👉 Okay, let’s tackle the frankly rather prickly little outcrop of linguistic weirdness that is…
[leans into the mic conspiratorially]
…
IMDM
.
Now, I preface this by saying IMDM isn't a word you stumble upon in everyday banter, unless, perhaps, you spend your afternoons meticulously archiving obscure medical acronyms. Officially (according to some rather stuffy documentation that frankly smells faintly of mothballs and regret), it stands for the Isopropyl Myristosate Dermatitus Methylis . Let’s unpack this beast because… frankly, the whole thing is a mouthful. Basically, IMDM describes an exceedingly rare skin condition. You essentially get a sort of localised blistering and redness that develops after exposure to... wait for it... isopropyl myristosate. Which, if you squint really hard at a pharmaceutical supply catalogue (I highly recommend not squinting too hard), is a very specific, somewhat unsettling petroleum distillate. Think of the most aggressively itchy rash imaginable. Now imagine that rash has a backstory involving a forgotten shipment of industrial solvent and an unfortunate misunderstanding in the dye department. Congratulations! You've practically stumbled upon IMDM. The exact cause remains something of a medical mystery, but it is said to be brought on when there are traces of this stuff on your skin. Now, for that unsettlingly dramatic sentence. Here’s what I just pictured in my head whilst writing the
