years ago. His sense of balance was so disturbed, he could barely even walk.
About Zugluft: I personally catch a cold quite easily when exposed to Zugluft. E.g. at the Karate club. When I'm in my Karate uniform, I literally wear only 4 pieces of clothing. My pants, the trousers of the uniform, the jacket of the uniform and the belt. All in all a very airy and breezily dress. And as you can imagine I sweat quite a bit while practising. And when somebody opens up the window, than I easily catch a cold. So I quickly close the window again. Only during summer, when it is warm outside, Zugluft is less of a problem. But during all other seasons it is a problem for me as I catch a cold very easily and that sucks.
A cold is an infection through bacteria, not Zugluft. You may have a hygienic problem.
@@wolfganglemke6312 Bitte was? Seit wann wird ne Erkältung durch Bakterien verursacht? Da hat wohl jemand in Biologie nicht aufgepaßt? Eine Erkältung wird durch Viren verursacht! Und die Unterstellung von hygienischen Problemen verbitte ich mir!
@@ralfhtg1056 Ja. Gut. In der Tat häufig durch Viren. Aber eben nicht durch Zugluft. Und wie schützt man sich vor Viren? Die WHO empfiehlt Hygienemaßnahmen.
@@wolfganglemke6312 Die Viren sind praktisch immer in der Luft. Zugluft und Kälte schwächen das Immunsystem. Gerade genug, um die permanent vorhandenen Viren in Form einer Erkältung ausbrechen zu lassen. Hat also nichts mit Hygiene zu tun. Denn ich wasche / dusche mich täglich. Zugluft löst also die Erkältung nicht aus, aber begünstigt diese mitunter enorm.
@@ralfhtg1056 Die Argumentationskette ist mir bekannt, überzeugt mich aber nicht. Dann würde ja Cabrio-, Motorrad- oder Fahrradfahren krank machen.
Just before moving to Germany decades ago nervous breakdowns in the UK were the thing. I was surrounded by people having them. I witnessed a bus conductor suddenly start shouting like crazy, threw his ticket machine onto the floor and then sobbed like a child. A work colleague of mine came to work in the middle of summer, it was 95 outside, dressed as if it was the middle of winter and just sat at his desk staring silently. A friend of mine told me his father had been heavily sedated before being brought to what he called the happy farm because he had sat in the living room for 3 days without once moving, eating or talking to anyone.
When I moved to Germany it was heart problems and infarcts. within just months 2 of my work colleagues had infarcts and later died, my German grandfather died of heart failure and the father of a friend of mine dropped died at work of heart failure. When I heard that someone had suddenly died, especially if it was a bloke, I knew the chances were it was something with their hearts.
BTW, Magen-Darm infection is no myth. I've had it on numerous occasions and can assure you, it's not just no fun, at least in my case I have had it so bad that I'd rather die of heart failure and have done with.
Wow! That sounds pretty insane. Maybe the world hasn’t gone crazy we just hear more about than we used to.
Kreislauf: I'm in my mid sixties, and all my live I have never seen a person lying down in the office because of "Kreislauf". I had this experience only twice with young women, one of them was pregnant and the other had a diabetic shock.
The "draw": Yes, that is a fact. Maybe because we are not used to and hardened by air-condition technology and the continuous stream of air coming from that, but many people suffer from neck pain, after they had to sit within a significant air flow. I thought, that this is a common reaction to such a situation, but maybe it actually isn't?
Hörsturz: Yes, I've heard of it, but I don't personally know of anybody who caught that.
Magen-Darm: Is usually caused by bacteria or viruses. For some reason, these may be more prevalent in Germany than in other countries? I actually do know more people who frequently suffer from "Magen-Darm" sickness than I know people who often catch the common cold. I personally think that diarrhea and vomiting is more burdensome and straining than coughing and sneezing.
In Turkish culture over all we have the same business with Zugluft. I don't know if my peers impose the same thing on their children now but when we were kids that was one of the first things we learned to avoid for self-maintenance. And in western parts of Turkey somewhat close to the shore (and definitely at all points on the shore) we have a situation like the Föhn-headaches I read in the comments to this video. It is a wind called "lodos" from the south or southsouthwest bringing temperatures quite high relative to the season. And when it is strong it may cause structural damage as well, and can cause poisoning by pushing chimney smoke back into the building where stoves are used. But it usually gives a bad headache and general brainfog. Unfortunately our health insurance system does not recognize this as a health problem so we get to brave a few days while the "lodos" blows. This was a great video and I will share it with my friends in Germany now. Thanks!!
Thanks a lot for sharing. It reminds me of a piece of advice I got on holiday in Italy. You should under no circumstances go swimming on the sea directly after eating. I think the teary is that the cold water gives you stomach cramps and could cause you to drown...I wonder if this is the case in Turkey as well.
@@britingermany Yes yes absolutely! It is still a no-no! But we also prefer to chat over finished lunch and have Turkish coffee and relax a bit. The sea can "sometimes" wait! 😄
@@britingermany
You know what is the "real" reason for that smart advice?
The "Kreislauf" 🤣, why?
Because your stomach etc needs about one third of the "bodies energy" to digest, this also is the reason why most people, depending on the food they had, tend to be very "sleepy" after eating 🥱 ...
Back to the "Kreislauf", when been in the sun/or shade, as it's hot etc and then one will go into the "cold(er)" water after a meal it could strain the heart/blood pressure/Kreislauf, therefor one could get a "Kreislauf Kollaps".
Have a nice day 😉
Yes, great thing in Germany as well: don't go into the water after eating and don't drink after eating cherries.
The perception of illnesses, pain, mental health etc. is definitely culture related.
Kreislauf/Hypotension: every 3rd-2nd human will once in his life time suffer from hypotension that leads to fainting. Especially young woman (standing a lot during work, vene insufficiency, not drinking enough of water, loss of blood during periods...) and elderly persons (dehydration + in consequence relative overdose of blood pressure medication and more serious organ related conditions) are at risk. Summer season, humid and changing weather is provoking blood pressure disregulation. In summer, GP offices are full of Kreislauf patients. It depends on your personality, cultural and socioeconomic background if you see the necessity to see your doctor because of a little dizziness or not.
Magen-Darm/ Gastroenteritis: common all over the year especially parents of children that are in Kindergarten but also for people who have different problems but hesitate to be honest to their GP will present with symptoms of Gastroenteritis - it's a safe diagnose that justifies a sick note from 3-5 days. Mostly the shame/stigma of social (appointments at court/ Jobcenter/ care of older relatives) or mental health related problems (anxieties, addictions, bullying, burn out) bring patients to lie about Magen-Darm.
Hörsturz/idiopathic hearing loss: not as common as the first 2 conditions but often related to work overload, too. As you cannot work in most cases without proper hearing, it's natural you get time off work to recover. I'd rather give patients with a potential risk of developing a serois mental condition 2-4 weeks of work than not giving him some time to sort things out and end up treating a fully established depression/burn out.
Zug/Rücken/steifer Nacken - stiff neck: back ache related sick notes cause one of the highest costs in Germany... in most cases it's caused by unhealthy body positions during work or not enough physical activity+overweight. People suffering from pain can be very sensitive and demanding when it comes to the duration of sick notes and getting perscriptions to physiotherapy. Especially younger Germans hesitate to take pain killers even short term. Patients often want massages (no evidence) instead of doing activities that will relax the muscles on a daily basis.
The older the patient is and the more the patient did work physically in his life time there is need for further examination and treatment. Also, neurological symptoms need to be examined and treated properly.
When it comes to pain I see the biggest differences between cultures. Also, language barrier plays a role. I have lots of problems to understand especially Arabic people. Oftentimes I cannot differentiate if the patient is in full pain and needs more medication or being in pain is a synonym for I need help because of other social or mental related conditions I cannot phrase differently.
The more you go to the East the more pain excepting people tend to be. That may be the Eastern German who goes by bike to the hospital with a full cardiac infarction collapsing in the ER or the Polish patient that just wants to get some pain killers for stomach pain while having a full pancreatitis and is at the edge of sepsis.
People from English speaking countries want to get a lot of information preferably to their convenience all in English. But the concept of symptoms-diagnose-treatment differentiates drastically depending on what kind of health care system you were brought up in (e.g. NHS in GB vs. the US).
Northern Americans are more open to take pain medication as well as antidepressant medication and lifestyle medications. When young Americans present with back pain they often want to have a CT scan asap because this is what would be expected in the US. It takes some time and empathy to convince them that it's not always the first choice to put X-rays on a fertile young human being and there might have been more economic interest of the radiologist back in the US than actual use and help....
