A.
Animals (Effect on Mood)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My dog, Clive (a Labrador), seems awfully glum, to the point where it’s beginning to get me down. Could he be suffering from doggie depression? If so, what can I do about it?
Amy, Lille, France
Doggie Prozac—ask your vet about it. Personally, the only doggie depression I’ve ever experienced is the feeling I get after one of my four-legged friends takes a dump behind the sofa.
Animals (Effect on Sleep)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
Every night I go to bed with my dog, Ozzy (named after you), but wake up at 4am. I really want to stay in bed longer, but no matter what I do, I can’t get back to sleep. Is this something to do with Ozzy, do you think? Please help, it’s driving me crazy.
Sammy [No address given]
I don’t see how one dog could be much of an issue—I go to bed with 17 dogs, plus about 20 mobile phones, and the wife. It sounds to me more like you’ve got a sleep disorder. I’ve had the same problem for years, so I got someone to come over to the house one evening, put all these electrode things on my head, hook them up to a computer, and see what was going on in my brain. He was up all night, this guy, twiddling his knobs and studying his graphs—he must be a raging insomniac himself—and when the results came back, my doc put me on a mild anti-depressant which helps me nod-off easier. It beats sleeping pills. Or whacking myself on the head with a mallet.
B.
Brain (Use Of)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
Is it true that humans use only 10 per cent of their brains, or is this just another one of those stupid myths?
Andrew, Kent
I fucking hope that ain’t the case, ’cos I’ve only got about ten per cent of my brain left. By your definition, that means I’m running on about one per cent these days. Actually… that explains a lot.
Breath (Offensive)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My breath is really bad—to the point where I can’t talk to people who are close to me. I’m a student here in Ghana, and I find it difficult even just to say “Hello” to friends on campus, because I just don’t want to embarrass myself. Please Dr. Ozzy, I need your help…
Emmanuel, Ghana
A long time ago, I made a pact with my wife: if my breath is bad, she has to tell me—and vice versa. Obviously no-one needs to break the news to you, Emmanuel. By the sound of it, when you open your mouth, the sun gags. My guess is that the problem is being caused by one of two things: something very nasty in your gut, or gum disease. If I were you, my first stop would be a dentist—although you might want to give her some advance warning, so she can put on a rubber suit and face mask, and light a few candles around the room first. In the meantime, try Euthymol, an old English brand of toothpaste, which makes you feel like you just gargled with gasoline and lit a match. Also buy some ultra-strength mouthwash, like Listerine, and get yourself a tongue scraper.
Burping (Potential Side Effects Of)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
A friend told me that burping too hard can rip a hole in your stomach, is this true?
Anna (12 years old), Long Island, New York
No. I wouldn’t have any stomach left if that were the case. In fact, I once saw a bloke on telly who could talk and burp at the same time. I tried to do it myself once, but ended up puking into Sharon’s handbag. Lesson: some things are best left to the professionals.
Bedbugs
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My husband and I have developed such a paralyzing fear of bedbugs that we’ve become like prisoners in our own home. How can we get over our paranoia?
Tara, West Village, New York
I’ve never had a problem with bedbugs—probably ’cos they take one sip of my blood and drop dead from all the toxic shit in there. But I understand your concern: no-one wants to wake up with a thousand little red bite marks on their ballsack. Just bear in mind that bedbugs aren’t the worst thing in the world. I’m about to go to South America, for example, and I’m told they have these “kissing spiders”: they crawl up your body and onto your face, squat over your lips, secrete an anaesthetic, suck out the blood, take a dump, then scamper away back to their holes. Meanwhile, the spider crap contains a kind of bacteria that literally eats your heart out. I’m so freaked out about it, I’m probably gonna spend the whole tour sleeping in a sealed Ziploc fucking bag.
C.
Cancer (Coping With)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
In the past five years, I’ve had two hip operations, throat cancer, and now a serious heart problem. As a result of chemo and radiotherapy I can eat only liquid food through a syringe into my stomach, and sex is impossible because of the beta blockers I take for my ticker. Thankfully I can still drink beer, but otherwise I’m rapidly losing my sense of humour, which isn’t like me. How can I cheer myself up?
Charlie (65 years old), Devon
This is one of the reasons why medical marijuana ain’t necessarily such a bad idea. I mean, anyone who reads “Ask Dr. Ozzy” on a regular basis knows that I always tell people to steer clear of weed ’cos you never know how strong it is, or how you’ll react (never mind that it’s illegal)—but over in Los Angeles, a lot of people with heavy-duty medical problems say that prescription pot helps them with everything from muscle pain to getting their appetites back. My advice is to talk to your doctor, keep drinking the beer, and try to find something else, anything, that gives you a break from the discomfort. It sounds like you’ve had some rotten luck, Charlie, and I wish you all the best.
Chewing Gum (Ingested)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I just swallowed a piece of chewing gum. Is it true this will take seven years to pass through my system?
