Ask Lemmy

I am in the US, so financial calculations need to be factored in.

God I fucking hate what capitalism has done to what should be basic human rights.

Really sorry you don't have healthcare! Have you tried the NHS symptoms checker?. You don't need to be eligible for NHS treatment to use it, you don't even register. IME they are a bit trigger happy with saying you need to get checked out but it will hopefully give you a steer. Good luck

I always ask myself, “is this worth driving across town and waiting in a gross lobby for 4 hours?”

Sounds almost identical to my panic attacks. But im no dr, go see one if you don't feel better

> Makes thread asking if you should go to the ER

> Literally everyone says to go to the ER

> Doesn't go to the ER

ok

Frame 1: “Hey USA, how’s it going?”

Frame 3: this post

Frame 4: “Jesus Christ…”

Alright. Way too many socialists in this post who don't know how 'Murica works, god dammit. Here's real advice:

You woke up, so you aren't dead yet. In most cases, that's a good sign. Give it 30 minutes. If you feel better, great! This is where I preposterously tell you to follow up with your family doctor and we both have a good chuckle.

(Edit to explain: we have no idea who our family doctor is and we haven't been there in so long we would be considered a new patient.)

If you don't feel better, might well give it another hour. Most of the damage from a heart attack or stroke is done in the first 30 minutes, so you're probably not going to get any worse.

If you're still not dead after that, you're probably clear to make it through the weekend.

Next question is do you have sick leave? If not, congratulations, you're fine! If you do have sick leave, go ahead and make an appointment first thing Monday. They won't do anything, just send you for labs, maybe or just leave that part to the specialist they will refer you to.

So now it's 6 weeks later and the specialist is calling to confirm the appointment you're forgotten about. Do you feel better or are you out of sick leave? Congratulations, you're fine.

Next, is your deductible over 10% of your annual income? (5% if it's after Nov.15. You're gonna wind up paying that whole thing for diagnostic tests this year and the actual treatment will hit you after Jan 1 and you're double fucked.) If it is, congratulations, you're fine!

If you reach this point, you probably are in need of medical attention and can afford it. Congratulations on getting the help you need.

Bask in the superiority of the best healthcare in the world, you European nancies!

Obviously the tone is meant to be humorous, but this is basically the reality. The only thing I've omitted is that you can just go to the hospital and get the treatment you need and then avoid answering unknown numbers for 7 years. I have yet to see anyone sued over medical debt.

Yeah this is hospital visit worthy. Please seek medical attention

I suppose this person needs some advice from someone who actually lives in that hellhole and can judge if its not better to just die instead of fucking up the inheritance by going to the ER.

This is the best anticapitalist propaganda I have ever seen and its not even intentional.

To everyone who thinks this is a worthy system: i wont piss on you if you're on fire.

What the heck, how is this a question at all? Dude you need to get help asap!

Welcome to America. Where medical advice is asked to a bunch of weebs on the internet over going to the fucking hospital when you feel ill because of money concerns... I hate it here.

USA, USA, USA!

Here's some general life advice: if your body (especially your heart) starts doing things it shouldn't be doing you should probably talk to a doctor. You have insurance, this is what it's for. Hit up your nearest urgent care.

Edit: I'm gonna go ahead and add this because I've now had two people tell me how ignorant I am of the US healthcare system: I am a disabled American in my 50s who has been dealing with serious medical problems my entire life. I understand the 'system' far too well. But I'm gonna state what is apparently an unpopular opinion in this community: being dead sucks a lot worse than having medical debt.

Seek medical attention now!

Your life is worth much more than the price for emergency care <3

Seek medical attention now!

Genuinely don't know and don't like 911 since police are involved.

911 dispatcher in the US here

This will vary a lot from one jurisdiction to another, I can really only speak to county I work in

But while in theory every EMS call also gets a police response, probably more than half of them the only action the police take is to tell us "not responding unless requested"

And if they do respond, a lot of time they don't do much besides sit at the end of the driveway with their lights flashing so the ambulance can find the house easier.

Things like overdoses, assaults, shootings/stabbings, psych emergencies, cardiac arrests, etc. they do of course show up to because they may actually need to do something.

And if you live in a bigger city or rougher part of the suburbs, sometimes they may even take their sweet-ass time getting to those.

And if you live in a rural area, there's a decent chance you're covered by some part time or regional police department, or state police/county sheriffs who are stretched way too thin covering a huge area with maybe 2 or 3 officers on duty at any one time, they're probably not gonna show up in a hurry if at all either.