When I was work with elderly people, they often did feel well and had „weather“ , Schwester “das Wetter!“ so simelar to Kreislauf. Not feeling well/ feeling off. I do think it is straining if the temperature is changeing 10-15 degree in 12 hours. The more stress you have or you have an underlying condition you are more sensitive to those extreme weather changes. Maybe continental Europe is different in that regard?
A recommendation: Read Katherine Mansfield's "In a German Pension" about her stay in Bad Wörishofen. The stories are over a hundred years old but they are so funny, also mentioning particular German habits like discussing your bowel movements and such. A good read!
That sounds fun, it's even in the Gutenberg Project, I'll give it a read. 🙂 Let's see how much has (not) changed in over a hundred years.
I read that recently. It was a very good observation of the German mentality and attitude to health matters from an English point of view. A bit long-winded for today's reader, but I enjoyed it.
Thanks a lot
Perhaps it has got to do with the fact that people know of a set of possible illnesses like 'Magen-Darm' or migraine and they try to fit in their own negative experience (I'm sick!) into this system of categories. It is difficult to un-think things!
Old Buddhist story. A novice asked an older monk about how to meditate, the experienced monk explained to him what to do, how to breath, how to sit and how to direct the thoughts. At the end, he said - most important of all: 'don't think about elephants!!'
I guess you know what happened to the novice who hadn't thought about elephants for the years previous to this instruction 😉
I think that fits very well, we know common illnesses and their symptoms, so the first thing to communicate to someone who has to know is 'I might have x'. If it's something else than it can be discussed in private if your boss, colleagues or friends need to know. It's always better than to use google and having more stress that way.
HI, I'm german and I really like your point of view on our country. When I was young I worked at Volkswagen in the production - and I hated it. In that time we had the possibility to stay at home for three days without going to the doctor (Drei-Tage-Regelung). But of course you needed a reason to tell at work. So I must admit, I really took the Magen-Darm several times a year. It is quite simple and it seems ok, when you come back to work three days later.
Thank you and thanks fro sharing 👍🏻
Pretty much the same in Austria. As to draughts, I used to make fun of my mum and her friends who always wore scarves and shawls, but since my mid 50s, I too notice more sensitivity in my neck to draughts, and I carry a thin one with me in my bag.
As to Magen-Darm, or tummy upset, the runs etc. A few of our friends said that once they realised they were lactose intolerant, that condition that was so common before, 'went away,' as they avoided foods that would cause all sorts of gastro-intestinal upsets.
I suffered from migraines a few days before my period, and it was just awful. After menopause, these diminished considerably.
Regarding Kreislauf collapse, I also only learned about this condition here. Whenever someone got very or extremely upset, such a malady followed. It only lasted a day, at most two. Our daughter "learned" to say this in high school to get out of school early. :-)
Am sure there are valid cases, but my observations match yours.
I guess lifestyle and age does play a role. I grew up in the countryside and now life in a city. I do get colder quicker than I used to. When I visit my brother he is often walking around in a T-shirt whereas I need a warm coat.
If you are looking for quintessential german word here is one for your collection:"wetterfühlig" a person who is particularly sensitive to changes in the weather (like Fön) or can be struck down by the draft.
Also no-one wants to call in sick to work with "I have my period, feel like I have a knife stuck in my stomach, a crushing headache and may cry or scream in fury at the drop of a hat"... having a migraine or magen-darm is so much easier for your boss to read, it is basically a social contract of 'don't tell, don't have to know' 😂
That’s a nice one 😉👍🏻
My worst case of Magen-Darm was at a conference in England and it started in the crèche our three-year-old child was at. It was so bad she had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance. When she was discharged after a week, it was the end of our conference, but then my wife and I both got it the night before we were supposed to drive back to Germany - which was completely out of the question, so the university where the conference had been gave us a house to stay in for ten days. There we were, all alone on a university campus over the Christmas holidays and New Year in a giant house with about fifteen rooms, no food or drink, with a little child that had just recovered from the worst diarrhoea and vomiting I have ever seen. I don't know how I managed, but the shopping I did that afternoon was terrible and I was extremely thankful for the customer toilets at that particular Safeway's. 😉
OMG! Yes public toilets can be a life saver in those kind of situations
German living in Greece here, who lived in Italy before. Have discovered that Greeks and Italians suffer from άγχος /angoscia, which is actually just a feeling of high negative Stress. We don't even have a word for that in German as far as I know.
Greeks also seem to get panic attacks a lot lately. They're on the rise here.
Italians complain a lot about "cervicale" (stiff neck).
Magen-Darm is not as popular in both countries as it is in Germany, but it is common in little children and their close relatives.
Wow that is so interring. Thanks for sharing.
Could that be translated as "anxiety" which is also often heard in English nowadays and I think the Germans just use the English word. "Stress" and "Burnout" have also been assimilated into the German language.
@@jackybraun2705 yes in English anxiety is the proper world I think.
Greeks also use the words "stress" and "burnout", so they are not synonyms of άγχος, because they don't involve a sense of fear, wich is associated with άγχος. In German the proper term for it would be "frei fluktuierende Angst" according to good old Freud, but it's not an expression you hear a lot in Germany.
Also i believe your normal body temperature plays a role in how much sudden changes of weather effect you. Also with how much they feel cold no matter what. or stiff neck aswell, since it would change your body posture and how much you stiffen up your muscles without noticing. i myself complain very very rarely about such things, and my normal body temperature is actually at the higher end. 37,3°C~ while from others that i know, they are more at the lower end of 36°C. where others are usually always cold, i complain about the opposite. when i come in from the outside and it was cold there, and my room is warm i am instantly sweating and im super warm and i usually wanna get out of my jacket ASAP. but it doesnt have to be super warm in the room, just.. not cold.
Benjamin, I'm enjoying watching your videos. You sound very well educated. Where were you born, and where did you go to school?
Einspruch!
1. Kreislauf: sudden drop in blood pressure; especially young women suffer from this and are prone to dizziness or even fainting when riding a crowded train for example. I am sure if you ask young women in England that they know this condition.
2. Zug: I know people who easily get either a stiff neck or a sore throat when they get a draft. I myself don’t like Zugluft as I am always cold. Then again this is something - like the „Kreislauf“ - that you as a male do not suffer much from.
3. Hörsturz: I am quite astonished that this should be typically German. You say yourself it is called idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss ( ISSHL) so maybe it is just that the German term is more catchy? Or Germans are more aware?
BTW, migraines are unfortunately quite common and I know people (including myself) who have to call in sick because of migraines.
4. Magen-Darm: I guess this depends on your environment. For many years this would have been an alien term to me but once I had small children we had terrible outbreaks of „Magen-Darm“ induced by viruses like Rota or Noro. Now that the kids are all teenagers it is a thing of the past. It is not „Lebensmittelvergiftung“ which you get from salmonella and such and which I only ever got outside of Germany. No small kids, no nasty viruses.
So be aware that you are a male without children and thus several of these illnesses will not affect you!
In any case, there are certainly cultural differences about ailments. I was always amused when my Irish workmates complained about a „head cold“. Or spaniards that are prone to „corte de digestión“ (cut-off of digestion, e.g. when taking a cold shower or plunge after eating).
Wow! The whole aversion to drafts is also a thing here in Italy! I don’t get it. You really notice it in buildings and public transport during the summer when it seems that air conditioning levels are at their lowest levels. Totally different than the “freezers” that I experienced in office buildings in the US. I distinctly remember having to wear a sweater inside the office or going outside to get warm because it was so cold. Ironically, though I never got sick. This video made me think about how for years I slept with a fan blowing about 10 inches from my face because I couldn’t go to sleep without air blowing on me.
I had a Hörsturz once, curious enough it was in the area of lower frequencies. I could not hear my flatmate talking when he was sitting to my right, he had a deep voice. Everything else was fine. My doctor said it was the result of stress and my body decided that an ear inflammation was the right thing to get my attention. My hearing normalised after about a week or two. Think of it as Tenosynovitis of the ear.
Sitting in a draft, or under a very agressive airconditioning vent can lead to tense muscles or a bit of the sniffles, others might even lose their voice. It is curious considering the tendency for airing out rooms (although you're not in the rooms at the time) and the idiom that 'there isn't bad weather, just bad clothing' for going outside, that a cooling system can play such havoc on the German body. It happens, especially in the summer. Sometimes it overlaps with the warm/cold temperature discussion. Anecdote to this: When I finished my vocational training I got a room allocated more or less just to myself. I decided that 17° was a fine working temperature in mid July and because of that hardly any of my colleagues ever took a step into the room.