Frank, Portsmouth
That can’t be true, otherwise I’d be half-human, half-spearmint by now.
Cruise Ships (Downsides Of)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My wife wants to go on an expensive cruise ship holiday—but I’m afraid of getting food poisoning, falling overboard, or being seasick. Am I being too paranoid?
Tyler, Atlanta
No, you ain’t. I took the QE2 to America once with Sharon, ’cos she was pregnant and couldn’t fly. I was so out of my fucking mind with boredom, it would have been a relief to fall overboard, quite frankly. In the end I begged the ship’s doc to give me something to knock me out. When I finally woke up in New York, Sharon was so angry, she tried to throw me through one of the portholes. I’ve never been on a cruise ship again.
Crying (During Urination)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I cry when I urinate. Tears literally stream from my eyes, like I’m peeling an onion. It is not painful nor anything, but I’m worried I have a rare disease. What’s your expert advice?
Pierre, Barcelona
No offence, Pierre, but this is really fucking weird. Here’s my prescription: 1) Keep a box of tissues in the can, and 2) Get a second opinion, ideally from someone whose name ain’t Ozzy Osbourne.
D.
Death (Stress Related To)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My fiancé of two years—a wealthy Arab man—has been told he has terminal cancer. After trying to ignore the subject, I asked about his will (I’m no longer working because of the economic crisis). He told me that because he hates his family, he’s giving everything to charity. When I asked about me, he said I would get nothing either. I told him I was hurt, but he said he was more hurt, because he’s dying, and I asked him for money (I did feel like a jerk for asking, but I need a place to live). Who’s in the right?
Margaret, London
It sounds to me like your fiancé is angry about dying—it’s hard to blame him—and he’s lashing out. But you shouldn’t feel like a jerk, either. I mean, if the bloke’s giving all his money away to his cocker spaniel (or whatever his favourite charity is), who’s going to pay for his funeral? Is he happy to think he’ll be tossed into some government-run pit with a cardboard headsto
ne? And if he cared about you enough to get engaged, why does he want you out on the street? Fair enough, he doesn’t have to give you every last penny he earned during his lifetime, but sorting out your digs for a year or two, to make sure you can get back on your feet, ain’t too much to ask. I can’t stress enough that people need to get these things down in writing early on, before a situation like this comes up. It’s normal to want to put anything related to death on the back-burner, but everyone needs a will. It ain’t very nice talking about the Final Curtain, but it’s a lot worse to have the conversation when you’re coping with a tragedy.
Dentistry (Basic Techniques)
Dear Dr. Ozzy,
I’ve been getting a lot of severe headaches recently and have been told that they could be caused by teeth-grinding. Is it possible to grind your teeth without knowing it?
Jennifer, Northumberland
You and I have exactly the same problem. I started getting these really bad headaches a few weeks ago, and being a hypochondriac, I thought, “Right, that’s it, I’ve got a brain tumour.” I was one stage away from buying myself a casket when my GP told me that I needed to see a dentist, not an oncologist. So that’s what I did, and now I’ve got these little rubber things to put over my teeth at night, so I don’t grind them in my sleep—which, to answer your question, is supposedly very common. I don’t wear them half the time, though, ’cos it’s a major ball-ache putting them in. I’d rather take an aspirin.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
If I rinse my mouth out with descaling solution (like the stuff you use to clean out a coffee machine), will it get rid of my plaque? I ask because my dental hygienist charges a fortune to do the same thing, and I’m trying to economize.
Peter, Lowestoft, Suffolk
If you think a scrape and polish is a rip-off, just wait and see how much they charge the idiot who comes in with no teeth left ’cos he gargled with sodium tripolyphosphate. They’ll still be sending you bills when you’re six feet under. In fact, this reminds me of the time one of my good friends tried to cure a rash on his Honourable Gentleman with bleach, ’cos he didn’t want to have to admit to his family GP that he’d been unfaithful to his wife. Needless to say, his missus soon found out what was going on, ’cos he spent the next month in hospital, screaming in pain.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
You and your lovely wife have great teeth… so white! What I’d like to know is: would you recommend using shop-bought whitening agents? As a smoker who drinks too much coffee, I’m badly in need of a non-celebrity solution.
Freda, Milton Keynes
I hate to break it to you, Freda, but my choppers ain’t real. All my teeth are screwed in: for cleaning, they just unscrew ’em and give ’em a good polishing. They ain’t falsies—they’re implants. I started out with caps, which means they file down your teeth to posts and cement fake crowns on top of them. But then the posts rotted away, so they gave me implants, which are attached to my jaws with titanium screws. If I had my real teeth, I’d look like Herman Munster’s ugly brother. I think growing up in Britain is partly to blame—I mean, we’re not exactly renowned for our teeth, are we? Even Harley Street dentists aren’t that good. I went to a bloke who does the royals’ teeth once, and I came out of the place looking like a racehorse. But the biggest problem for me was being a drug addict: it kills all your calcium, which is what keeps your mouth healthy. Getting back to your question, though: I ain’t got a clue about whitening agents, but it can’t do any harm to give them a go, can it? As for a “non-celebrity solution,” the good news is that you don’t have to be famous to see a dentist in Beverly Hills…
You just need a ton of dough.
