Ask Lemmy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

This was me when I had Norovirus, though the puking was preceded by firehose-level shits until I took an Imodium, after which it switched ends before deciding on some rather unpleasant alternating events

You definitely want to get that checked out

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

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

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.

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

I had those issues before the doctor diagnosed GERD/Reflux, and prescribed medication. Now I take a Famotidine every day, twice if I've had something particularly spicy. I never have that problem anymore.

I finally did something about it when I aspirated in the middle of the night, like you did. It can actually give you pneumonia, which happened to me.

BTW, a banana can act as a pretty good acid treatment in a pinch., like in the middle of the night.

Also, which side you sleep on makes a difference, too. Your esophagus goes straight down the middle of your chest, until it reaches your stomach, which makes a left turn. So when you sleep on your left side, the opening to the esophagus is above the stomach, making it difficult for food to slip into it.

But if you sleep on your right side, your stomach is above the opening, and any undigested contents are up against that opening.. if it's weak, or opens, gravity draws that food into your esophagus, causing reflux.

So sleeping on your left side is preferred.

**tl;dr ** Probably severe acid reflux but hard to say, use your insurance to get checked out, cops are a non-issue for this kind of call. To the Europeans, yes we know our health system sucks.

First off, I am not a health professional. However, based on somewhat common knowledge, If you're barfing blood or pooping what looks like coffee grinds, immediate 911 call you've got less than 24 hours left. If your chest pain continues, that's highly likely a trip to at least urgent care, don't ignore chest pains. If you woke up choking on your barf, but it settled down and able to catch your breath, and your chest pain is going away it's highly likely acid reflux which can be caused by a lot of different things. Either way you need to get looked at by a doctor soon and not consult the Internet. Your copay is shown on your insurance card for a dr's visit so you can do your financial calculations. 50 to 100 bucks now is better than 500 to 10,000 bucks later.

Don't wait either since you have insurance. Urgent care's usually covered at a more affordable rate. If you get admitted to an ER from the urgent care, MOST halfway decent insurances will cover you so you're not out hundred's of thousands of dollars for a Tylonal. Before the Europeans chime in, yes, health insurance in the US sucks. It's not free. You can talk the hospital down on your bill and you can absolutely renegotiate your minimum payment. Sometimes, if you're nice in talking to both the insurance and the hospital, a grant can be found and you owe nothing. It's a lot of work and time so don't panic when you see the first bill.

So everyone in the US knows, cops are never involved in a 911 call unless there's a crime in progress or there is an immediate threat to the responding EMS team. Don't call 911 with some kind of threat. Obviously you'll be in a panic and the 911 operator will only send what is needed.

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

Could be a simple case of reflux - when some stomach valve doesn't stay completely closed during sleep and lets gastric juices and food creep upwards.

But the best medical advice is not to seek medical advice from randos online. Go to urgent care and see what they say, or at the very least lookup if there is a nurse hotline where you live and call it.

Op, you alive?

Taxi to ER. No medical office will touch you having complained of, even mild, chest pain and a weird feeling heart. Been there, done that. Walk in the ER talking of chest pain, and say that first!, they will throw you in a room and attach an EKG. Been there, done that.

I don't mean to alarm you, but taken together those symptoms smell like a mild heart attack. By some voodoo I don't understand, the EKG can tell, even if the event is not happening in the moment.

I say no medical office will touch you, but first time my doc sent me to the ER, second time they whipped out a portable EKG. Times change, I may be wrong.

Sounds like heat illness. Did you sleep too hot?