Migranes are a serious thing, at least if they are not an excuse for normal headaches or low interest. I'm talking lying in a dark room with a damp cloth on your eyes and a bucket for spew besides the bed. It is a mostly hereditary thing, you can get medication and, at least in my family, it happens about once or twice a year. It mostly affects women, but I have a hunch that 'migrane' is often used to not have to say menstrual pains or something less charismatic on the illness scale.
Magen-Darm and grippaler Infekt often are interchangeable, you're feeling under the weather, your stomache is upset and/or you have the runs, maybe a bit of temperature, sniffles, sore throat, you name it. You might have eaten something that tasted a bit funny, but to err on the side of caution you get a few days of sick leave, if it gets worse than you will hopefully not have infected your coworkers at least. It's not fun to have twenty or thirty people from an open-plan office at home with diahrroea at the same time.
And as was mentioned, Kreislauf seems to mostly affect the young or growing, as well as the elderly. For some it is accompanied by dizziness, think of it as getting up to fast and that feeling of vertigo, for others it's just a general excuse to complain a bit and fish for sympathy. Of course it could be a symptom of something else and you should see a doctor if it keeps happening to you.
Edit: Speaking of cultural things, I don't know anything in the greater German cultural sphere that would equal the 'case of the vapors', that at least must be a very Anglo-Saxon thing.
I'm Brazilian and lived for 8 years ... I mean 4 years in Japan and 4 years in Okinawa. Magen-Darm in Japan is something quite common like cold or flu. My flat mate got one and whithin a cople of day she gave it to me. Our toilet has never been so busy ... I don't remember anyone telling they got Magen-Darm here in Brazil... Wash your hands before putting them in your mouth. Cheers.
Aww Ben, a good one again. Love the twinkle in your eyes talking about this. Believe me, if a language has terms for diseases, the people will have it." Begriff", what a wonderful German term, to grap a situation or something else by naming it, you'll have a subject to "have" it or talk about it. The "Magen-Darm" thing is the standard "excusion", if your collegues don't feel like working
PS: Hörsturz is a very severe disease, that will make you loose your ability to hear...Just like a stroke by the heart, that may cause your death.
Keep on healthy ( hart auf die 40 zugehend ☺, cwtsh. Martin
Vielen dank Martin. Here's to a healthy future 😀
Our body sends us signals when something goes wrong. Our culture decides which signals we choose to react to, and how we talk about it.
Case in question - a "Hörsturz" is generally seen as a sign that you have too much stress, are way too hard on your body, and are lucky not to get a stroke or other organ failure.
Nicely said!
1:44 Never heard about that and no one I know would ever do that!
Well…just my personal experience
Hörsturz ist mostly caused by a blood clot in the inner ear, it is similar to a stroke, a pulmonary embolism or a heart attack that are also caused by blood clots. Hörsturz can get better soon if the blood clot gets dissolved quickly, but it can cause lasting hearing loss if it isn't.
As a German in the UK currently suffering from a stiff neck due to Zug on the bus, this video reminded me of my gran when she'd complain about a draft and would glare at no one in particular while tightening her scarf around her head and neck. Now, decades later, I can feel her pain. As a child, I didn't mind Zugluft but now I get headaches and a painfully stiff neck from drafts. Not sure if we've collectively invented this illness and kept telling each other it's real until it became a thing...
God I hope not! On the other hand it is normal to develop things with age. I have become “softer” and more sensitive to temperature since living in a city
@@britingermany Did you keep getting sick (colds) when you first moved to Germany? I constantly got colds when I first moved to the UK - new germs, I guess! Side note: One "health" thing is much better here for me than in Germany: I'm not getting itchy skin from midge bites in the UK and mostly get hardly stung at all whereas I would get regularly eaten alive in G. Must be some kind of genetic variance. Bodies (and location-dependent health) are weird!
I always experience a headache when the föhn comes over, unlike any headache I have in the UK. The Frankonian way of dealing with it seems to be to drink more beer which does work
haha are you kidding me?! That would give me the headache in the first place
@@britingermany It only gives you a headache if you stop drinking the next morning. now, i dont mean drink all day, but one beer in the morning to counter it (as wrong as it sounds) actually helps. you wont feel it for the rest of the day. Now, if you got drunk before, your body *will* still feel that way, but your headache will get less actually
Young women seem to have more problems with the (blood) circulation, mostly during the menstrual phase, sometimes because of uneaten meals or after an illness (cold, gastrointestinal "inventory" = diarrhea/vomiting). And yes, small children up to the 1st or 2nd school year often bring gastrointestinal infections or colds home with them.
Thanks Manu🙏
Hi. In my experience it has to do with what diseases are "socially accepted". In the UK, migraines are accepted as a reason for being ill, when in fact they are just ordinary headaches. In Germany it's the same with "Magen-Darm", even if it's really just an upset stomach, a little nausea or mild diarrhea. "Kreislauf" is accepted as a reason for dizziness, while "ate too little" or "too little sleep" would be answered with: "it's your own fault, kindly pull yourself together".
Although I am a native German, I have never been able to fathom the secret of the German fear of "Zugluft".
Yes this is what I was driving at...glad to hear I'm not the only one 😉
@@britingermany
I had endless discussions with my collegue which was sitting at the window (me not), complaining about the draft, but she wouldn't want to "change" the place with me.
Whenever I said "but what do you do outside as there is a draft most of the time?" her answer used to be "that's different".😳
About the "Hörsturz": it's like a "Innenohr infarkt", but also can be triggered by "sudden very loud noise or music etc" and I expierenced that at a concert which hadn't started yet, I was just passing by those huge man high speakers while out of a sudden the sax player was testing the system.
All I can say it was like a hot needle in my ear, extremely painfull and afterwords that ear fellt like "stuffed up with cotton".
I had a loss of 40% of my hearing, had to "plug up" my ear for nearly one year until it was back to normal. The "Innenohrnerven" are very fragile, therefor "no noise" at all ...
If ever you have anything wrong with your ear: you've got 24 hours, from then on the chance of "repairing" the hearing shrinks day by day.
Have a nice day 😉
Edit typo/autocorrect
Migraines (my-graines in the US, me-grains in the UK -although you didn't use that pronunciation) are not ordinary headaches. Although of course some people may call regular headaches migraines as an excuse.
Heh, you might want to look into what a migrane actually is... It doesn't even have to include any (massive) headache, it _can_ be "just" severe dizziness and loss of vision. But the actually severely painful "versions" are like a thunderstorm in your head instead of a moderate rainshower (the "regular" headache)... No idea whether you've ever had severe toothache, but if you had - imagine five or ten teeth like that, but in your head.
I had suffered from frequent migraine attacks for a long time - they were hell. Luckily I haven't had any for a long time, and I don't miss them. So I get pretty pissed off when someone just claims they have migraines when it's clear they're ordinary headaches.
That's exactly how I also feel with depression, which unfortunately I suffer from quite often. The difference between depression and being down is like that between a real high-fiber virus flu and a common cold (aka "men's flu".)
What a fine gentleman you are.
I am training my british accent by listening to your videos 😊
Saludos desde Argentina
aww thanks a lot Sergio
One big element in health is your mindset. Mentally stressing out about things can do the same as the same stress (strain) . In addition to the psychosomatic element, the subconscious can’t differentiate between a real danger to life and a perceived one. Toughening yourself up definitely keeps you healthier. Truly believing that a drop of rain on my forehead would make me sick, used to get me sick in bed for two weeks, every time I was caught in the rain…. dispelling this in my own mind has made all the difference. If you have a stressed out way of thinking, nit-picky, perfectionist, what have you will make you physically ill and exhausted. That’s my observations and experience. I’m no expert. 😊
Wow thanks for sharing. Definitely your mental health has a huge effect. That’s why some people burn out and others don’t even though the situation and circumstances are very similar.
Usually you don't say you have "Kreislauf" but some combination of words like Kreislaufprobleme or "Mein Kreislauf spielt verrückt".
I also had that (rarely). Mainly after a long hot bath or around getting sick or after some sickness if you start too quickly. You feel the heart is racing and you are near fainting if you stress yourself anymore. Laying down helps.
The other way around with Zug. It's not "einen Zug" you just say "man hat Zug abbekommen" without article. It's sometimes an explanation if you don't know why you get sick. I also watch for that. As I'm diving I really observe my ears because they need to function 100%. And with "Zug" there is a good chance that they won't work OK. One reason many divers on boats wear hoods even in summer.
Not just "Hörsturz". You would say "er hat einen Hörsturz".
Migraine - we had a colleague who regularily would need to go home because of that (and I believe him). He even tried different food and other changes to get control of that.
Gastroenteritis can be caused by a virus not only by bad food. From WIKI: "Gastroenteritis is usually caused by viruses; however, gut bacteria, parasites, and fungi can also cause gastroenteritis."