Doctors (Issues Regarding)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
Do you think people should be allowed to rate their doctors on the internet, like they can rate albums—or do you think the medical profession is too important to be subjected to the kind of abuse you got in 1970 for the first Black Sabbath LP?
Sally, Glasgow
Honestly? I don’t know. I mean, my GP might give me a drug for something, and I might get better with no side-effects. Another person might get exactly the same treatment, and his head might swell up to ten times its normal size. So would it be fair if the guy with the massive head gave the doc a bad review? Probably not. Then again, if you were gonna have heart surgery, and the reviews told you that your surgeon’s last ten patients had croaked it on the operating table, you’d want to know that. The way I see it, though, a doctor spends years and years and serious amounts of dough to become qualified to make life or death decisions—so it ain’t fair if one person with a bee up their arse can ruin his career with a review that takes three seconds to write.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
Like you, I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac. However, for the past 20-odd years (since my parents died, and my newborn son needed heart surgery) I’ve had a phobia of anything to do with doctors, and I avoid them as long as the pain doesn’t become unbearable. My head tells me that I should take your advice and benefit from modern medicine, but unfortunately the coward in me is stronger. Any advice?
Christine, Germany
If you’re too afraid to go to the doctor ’cos it brings back painful memories—or ’cos you’re worried that you’ll get bad news—there’s only one solution: don’t go. Simple as that. Go to the pub instead. At the end of the day, Christine, only you can make the decision. The thing is, though, if you’re afraid of getting bad news, isn’t it better to get it earlier rather than later? The only reason my wife is still alive is because she got bad news early. That meant she was able to get to her cancer before it spread any further and killed her. And, speaking for myself, if I don’t go to the doctor on a regular basis, I’ll just drive myself nuts about every little twinge and ache. It sounds to me like you’re already worrying yourself sick. So why not take a deep breath and make an appointment?
Dribble (Excessive)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I’ve started to drool at night while asleep, meaning I wake up every morning to an unpleasantly damp pillow. Is this normal at my age (early 60s, like you), and is there a cure?
John, Essex
Believe me, there are much worse ways to wake up in the morning than with a soggy pillow. If you’ve reached your early sixties and that’s the only thing you’ve got to complain about, I think you’re doing pretty well, to be honest with you. As for a cure—try blow-drying the inside of mouth dry before going to bed. Or put a raincoat over your pillow-case.
E.
Ears (Ringing In)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I have two boys in a metal band and they’ve been practicing in my home for the past four years. Now I have ringing in my ears. Any advice?
Grace, Miami
A classic case of heavy metal-itus. I suffer from permanent tinnitus because of all the headbanging I’ve done over the years—which means I’ve now got this constant ringing in my ears, like a “WEEEE!!” noise, but louder. It’s also made me somewhat deaf (or “conveniently deaf,” as Sharon calls it). The sad thing is that there’s an easy way to prevent tinnitus, and it’s called buying a pair of earplugs. Do it now, before the damage gets worse.
Eyelids (Quivering)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
When I’m very tired, my eyelids quiver. It’s quite embarrassing—is there a way of stopping it?
Lucy, New York
You’ve gotta listen to your body, man. If you stayed up all night and ended up with a headache and an upset stomach, you wouldn’t think twice about what to do: you’d go to bed. But a lot of people who only get five or six hours of shut-eye every night can’t believe it when they need half a gallon of espresso just to get out of bed the next morning. Clearly, in your case, your body is screaming at you that it wants more rest. I’m exactly the same way: I might be the Prince of Darkness, but if I don’t get my afternoon nap, I’m useless for the rest of the day. That’s why Europeans invented the siesta.
F.
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Farts (Storage Of)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
A new book claims that during the Great Plague of London in 1665, people were told to store their farts in a jar and sniff them if they felt unwell. Have you ever attempted to do this? How would one go about storing an outbreak of gas in an enclosed space?
Ellen, Beijing
It always blows my mind, the things people used to do to themselves before modern medicine. Could you imagine, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and the newspaper, going, “Darling, pass the jam jar, I’ve got a bit of a headache.” Then again, if you didn’t have aspirin, what were you supposed to do? And no, I’ve never tried this myself—I might be crazy, but I ain’t that crazy. When an ill wind blows in my house, I’m more worried about opening the windows before Sharon gets home than trying to save it for later.
Flies & Other Insects (Swallowed)
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I recently swallowed a fly while horse riding. Now I’m in a panic: will give me an awful disease?
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