Like I said, it varies a lot, some towns in my county I can count on police being there before the ambulance (whether or not they actually do anything once they're there in a different story) and in others the cops don't give half a fuck unless someone is actively dying.

If you do find yourself calling 911 though, for the love of God, don't tell them you don't want police on your medical call, I swear that might be the most surefire way to make sure they do actually show up in a hurry. If that ends up in the notes of the call it makes the cops think you're hiding something or I don't know, planning to jump the EMS squad or something, some cops can be pretty panicky, paranoid weirdos like that, or sometimes just spiteful.

Hope you're doing better now. As someone who works in the medical field, it can be a real bitch to navigate everything.

For the future: Nobody here knows your baseline. If you tell any clinical medical worker you have had chest pain followed by difficulty breathing and vomiting they're very likely to tell you to go to the ED/ER (Emergency Department / Room). Speaking for myself only, that would depend how stable I feel following the vomiting incident and if the chest pain persisted, and baseline conditions and history (e.g., do you have a history of hypertension, high cholesterol, overweight, etc.? When was your last physical exam?).

We also don't know the full context on what you mean by couldn't breathe and feeling like you could die. For example, did you have a major GERD / Acid-Reflux incident (could explain mild chest pain)? Did you eat something and have an allergic anaphylactic reaction followed by a surge of adrenaline from your fear of death and a panic attack followed by vomiting? Have you had sinus congestion say from a cold and a glob of postnasal drip obstructing your airways? Do you take drugs? And yes, it's possible you also had a heart attack.

Worth noting: Urgent Care has limited resources beyond an X-ray machine, usually. The moment you mention chest pain, they'll hook you up to an ECG to take a reading. If your vital signs are okay (blood pressure, SPO2, heart-rate, temperature) and your ECG reads no active heart attack, then they might just refer you to a cardiologist follow-up. If on the other hand there are signals of a recent or active heart attack, they will pretty much demand you get loaded up into an ambulance and send you to the nearest hospital with a cath lab (due to liability on themselves). You'll thus be triple-dipping costs from urgent care, ambulance, and hospital when you might've been better off going straight to the ER.

ER will be a higher co-pay with insurance and absurdly costly without (but there are options, some ethical some not surrounding this). The good news is unlike Urgent Care, they cannot refuse treatment based on lack of insurance, if that's your predicament. Urgent Care will.

Also when you call 911 for a medical emergency, police aren't going to be involved. ACAB rhetoric aside, DO NOT REFUSE TO CALL 911 BECAUSE OF THIS. The moment the dispatcher sees this is a medical emergency, nearby fire departments or ambulances will be notified.

Go to ER.

In the US, they are required to provide care for actute condition (meaning chronic, aka: along term conditions like cancer or diabeted can be legally ignored), so if you are about to die, they are required by law to stop you from dying.

Worry about the debt later. Or just ignore any invoices/bills... they can't seize anything if you have no assets, debt is gone in 7 years.

Edit: If they ask for your social, say you forgot. Don't provide anything other than basic name, birthday, gender, that sort of stuff.

RIP I guess. Hopefully you don't reincarnate into a poor girl in a third world country.

Get checked immediately chest pain and vomiting are signs of a heart attack

Might be a heart attack

Medical debt in the US is an unsecured debt. You won't be thrown in jail or any impact on credit if it takes you forever to pay it off. Go to the emergency room and ask for a payment plan when the bills due. Then, do what you wish with the first sentence I wrote.

Consider going to a walk in clinic. If it's nothing serious, you pay 100-200 and you're on your way. If you go to the ER and it's nothing serious, your insurance may deduct you hundreds more (my ER copay is $500 and I have great insurance).

If it is serious, the walk in will tell you to go to the ER. In that case, the insurance may waive the ER copay. While it is true they can't deny you care, this system of expensive ER copay was presumably put in place to stop people using the ER to provide free care. Check your insurance policy (preferably before you get sick). I believe some places also have free clinics, but I would expect them to be pretty crowded.

Good luck OP. This sounds serious and you need to take care of your health. Try to find a way you can at least get some real qualified medical advice, even if you seemingly recovered this time.

I know its late for this but you can also start with Urgent Care. With insurance it could be a fairly cheap copay. They will advise on what to do next. You could have something like the flu (i had the flu and it fucked me all sorts of up) and theyd just prescribe you some medicine and rest

You definitely want to get that checked out

Vomit, burning, heart pain etc... Are all in the "pretty alarming" category

Yeah, I think I'll just go back to sleep and risk death. Tired of being fuxked over by hospitals, society, everyone. If I die, so be it. Peace out.

You have medical. Get checked out. Said the guy who hates going to doctors / hospitals. Be safe.