Thanks for the corrections 😀
Hi there, I know a lot more people suffering from migraines then from "Zug" or "Kreislauf" but I am working in social care. We don't argue about open windows because we don' t realy work in offices. We also don't react to.low boodpressure with lying around, because it simply is impossible to manage a bunch of children in that position. If you have a job, in which you don't sit that much at a desk, low bloodpressure shows itself different. I believe we have a lot more headaches because of this and dizziness.
As far as I know "Hörsturz" is the german translation for (acute) tinnitus and when I heared of people having had a Hörsturz it is a combination of worse hearing and a beep you hear. When it is cared for soon and expertly, and you are able to relax (by not going to work for example), it can go off completly. If you ignore the acute phase, you are normally left with a cronic tinnitus. Does this explain the different perspective on this in great britain and germany a bit?
Thanks a lot for your videos.
Hello. Yes I think the job you do definitely plays a role and if you are more active then you just probably won't notice a draught. I think Hörsturzt is hearing loss not tinnitus. I believe you literally just loose your sense of hearing but I could be wrong. What does seem to be the case is that it is stress related and slowing down usually helps to heal it in most cases
I thought the temporary deafness thing was usually due to ear wax. I did experience this the first time I flew in a commercial aeroplane. I had a holiday in Tenerife and was partially deaf the whole time I was there.
I think it is a bit more serious than that. I have heard referred to as a stroke of the ear...althouhg I'm not sure which part of the ear is affected
That's a completely different problem. Temporary loss or reduction of hearing due to strong air pressure changes (in planes, or driving a car down a hill) causes the ear drum to become inflated and not react to incoming sound as strongly anymore. This can usually be resolved by opening the Eustachian tubes connecting the inner ear to the throat, e.g. with a big yawn, which causes the pressure to be relieved.
When a plane is starting to take off or to land the "air pressure in the cabin" is changing (like going onto high mountains), therefor you have to "de-compress" the pressure in your ears = close the nose with your fingers and "blow" with your mouth until you hear a "plop" in your ears, it's for protecting the "ear drum", or you do the same by "pretending to yawn/same mouth movement", that has the same effect onto your "ear pressure". Could be that you have to do that "procedure" various times until the plane reached the wanted hight.
Enjoy your flight next time 😊
@@WooShell When descending to ground level (increasing atmospheric pressure) the best way to fix hearing loss is to force pressure though the estuation tubes by doing what astronauts do: like blowing up a balloon only without the balloon or allowing any air out of your mouth or nose, which you can actually do with internal muscles.
Otherwise it will probably clear itself slowly with time.
@@britingermany Actually, it‘s not a real stroke in the beginning, but reduced circulation. When you don’t do anything about it early enough, eventually it can become a stroke of the ear.
I experienced Hörsturz when I was around 13 years old, due to parental abuse. I was slapped across the face, but was hit on the ear. My hearing on that side is duller than on the other, and that has been the case for more than twenty years. It'll remain that way for the rest of my life.
So, violence is one cause for it. Loud explosive noises are another very common cause, and so are inflammations of course.
that is terrible! But thanks for sharing
Vielleicht ist es ja nur die deutsche Sprache, die hier mit zusammengesetzten Hauptwörtern, die Krankheitssymtome so blumig macht. In englischer Sprache muß man seine Krankheitssymtome umschreiben, während in man in der deutschen Sprache einfach ein neues Wort "erschafft".
"Kreislauf" hatte ich als pubertierender Jugendlicher auch, weil ich niedrigen Blutdruck hatte, was mein Arzt mit dem starken Wachstum in der Pubertät erklärte.
I can identify with two items in this video. My mother, who came from a German family, was obsessed with draughts when I was a child… all draughts had to be eliminated because they caused colds… later, a few years ago when I was getting drunk with a German woman in a bar, I said that I felt cold. She looked concerned and said “maybe you have a … mmm… circulatory disturbance” which sounded very alarming at the time. I’ve never heard of such a thing in England.
Haha that is funny
Since I have come to Germany, I have become very susceptible to changes in the weather: "wetterfühlig". Any rapid changes in weather and temperature really affect me. I can only assume it is because I came from a very Continental climate in the American Midwest to a much more maritime-dominated climate.
Did you notice it right away after moving to Germany or was it more of a gradual process over the years
It took time: Part of it was becoming sensitized to the pollens, part of it is age and part of it is that I learned to pay attention to the "Bio Wetter" rubric in the weather forecast so I knew which symptoms it was appropriate to complain about. "This high pressure system is giving me terrible headaches"
@@Ralphieboy
I'm sorry to hear that !! Have you tried, when feeling the headache coming/early, to drink mineral water without gas/room temperature?
As more water the brain gets, as "happier" it is. Sometimes people get a headache because they haven't been drinking enough over the day.
Good luck and all the best 🙂
@@saba1030 huh. that could be my problem actually
Oh yes, I have been duly and repeatedly warned that drinking carbonated water with ice cubes in it will give me stomach cancer and cause me to die slowly and in great pain...
What is the healthcare system like in Germany? I apologise if I’ve missed a video on the topic, I’ve just subscribed 🙂
Try Google.
Hello there and welcome. It's quite a complex topic but in general I would say it is good. Generally you can see a doctor or specialist if you need to without much waiting time and in the majority of cases your employer contributes 50% of the costs of healthcare. I haven't really done a video on it before but there are quite a few already out there
@@britingermany yes, I have seen that there are a few videos on that topic about. I love Germany, used to live near Düsseldorf, now in Scotland 🙂 do you get back to the uk often?
@@Lenalena87329 nice. Yes once or twice a year😀
In the UK, I was surprised to see a lot of ads for „non-bio“ laundry detergents. They were for products without enzymes, because those were supposed to make you ill. The funny thing is that nobody really talks about that in Germany. It‘s just a hype in the UK
Oh that is interesting! I must look out for that when I'm back
@@britingermany and I was supriese that in the UK people seems to be afraid of fresh yeast, which cannot be bought at supermarkets as active yeast is considered to be dangerous for your health as well. I am still looking for places where I can get it. We are a German family living in the UK and I love your channel!!
I've experienced "Kreislauf" myself several times. Sometimes when I was taking a bath in a very humid room and I ought to become very active in a matter of seconds. But it can be, when you just woke up in the middle of the night and get up too quick to go to the bathroom. That dizziness isn't normally very dangerous but you just have to sit down a few minutes. Maybe plus you drink a cup of coffee or something like that.
The thing with "Zugluft" mostly is, when the environment changes from cool to hot or the other way around very fast. With this you can catch a cold.
I find it funny that you connect illnesses in Germany to them being covered by the (still pretty good) German health system 😂. Or by yourself not having been effected by a certain illness (Magen-Darm).
The first reasoning is like “if there is no one hearing the noise you make then there is no noise” while the second is like “if I didn’t get it it can’t be bad at all”. 😊
Well regarding the first point that is exactly it. If it is not covered and not considered a legitimate illness...then you won't hear about it...and it won't enter the debate...I'll concede the second one, that's just my personal experience and doesn't bear much weight.
People get often tinnitus from stress. I think that this "Hörsturz" thing is closely related to temporary tinnitus events, as it is often associated with hearing a noise and being unable to hear what people are saying, similar to when you have pressure on the ear from going through a tunnel in a train or changing altitude with a plane.
It could be related. Although I’ve read it’s very much like a stroke of the ear, which is why some people can recover fully and others have permanent damage
@@britingermany you're right. Looking it up. It actually has an ICD-10 code H91.2.
I struggle with Magen-Darm for years.... many have it because of food-intolerance and/or a so called "Reizdarm"... I do have a Reizdarm, but it´s also somatoform in my case.... I signed up for a clinic and can´t wait to get there.
Sorry to hear that and I do hope they can get you treated at the clinic🤞
@@britingermany may I tell you, that I think, you are extremely attractive? Or is this inappropriate?.... yes, I will get the treatment, thank you.... the question is just, when.... if I´m lucky it will be middle/end lf April... but it also can be later.
I can second that. Symptoms can have different causes. I got problems like that when I was in my twenties. My first thought was lactose, but the problems persisted even after I gave up all kinds of milk based products. Next thought was other food allergies, so I went to the doctors. The test resulted in no allergies, but the problems persisted.
A few weeks later I got a call from the doctor. While there were no reactions to the different food groups something else came up. I had very strong reactions to Histamine, which every person shows a reaction to and is used to validate the other food testings. But mine was way harsher.
