The danger: A parasitic infection

The source: Cosmopolitan

The account: "Four days after Nicole Luongo graduated from college, she mysteriously passed out in a bookstore. 'All of a sudden, I had a pain in my side. I dropped and couldn't get up for five minutes....It felt like the equivalent of 20 bones being broken," she says.

The details: "'I drank from a water fountain at my college graduation,' she [told her gastroenterologist]. The doctor stared at her, shaking his head. 'I'm pretty sure you have giardia.'"

The fine print: "Usually, a course of antibiotics will clear it up, but ... the doctors made a startling discovery: Nicole had an immune deficiency so severe that she lacked white blood cells....She had no immune system to recover."

The bottom line: Make sure to receive a battery of invasive blood tests before drinking anything but Perrier.

The danger: Cancer

The source: Women's Health

The details: "Gonzalez had a cancerous tumor removed from above his left ear, and another tumor removed from his left hand, according to SunSentinel.com. He believes both may have been caused by his cell phone."

The "proof": "There's a good amount of research that suggests cell phone radiation has the potential to be hazardous."

The bottom line: Add cell phones to the list of things that might-could-maybe-probably-not give you cancer, next to crossing your eyes for too long and standing in front of the microwave.

The danger: A blood infection

The source: Cosmopolitan

The account: "Three days after a normal shave, I noticed a small, reddish bump on my bikini line....Twenty-four hours later, it was a throbbing, golf ball-size mountain....I looked three months pregnant."

The details: "'It's staph,' the doctor explained....When it enters the skin -- through a small cut, like from shaving, waxing, or a picked ingrown -- it can create an abscess that grows.' If it isn't drained within days, it can spread internally and cause a deadly blood infection called sepsis."

The bottom line: Let those pubes grow, girl.

The danger: A fatal swelling of the ovaries and/or infertility

The source: Marie Claire

The account: "The donation center suggested I wait at least another month to let my body get back into the swing of my normal cycle. But I had student loans piling up into the $100,000's ... so I shrugged it off and signed up."

The details: "I had noticed a strange, tight, tugging feeling in my abdomen not long after the donation....The weird cramp blossomed into a fiery stab that spread through my abdomen, and I collapsed from the pain....I'd had a cyst ... and I collapsed because it burst."

"Every egg donation has a 10 percent risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, where the ovaries swell from over production of eggs. I didn't suffer the most adverse consequence of the syndrome -- death -- but my doctor did tell me he'd never seen so many eggs in one extraction."

The bottom line: Maybe don't ignore medical experts' suggestions when engaging in risky medical procedures.

The danger: Death and lost limbs from Toxic Shock Syndrome

The source: Cosmopolitan

The details: "A friend found [model Lauren Wasser, then 24] passed out with a 107-degree fever, her internal organs shutting down after the otherwise healthy Wasser suffered a heart attack. The event landed her in the hospital, where she developed gangrene, dead tissue caused by lack of blood flow in the legs."

"Without much of a choice, Wasser authorized the amputation of her right leg below the knee. She also lost her left toes and still suffers from persistent foot pain three years later."

The fine print: "It takes a perfect storm to contract TSS: You'd need to be one of the small percentage of women who has Staphylococcus aureus in your regular vaginal flora. You'd also have to lack the protein that protects you from this bacteria....Lastly, you'd have to have your period and leave a tampon in for way too long.... Without treatment, TSS could ultimately lead to death. But it only kills about 4 to 5 percent of patients who contract it."

The bottom line: Switch to diapers -- or sit on a pillow of moss for a week and free bleed.