So now I know that I am intolerant to Histamine, which is in pretty much all foodstuffs in different concentrations. I can take pills to suppress the reaction for a bit, if I am at a social event and am not sure what is in a dish, but eating a banana would result in painful cramps and a few hours not far away from the toilet.
The not so fun thing? An intolerance to Histamine is not a recognised illness and hardly anyone knows that it exists. There is hardly any information what you should or should not consume and good luck if your family or friends remember. The insurance doen't chip in for the pills either.
Wish you all the best and that you can get good help at that clinic.
It is fine to air a room but then the door needs to be closed. The same thing is the background for the fact that Germans hate airconditioning units that not only howl all the time but blow cold, moist air down on them or into their backs.
I definitely have experiences with some of these sicknesses. I know the Kreislauf part well. I have it almost every time after the doctor takes a blood sample from me. I also have that on other occasion. It starts with me sweating like i am in a sauna all of a sudden and an increasing feeling of dizziness. Also my face loses all it's colour according to people who observed this.
With the Zugluft thing i am not that sensitive but i did have a stiff neck at some occasions. My mum is one of the really sensitive people, she is very careful when she picks her seat at a restaurant for example that there is no draft there.
I thankfully never had Hörsturz but from what i gathered it is mainly a reaction to stress. One of my colleagues recently had a minor one. He was off work for a week and then he came back. So it really there definitely is a range of how long thes effects last. But he did say that it was a reaction to stress in his case as well.
Yes I heard the stress related explanation for Hörsturz as well it's just funny that this doesn't seem to manifest in the UK. It's more back problems or headaches there
I'm not a health professional, but I'm a paediatrician's child, so I grew up soaked in jargon and things doctors don't necessarily tell their patients, as well as work anecdotes that weren't even anonymised most of the time.
So, one thing I was made aware of is that sometimes it's easier to slap a diagnosis onto a patient and send them away with symptomatic treatment than do in depth testing to find out what's really wrong, as long as it doesn't seem like the patient is in immediate danger. And I don't know about the rest of the world, but in post-Soviet countries there was (and still is, although it's used a lot less these days) a particular diagnosis, which basically meant "There's something wrong, I have no idea what, but you don't look like you're going to keel over, so off you go", and almost everyone, me included, had it at some point. The possible symptoms of this "condition" were anything from blood pressure irregularities to digestion problems to anxiety and sleep problems to heart rhythm problems, etc.
About catching a draft, you don't literally catch illnesses from air (unless there's someone coughing nearby), that much is true, but being cold is one of the things that negatively affects our immune systems, so that small shift might be enough to make your immune miss that one virus that takes root and makes you sick, especially when you're in close proximity to a lot of people, and I guarantee at least a few of them are asymptomatic carriers of something -- cold, flu, you name it. And, yes, I'm biased, because I'm one of those people who catch a draft at a drop of a hat. Or rather, I used to spend from late October to April in a constant cycle of "catch a cold - have to get back to work/school as soon as the fever is gone - get bronchitis as a complication - continue going to work/school with bronchitis - exhaust immune system - catch another cold" rinse, repeat. That's why miss Rona and working from home have had a huge positive impact on my health.
Well I'm very glad that some good has come out of the last two years😀
I always thought Hörsturz and Tinnitus is the same? Perhaps I was always wrong, but the experience of symptoms disappearing with rest etc. does track.
I was under the impression that it is different. I believe once you have tinnitus it stays forever whereas hörsturz is kind of like a stroke of the ear which you can recover from.
Headaches are actually a difficult issue. Generally it's a symptom not an illness per se. It can be induced by disadvantageous habits like drinking too much coffee or suddenly stopping it. Happens to me sometimes - my bad.
I've observed that quite rarely but also quite consistently I can get a very strong headache when the weather changes. Usually people complain about a weather phenomenon called Föhn. It's a strong comparatively warm wind or storm falling from the Alps. During its dry phase you can experience an amazing sight because it causes a magnifying optical effect due to the shapes of different layers of air near the ground (1 - 5 km). Usually I can get severe headaches when the Föhn situation collapses to cold and very rainy weather. I started to experience such situations about 15 years ago. I never had such difficulties before and I grew up in this area. Luckily the problem doesn't show up with every Föhn - actually it's quite rare in my case. Most often that happens in spring or autumn.
Migraine is an accepted headache illness with a comparatively clear set of symptoms. However there are a couple of more complicated illnesses causing headaches requiring thorough diagnosis and treatment, eg. cluster headaches. Unfortunately several of those illnesses are quite rare, have been discovered only a few decades ago and haven't received much attention until lately. They can become chronik. Hence recuring headaches occuring without apparent contribution of a patient should be checked by an expert.
Fascinating that it only started about 15 years ago. Maybe there were some other changes in your life which contributed to this...
@@britingermany I lived in Karlsruhe for about 12 years (university, first job). It's started after returning to Upper Swabia. So it's started even 25 years ago, not 15 (my mistake). There's a difference in altitude of about 200 - 400 m between Karlsruhe and Upper Swabia. Very different climate. Vegetation around Karlsruhe is about 2 weeks ahead of the one here. It was actually a reason why I've left Karlsruhe - summers are too hot and too humid there.
@@michaelburggraf2822 ok so perhaps environment does play a larger role than I thought
@@britingermany
Yes, it does !
As we lived in Berlin for quite a while, the climate there is much "dryer" then over here in and around Bremen, as Bremen is surrounded by lots of moor/water.
In Berlin the summers are hot and dry and he winters are cold and dry, therefor seem to be more "comfortable" instead of a summer where it's hot with high humidity or a winter, where the humidity "goes into the bones", meaning, it seems to be colder as it is.
But I still prefer to live in Bremen 😊
@@britingermany im usually not the kind of guy who takes all that stuff about the weather affecting you serious, its probably just something people suspect when it really is just an unknown factor to them in their life, though i must say i do have more headaches in autumn and spring. at least then, when the weather is changing from day to day rapidly. like now. a few weeks ago we had constant rain, day and night, 3 - 5°C, then suddenly 2 days snow with 0°C and directly after that we have now 12°C~ and pretty ok weather. sometimes rain and always an ugly grey ish sky but its "normalized" if you will. and i do have a lot of headaches in these times. I must also say, im not really drinking much so it could be that, but on the other hand, i am never drinking much. and it still only occurs on these times usually.
Hörsturz for me is simply what happened the day I got tinnitus. Which sucks. I haven't checked the value of the data but a Google search says 13 % of people in the Uk vs 15 % in GER suffer from it... Pretty much equal.
Yes diagnoses cases seem to be similar but (just anecdotally) Germans seem to be more aware of this than Brits.
To the heavens we all shout get well quick to our favorite kraut!
I am German 59 years old and I have never experienced that someone had to lie down on the floor and put their feet up. You must have been working for a pretty wimpy company then.
Statistically, hearing loss occurs just as often in the UK as in Germany.
Maybe Germans don't like to talk about their migraine attacks, especially since many are aphasic during the migraine attack, like me e.g.
Gastrointestinal is a popular excuse to get a day off on health insurance costs. This is difficult for doctors to control, most of the time you get your certificate of incapacity for work without an examination.
haha "a wimpy company"...well emotions certainly did run high I can say that much
Even migraine is very popular in Germany. The most famous migraine-victim is Adrian Leverkühn in the novel "Dr. Faustus" from Thomas Mann.
Oh really? I haven't heard much about that in Germany until now
@@britingermany migraine, magendarm etc is basically just from people who get sick pretty often and dont really know the reason. like, "little" inconveniences.
maybe you're eating something that you shouldnt, maybe your immune system isn't well and you just get a cold pretty often, much stress or what so ever. you get what i mean.
its basically what you say when you dont know what it is, but you dont feel healthy. Kreislauf is the same when it comes to headaches or feeling dizzy. maybe low blood pressure, maybe not enough iron in the blood, maybe it has nothing to do with blood at all. so if it occurs often you play it off as Kreislaufprobleme
About drafts and people who wear scarves all the time: I am a "Frostbeule", too. I almost constantly feel cold. I have low blood pressure, and thus tend to feel dizzy when I abruptly stand up, or bend over to pick something up or whatever. It can go as far as me almost blacking out and having to grab on something to hold on to, to prevent falling. And when I really get cold (for example in winter), my whole body starts to tense up. It even makes breathing harder, because the muscles between my ribs tense up so much. Likely because of that, I'm prone to a stiff neck or back pain from "Zug", too. When I sleep, I always draw the blanket up to my ears, even in summer, or I'll wake up with a neck as stiff as a poker and raging headaches the following day, even if there is only a slight draft going on. The headaches can get as bad that I have to throw up. It's definitely no fun, and no insubstantial excuse for not going to work.
And migraines are a thing here, too. Also as an excuse to take a day off. As is any illness or malady that is not severe enough to go to the doctor and can be cured by a day of rest. Still, I have experienced every of those conditions save for the Hörsturz on a regular basis (Magen-Darm most likely being brought home by the kiddos), and it is no fun at all.
Perhaps we Germans are just more likely to listen to our body and take seriously when it tries to tell us something. Would fit the German seriousness, wouldn't it? ;-)
Yes I think Germans visit the doctor more often, and not just when there is an obvious problem but also just for a checkup…which I do think is sensible. After all prevention is much more effective that cure
"Kreislauf": I only suffered from problems with my blood pressure during the last months of my pregnancy. If I overexerted myself, I started feeling dizzy/lightheaded and felt my heart pounding. Then I had to stop, preferably sit down for a few minutes until my body calmed down. But I have an underlying condition of hypotension (chronic low blood pressure) which is not as dangerous as the opposite hypertension (chronic high blood pressure) which often has to be treated with drugs. To my knowledge, both conditions have a genetic component, so differences in populations may be explained by this fact.
The cold/warm debate can be explained by differences in anatomy. As a generalization: body fat in women and men is differently textured and distributed over the body. This leads to women always freezing and men always dying from heatstroke. Another cause for differences is in the thyroid gland. I was always a "Frostbeule", I constantly had cold feet in wintertime (despite warm boots and wool socks). I would warm my icy feet on my husband's legs. And then I got pregnant. Since then I only once had cold feet - when visiting a ski jump world cup event with temperatures of minus 15 Celsius at noon. So, I guess, there can be changes, but the source is a different physiology.
"Magen/Darm" I've had it a few times in my life but all occurrences counted together more often in the three years when my children attended Kindergarten than in the remaining 54 years altogether. In Germany, most cases are related to viruses like noro. I only once had gastroenteritis because of bad food and that was on vacation in Spain.
Migraines are common in Germany too. But there is a difference between headaches and real migraines; people refer to them accordingly. Is it the same in the UK? I always had the impression that Brits also speak of migraines when they actually mean severe headaches.
Causations between culture and health care system on one side and sicknesses on the other? Possible, but I guess it's more likely to be awareness (which can be related to culture and health care, there you go). In a totally unrelated example: for many years, children with certain socialization problems were non- or miss diagnosed as unruly children. Their parents were branded/denounced as bad/uncaring/unable parents until a British health professional discovered a thesis by Dr. Hans Asperger (Vienna) and had it translated into English. This created awareness for a lot of conditions that are now subsumed under the label "autistic disorder spectrum". Only after doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists became aware of it, they started diagnosing people with it.
Hi thanks for sharing. Obviously pregnancy and young kids plays a big role. But I think you’re right regarding awareness. And as far as I know migraine sounds way more severe than a headache which I think is why people use the word migraine a lot. It just sounds more extreme but I think in many cases it is just a headache.
Also think about your older colleagues and that thing called the menopause e.g. migraines and the heat are terrible!!😊
Perhaps these illnesses or "Befindlichkeitsstörungen" are not more common in Germany than anywhere else, but it is rather more acceptable to speak about them than elsewhere.
Yes it's definitely possible
The draft/air condition phobia in Germany is so frustrating and there is no way you can convince them otherwise. I have gotten in a U bahn car that was sitting in the sun before its first journey onwards ,and it was naturally roasting hot , so I opened many windows to air it out and cool it down only to have someone furiously slamming the windows shut as it ventured forward. I also had a experience of someone asking to shut the car window because of the dreaded draft while someone was smoking in the car.Dont get me started about air conditioning, Germans fear and hate it like the plague.
🤣🤣oh dear. I know what you mean
I‘m a fan of fresh air and have mostly one or more windows down when driving my car in the summer. I experienced regularly that especially women complain about Zugluft, even when only driving slowly and they also wore a heat and they didn’t have to worry about their hair styling.
Don't touch the hair! You know it can take hours to perfect!😉
German here, just commenting on my experience with this.
Kreislauf: Yeah i heard it, but actually more like a little inconvenience. Cannot recall anyone actually being so dramatic about so that they actually laid down at work.
Zug : It is actually not uncommon to get a stiff neck, but the draft is only the trigger in my case. I have a pre-condition (Spondylathrose) which makes me prone to having a sore neck or really nasty migraine attacks. Lack of physical activity, bad seating position at work also can contribute to "catching a draft". So some exercise would probably help much more and sustainably then wearing a scarf.
Hörsturz : I know of it but i have never anyone talk about having one, except for making a joke about bad or loud music.
Magen-Darm : The classic ! Yeah, try to pick up if it "miraculously" seems to be specifically prevalent on mondays. Usually you should not tell what you have when calling in sick (and it is illegal for the employer to ask) but some people feel obligated to give a reason (Which always puzzles me) and resort to this. It just sounds better then saying "i am hung over". I know that as my doctor told me about it after being his patient for 25 years in a private moment. People even tell that to the doctor instead of admitting to be hung over and the doctors know they lie. Although i guess many people are not aware that their doctors are seeing through it.
Hello Manfred. Thanks for sharing 😀
Why are people telling what is wrong with them, in Denmark we call in sick, saying, i'm sick, and the answer from your boss will be, okay, i wish you a fast recovery, they are not allowed to ask, and we don't tell.
Some people feel the need to explain
the big round stone ball with water and the garden are this in Frankfurt am Main in Palmengarten?
Yes indeed. Well spotted😉
@@britingermany if you remember the cafe siesmayer. i did work there as an pastry chef. =D
@@Xavolon oh really?! Yes I know it 😀
Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is a type of hearing loss in which the root cause lies in the inner ear or sensory organ (cochlea and associated structures) or the vestibulocochlear nerve (cranial nerve VIII). SNHL accounts for about 90% of reported hearing loss.
Interesting Video. In fact, illnesses, or better, how they are precieved, expressed, caregorized, named and even felt (or not!), highly connected to culture, experience and history of people. There's even a whole scientific discipline, named ethnomedicology, which, besides other topics researched those differences. And as our world gets more and more diverse, there are IS a high demands for specialists dealing with exact those severe cultural differences, especially when it comes to the point, which illness is considered as 'real', 'severe', 'acceptabele', 'appropriate', 'cureable', 'cureworthy' or even allowed to have and to express, including which methods of diagnose and remedies are accepted, known and used in different regions (which of cause also includes geologicall botanical, chemical and historical differences).
To make it short, aß each Region has it's millenia old history of medical practice, traditions and research and as this history of medicine ist closely connected to all kinds of historical, social botanical, geographic, economical, linguistical, ideological etc. circumstances, it can be quite difficult to find out, what a person is suffering from, and yes, even If there are some efforts to internationalize andcstandardize medical nomenclatura and diagnisis, this approach doesn't work very well, because a) this nomenclatura and even whole diagnoses permanently change, due to scientific progress and understanding of illnesses, and b) patients normaly don't express themselves in those kind of standardized medical language, but use a 'medical code' they've learned to use for certain issues and needs, they want to express and consider as 'belonging to the medical field'. In result, different symptoms are completely differently precieved, acknowledged, adressed, described and cured all over the world, so a medical doctor, or any other person dealing with 'medical problems' has Not only to know his physiology and standardized book of diagnoses and which of those diagnoses are acknowledged as 'offical' and therefore 'billable' for whom by each different medical system, but also how different patients from different regions do or do not express those diagnoses. And yes, this can get extremely difficult If you are not familiar with the (medical) culture of the region you are working in, or your patient was culturalized in, and IS in fact one of the big hurdles when it comes to implement foreign medical stuff, or dealing with patients coming from abroad.
Like you've already assumed, the (self-)diagnoses mentioned in Your video are all closely connected to the psychosomatic and/or stress spectrum, and thats the exactly where Things get especially complicated, as especially in this area of medicine, different cultural standards, tabus, body conceptions, tradidional believes and traditions, framing of illnesses and many other cultural, social, ideological, economical,and even political phenomenons do intermingle and sometimes even cause certain symptoms, which can make it incredible complicated even for expierienced stuff in the medical field, which diagnosis could hide behind which descption or name of an illness used by a patient.
So You're quite right in assuming that Brits and Germans can use a quite different nomenclatura and even do locate and discribe symptoms of one and the same diagnosis extreme differently due to their cultural background, even developing certain medical and pseudomedical codes, who are more or less easy to deciffer for insiders but a complete conondrum for people belongings to a different cultural region, group or even class.
A good example is indeed the infamous German Magen-Darm, which literally refers to the gastrointestinale field on firstbsight, but also ist a strong indicator and accepted cultural code for a whole bunch of (working) stress related disorders. In other words, Germans normally don't discribe (or even regard!) their psycological symptoms as such, but refer instead to the physical cosymptoms of a mainly psychological diagnosis, which also means, Germans tend to oversee or simply don't recognize or accept and psychological symptoms at least aß Long they don't Go along with massive physiological symptoms.
So If a German patient 'has' Magen Darm, Hörsturz or Kreislauf, this can be diarrhoea, tinitus or the reult of a high or low bloodpressure, nontheless, in the majority of cases, these symptoms are Just a physiological coeffect of a much more deeper -mainly but not exclusively - psychological or social or or symptom. And here's where Things get really complicated, because due to cultural conventions it can be increadibly complicated if not impossible, for medics and patients to talk openly about the 'real' cause of psychosomatic diagnoses. And yes, this not only refers to a very sinister historical past, but even more to German valued and working culture, which both are far away from some primarily anglosaxon myths about Germany as the Nonplusultra of life work ballance. In fact, there are highly concerning statistics refering to severall billions hours of mostly unpaid and non-officially registered overtime, which do make this myth highly doubtful and lead to the conclusion, that average German working hours per week so rather add up to somewhere between 55 and 80 hours rather than the official 38-43h, meaning, that for the majority of employees, against popular myths, there is no real division between Work and non-work, including at least 1-2 overtime hours per day and regular 'inofficial' working on weekends or during vacations or holidays Even more, all this is done in a highly dense and efficent, in short very German, working rhythm, which, in strong contrast to Most anglosaxon (and many other...) counties, does not include or even now more or less replaxing parts, Like Meetings, smalltalk or even breaks (in fact many Germans tend to Take aß little Break time aß possible and almost must be forces by their employees to obtain at least the minimum refered by law). And yes, this very dense and long, more or less unbounded 'worklife' which very often includes andcdetermines huge parts of Your private life and social contracts, along to my experience Not only caused a lot of the symptoms, problems and diagnoses hiding behind the medical codewords mentioned in your video, it can be a real challenge for migrants trying to work and integrate in German Firma and society, even to the point, that they deliver very simmilar symptoms and, sooner or later and with the 'medical expertese' of their colleges adopt a simmilar bodyconception,mtabus and medical nomenclatura than their German coworkers. And yes, it would be much easier, If they simply would use an internationally standardized diagnose number, but thats Not how those things work, even not in developing international standards and diagnoses, who, when You Look to older handbooks, also are highly dependant in how medicicians and scientists 'imagine' illnesses and diagnosis, due to their knowledge and cultural background.
A highly enlighing example Out of my own everyday life was, when rather and son medical doctor working together but are trained and specialized in different medical fields and generations tried both to explain to me one and the same diagnosis, which got especially interesting because the older not only practises standard medicine but also homeopathie and other alternative stuff, and the Younger is Something Like a believer in Chinese medicine. In short, in the end I had at least 5-6 different diagnoses, with completely different names, refering to completely different bodyparts, cause, symptoms and medical traditions, which then at least in part, even more had to be translated into a language evryone of us three understood and, even more complicated and revealing, was accepted by the medical service aß billable....
So, yes, there are a Lot of different factors, why illlness(es) and diagnose(s) is/are concieved, detected, named, cured and 'meant' highly different in different parts of the Work, and even between different members of one Family, opposite sexes, classes and so on, even more as we now live in a highly diverse and globalized world, where many different and centuries or even millenia old medical systems and believes meet and intertwine. And no, at least in my oppinion, IT would be a huge lose If those differences would vanishing favour of one, globally standardized diagnose and cured system, even If this in some cases would make the Work of medicicians easier. Becaus each different and regional medical approach, system, scool and nomenclatura not only has grown and adepted to it's very own conditions and history, it also represents a unique and irreplaceable wealth of accumulated knowledge and understanding, closely connectedcto the individual needsm hopes, feelings, sensibilities, possibility and believes of each single medicicians and patient contributing to it.
This is also, why ethnomedicology (wich under different names ist the Main scientific discipline researching those differences) doesn't refer sommuch tomright and wrong, but rather to the different ways and methods simmilar symptoms and challenges are imaginated, adressed and cured (or not...) in different cultures, eras and circumstances - and believe it or Not, sometimes a highly obscure, strange, disgusting and completely 'irrational' scripture, practice or reciepie, out of a region or age considered 'primitive and supersticious', can tried in experiments to be not only the result of severe research and knowledge, but also as a completely new approach in producing antibiotics, discovering Syndroms unknownnor overlooked by modern science or even force us to overthink our whole edical nomenclatura and systematization and and even the perception and immagination of diagnoses and their causes...
One quote from my old elementaryteacher: „es ist noch niemand erstunken, aber viele erfroren.“
So we where forbidden to open the Windows during classes. All because of the „Zug“ and „Erkältungsgefahr“… 😅
Magen-Darm instead can be explained with the high hygiene-Standards you find in germany (edit: Most european-countrys) The peoples immunsystem is just not „trained“ well enough and reacts quiet early and intensiv on small contaminations. (Edit: also it‘s a quick excuse for even trivial Malaise).
Ok that’s interesting regarding Magen-Darm. I wonder if there is a difference between those that live in the city or countryside.
A British illness that always confuses me is the chest infection. I don't think we even have a term for this in German. I still haven't quite figured out what it actually is. A cold? Bronchitis? Pneumonia? Something in between? It just sounds so vague whereas in German we tend to name the specific part of the chest/throat that is affected i.e bronchitis, laryngitis etc.
This seems quite a silly comment. Chest infection is the term for infections in the chest - respiratory diseases - that are not as straightforwardly diagnosable as bronchitis, pneumonia, emphysema, or not a serious, which need a medical diagnosis. Colds can often go to the chest and lead to mucus build up and coughing. It is very common. It can pass after a few days or a week, and is not as serious as infections that become more life-threatening (pneumonia) or more chronic (bronchitis). It is not even slightly difficult to understand.
Sorry, but I find this rather patronising. If you haven't experienced these illnesses it doesn't mean they are made up. Lots of teenagers suffer from Kreislauf during growing spouts. Low blood pressure is a condition that can be fixed with medications just like high blood pressure. As somebody who suffered a Hörsturz I don't find it a laughing matter. I lost my hearing due to stress and had infusions for a fortnight and a high cortisone therapy. I still have a tinnitus as a result of that and I had to find ways to cope with it. If these medical issues were just imaginary our health system would not pay for the treatments. I don't think we've got a good work life balance at the moment in Germany. Most workplaces are rather stressful and the lack of specialised workers doesn't help.
I totally agree Silke and it was not my intention to be patronising. I just find it fascinating that these kind of illnesses are not talked about in the UK. Sure there are other things like migraines or back pain but there must be some cultural factors that are influencing the way we perceive and experience certain conditions
The diagnosis of circulatory disorders is often made before the causative disease is identified. Often it is later found that thyroid disease, heart disease or diet is behind it.
Gastrointestinal diseases can be contagious under certain circumstances. Therefore, employees in hospitals and nursing homes are strictly forbidden to come to work if they have gastrointestinal diseases.
Hearing loss is usually a pretty advanced signal from your body that you need to slow down.
For most, it starts with tinnitus, a constant ringing or buzzing in the ears, which is a clear sign of ongoing stress.
However, each person's sensitivity to stress depends on many factors and is therefore totally variable.
Some people are extremely sensitive to stress, some are not bothered in the least. 🤷🏼♀️
Why some people are afraid of drafts is usually completely incomprehensible to me. However, it is possible that someone gets problems with the muscles, because they contract, if there is a strong draught for a very long time.
And many people exaggerate the strength of their headaches. What they call migraine, I throw in a tablet and go to work.
Migraine puts you flat for several days and comes in episodes for many patients. Sometimes it's frequent, sometimes it's just once a year, but I'm definitely not going anywhere with it.
You’re probably right about the circulatory diseases. So many possible causes
Magendarm is what I say I have when somebody is nosy and I don’t want to tell them why I really called in sick. Nobody questions why you didn’t come to work when they think you were throwing up.
Fair enough 😀
Another difference: If you report headache , the German would offer you a glas of water, the American rather an Aspirin or Tylenol or whatever. They are much more easy going with medicine.
Yes true. I try to avoid taking pills as much as possible
I can remember a work colleague turning up (in the middle of Summer) wearing a scarf around his neck all day. I thought it was some kind of fashion trend but he told me he was "erkältet". He wore this scarf all week until his cold went away. Typical Doits!!!
"Sudden idiopathic (or sensorineural) hearing loss" is a serious condition which doctors in the UK know about, but as you say there's not really a common term for it
Yeah it doesn’t seem to be something that the average „lay person“ really talks about right?
Just have a look how much compensation you get for what and dive into the subject "Rechtsschutzversicherung" ... Then you will understand much much more.
Hello, do we have a doctor here?
I do
Did we miss the director‘s cut? 🤔 I am almost sure I saw a video yesterday with a different towel in the thumbnail 😉
Wow! How observant. Yes I decided to change it last minute😉
Your videos are just too interesting to watch them in the background. 😄
I notice, as you mentioned 'Hörsturz', Germans seem to have more native german expressions for things, while in English often you use the original latin doctors language in daily life. German doctors almost speak two different languages with patients or with fellow-doctors. Terms like "appendix", "thyroid" or "tonsils" are not used by German folks, but by German doctors.
Simpler terms maybe a reason Germans are more familiar with a number of deseases.
Interesting how much of an effect language has on our perception of thing 👍🏻
@@britingermany You can see this when you watch a child growing up from 1 to 3 years and when it is constantly learning words. As soon as it knows a word of something, his mind is going more around this thing, more focussed, more interested. So we Germans are more focussed on the illnesses with these "nice" words 🤪
Aborigines/Indigenous people who live in a jungle are able to see and distiguish between much more different green shades where we would say "this two leaves have the absolute same shade of green", but what is not true, AND these people there have for every shade of green (we can't distiguish) an own name and scientists say, the name is essential that you can see and realize it. That's because red was the first colour-word humans ever created (because of blood and meat and fire), and blue the last, because there is barely something blue in nature, that is important for humans. Before there was the word blue, the people said only "the sky is bright (or dark)".
Having "Kreislauf" is a super rare thing around here. I have heard people complain about the thing in the past, but not seen one having it.
Zug leads in Germany to a cold. And having a cold is just the start. You get the flu and then you die - almost. This is because Germans have largely not understand that colds and the flu are caused by viruses and not a breeze. Unfortunately, some people can still get a draft when the air is 30°C or more. We Germans are weird.
I would love to see you explain how on earth people go to the doctor in Germany? I've never seen a doctor's surgery in Berlin, only chemists and alternative health places. I have always assumed that in order to see a doctor there, if you need one, you have to go to the nearest hospital?
Half way through to the sensitive neck lady: imagination, in particular serving a personal cause, can be very strong. Regular neck muscle stretching routine (and there are awesome videos about it) for a few minutes in the morning sort out the neck pain quickly. If not, it’s necessary to get it check professionally.
And then the colleagues lying on the floor at work, I think it is more a thing of one colleague did it, and others followed. But then again, the monthly cycle comes in, and as a male, I cannot have an opinion about it. But I can imagine that it effects can be rather uncomfortable.
Going for the second half of the video now. 😊
I am surprised that people feel the need to inform their employer about why they are calling in sick. By law, you just report sick, and that’s it. No need to explain why. The employer has no right to ask about the reason. You just inform about your return as soon as you know it (doctors notice).
Yes you're right I think the monthly cycle plays a role. Although there were also male colleges who experienced Kreislaufstörung as well
I think that depends on the company and the team. People certainly had no problem telling me what kind of illness they had...sometimes with photos to boot
"Kreislauf problem haben"
You never felt dizzy when standing up after sitting still for a log time? Never had cold hands while sitting for a while? Never get off from work an thought that your feet feel heavy?
Being tired can lead to low blood pressure. Suddenly moving after resting for ha while can give you low blood pressure for a few minutes. And so on.
People, especially women, are made aware of early signs of low blood pressure from young age. But only a fraction of low blood pressure incidents lead to fainting. So actions to counter it doesn't do much in most cases but didn't do harm. So it's often used as a tool to get some time to rest, even if the reasons are unrelated to low blood pressure.
"Im Durchzug sitzen"
Superstitions will allays be a cultural thing. And many aspects around hair and draft are based on the medieval superstition that smells can carry illnesses and cures. This is based on the observation that people get fewer illnesses if they live in an environment that don't smell bad. This carries over to today in the notion that moving hair can benefit or harm you depending of the "type" of hair. To agree what "type" air people encounter when opening a window is the source of many discussions.
"Hörsturz"
It often describes the loss of the ability to hear a range of frequencies temporally or permanent. It can result in hearing "fake" sounds like hissing or beeping. It's a creatively common occurrence, but many don't even notice it if they aren't primed to watch out for it.
It's prevalent in our family. Every one had at lest thee in his lifetime. I had my first when i was 15 and had to live with a annoying constant high pitched beeping until i got sound therapy for that. Even with preventative medication i lost around 15% of my hearing in the last 30 years. My mother lost nearly 50% and has hard time understanding people because the loss are in frequencies people speaking in. This is not really what people normally describe as partly deaf. I can hear very well in the not affected frequencies. But i have a hard time hearing some car horns.
The video was about the difference of not saying "I'm dizzy", if you are dizzy.
You immediatly convert it to the more general diagnosis "Kreislauf".
Germans don't tell their symptoms, they tell their analysis.
I've never heard of stress related hearing loss: it reminds me of goats who are subjected to a sudden fright and go rigid and fall over with their legs sticking straight out. I know from personal experience that heavy stress causes gut distress. Yeah emotions cause all manner of physical symptoms.
I think it certainly can, but I do associate this with Germany now
Eine Freundin hatte vir einigen Jahren einen hörsturz. Zum Glück hat sie sich erholt
Gott sei dank!
while i fully believe that some people overdo their "Durchzug" fear
i personally feel like 3/4 of days i can sit in the "Durchzug" all day, while on some days when my throat is already sore or scratchy, i would really prefer to just sit it out without cold air blowing over me. If you are already developing some kind of cold, actual cold temperatures might make it so it fully develops into one. So if some people experienced being sick after having been in "Durchzug"
they might just play it way too safe by just complaining about "Durchzug" all the time, even when it wouldnt matter in that case
for Air conditioning my experience has been that most germans only think of ones that are set far too cold, they never think "its 30 outside lets use an AC to make it 22 inside" they just picture coming into a 16 degree room sweaty on a 30 degree day, which i think most people would dislike
i really had to do some convincing in order for my parents to get an AC after they have had solar installed with lots of leftover electricity
Kreislauf - mostly low blood pressure, dizziness, cold extremities.
Kreislauf or better Kreislaufstörungen are just a semantic abbreviation for feeling week and/or dizzy or just not feeling up to it.
When I have a Kreislaufstörung and I measure my blood pressure it is always completely normal. So it's not a real thing.
Oh that is interesting. I always though it was really connected to measurable physiological changes
@@britingermany Of course there can occur or do occur really serious circulation problems. But in that case people would rather say "O man, my blood pressure is way up" or something like this. And indeed people do get hospitalized with Kreislaufstörungen, mostly old folks in hot weather. What I refered to is that everyday usage for feeling unwell.
@@britingermany Well in my case it certainly is - my blood pressure is rather low and at times might drop further. Measurable. But dizziness can have a lot of reasons, eventually. So there also might be cases where something else is behind it.
btw. in Germany your employer is not allowed to ask you, why you are sick.... so we don´t need to give a reason.
Right..it depends on the company and the team but in my experience if you are calling in sick on the phone most people feel the need to give a reason
@@britingermany that´s kinda true.... I also feel the need, but I stopped to do that. You are free to tell, but you are not obligated.
People in Germany also get "mürbe" and "hinfällig"...in Chile, most people can't eat onions...very specific health problems.
Many of those German "Kreislauf"- problems are simply panic attacks or the fear of getting frightened. "Zug" often has a similar reason, it's just a tension caused by stress. Don't add an article to this word, though. It's just "Zug bekommen".
No wonder that a Brit doesn't understand "Zug", as Britain hasn't yet discovered the technology of well-sealed windows.
haha...true...in fact that's probably why the Germans are so sensitive!
@@britingermany It was a bit tongue in cheek, but as an Austrian, who has visited the UK many times, I really did feel a "draught" quite often in my rooms in B&Bs or older hotels.
@@alestev24 I thought as much. I can take it 😉. I grew up with frosted window panes on the inside of the glass...I've actually gotten totally soft in comparison to my brother. He's still in T-shirts up until November whereas I'm rated up in a thick coat
@@britingermany frosted window panes = 'Eisblumen' in German....(die kenne ich auch noch - ist aber Gott sei Dank lange her)
Magen Darm can be translated to gastro - bug/bakteria which give you diarrhea and/or vomiting.
Low blood pressure is not unusual in the UK. I had it in my youth. My son went to hospital for a day. For my family it is genetic. Low heart rate and blood pressure is just a thing. It gets a big thumbs up during health checks. In the UK you catch a chill not a draught but it is the same thing.