Cheap medical advice re: potential hospital ER visits.

[TeamProg]

I took the advice my dad gave me decades ago and it made sense.

I'm allergic to bee stings, got stung while on my mtn bike. Kept riding working up a fast heart rate.

I felt really sick, rode home, then to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and my face looked like a swollen Tiki Head.

I had welts in every appendage pit though no signs of anaphylactic shock.

I called my dad who was a retired pathologist.

His advice:

If you are undecided that you might need to go to an ER, it won't cost you anything to go to the hospital property, park near the ER or go inside the main hospital entrance / reception area and just SIT AND WAIT.

If you then begin to feel better getting over your illness, pain, bug bite, 'fart caught sideways' or other anomaly, then you just go home.

If you get worse, you'll be right there.

Could save you from unnecessarily spending your ER deductible costs on some insur. policies.

[Doc Sportello]

1. Good advice n/t

[Walleye]

2. That is brilliant!

[Effete Snob]

3. 'fart caught sideways'

Could you expand a bit on that one?

[TeamProg]

6. When you've got simple gas but it's a stabbing pain, like a kidney stone or something more

serious.

[wishstar]

37. Some of us get intense and almost paralyzing gas pains occasionally

The excruciating pain can last just a few minutes or quite a while during which I wonder if I have a twisted bowel obstruction or appendicitis or kidney stone and can't do anything but just breathe deeply until it goes away. If I'm at home I try to lie flat even though moving at all can intensify the pain and if outside I try to sit and take deep breaths until it subsides. Gas pain comes on unexpectedly for no obvious reason and might not come back for many months.

[Chainfire]

4. The last time I went to an ER waiting was the key word.

I sat there for six hours until I gave up, went to a commercial walk in and got seen in minutes...

[Mr.Bill]

29. Actually, if they don't take you in immediately in the ER,

It probably means you're not going to die. It means they are busy with people in life-threatening issues. It's good news to not be one of those.

Just another way to look at it.

[Chainfire]

30. They never triaged me....They didn't know if I was dying or not.

Another local hospital recently had a woman thrown out of the ER by the cops and she died on the sidewalk from her heart attack..oops! There was a bit of a stink about that incident...

https://news.wfsu.org/health-science/2016-09-16/calhoun-liberty-hospital-reaches-settlement-with-ahca-over-patient-death

[Jilly_in_VA]

5. I generally go to urgent care

if I can't see my regular doc and have waited something out. If they can't help me, they'll call 911 or tell me to get to ER if I have a ride.

[Hekate]

14. My younger brother had a nagging pain around his shoulder blade & couldn't keep unloading his truck

He went to urgent care (what he calls “doc in a box” ) and they told him he was in the middle of a heart attack and that his next ride was going to be to the hospital in an ambulance. And so it was.

Saved his life they did.

[claudette]

7. Great idea!

I’ll remember that. I have allergies too and rely on Benadryl for minor instances

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Great advice!

[yonder]

9. Good advice from your dad - sometimes just getting there is the biggest battle.

So how did the bee sting turn out? In this instance, did you actually go to the ER and get seen or went but waited it out?

[TeamProg]

10. Yep, the lobby was a good place to hang out until I felt better. No one bothered me. n/t

[TeamProg]

11. Never went to ER, just the hosp. lobby. n/t

[yonder]

12. Gotcha, hope all is better.

I've no bee sting allergies but have had other reactions making an ER trip necessary. Scary stuff. Benadryl is good to keep around and thanks again for the good wait-and-see-while-there advice.

[TeamProg]

13. That was in the late '80's.. decades ago, but the advice is still valid.

Ah, I thought it was clear that it was a historical event,, oops.

"I took the advice my dad gave me decades ago and it made sense."

I've had bad reactions to eating nuts, too, bananas.. rashes, gut issues.

Still alive!

[Old Crank]

15. Glad I'm in Germany

Went to the ER for kidney stones.
Just ran my medical insurance card.
No direct charges to me.
Pain meds, IVs, CT scann, blood test,
and medications and prescriptions

I paid for the cab ride there and back.

[markodochartaigh]

19. "No direct charges to me"

Well sure, if your metric for judging the health care system is health then I'm sure that is just great. But in the US our metric is profitability. And one of my senators made more money off Medicare than anyone else had to that point. I mean, technically it was fraud, but it's not like he had to do any time for it.

/$

[Skittles]

36. when I read that I was thinking

people in civilized countries must think we're pretty fucking sad

[MMBeilis]

16. When our second child was born in 1979, we had no medical coverage and were prepared to.....

......pay ourselves for the delivery, as we had for prenatal care. The first time my wife had some contractions that seemed like the real thing, we indeed did drive the 30 minutes to the hospital and sat in the parking lot biding our time, reluctant to go in and risk paying for a false alarm.

[Otto_Harper]

21. Back in the '90s, I remember that moms in labor would hang out in the parking lot of the hospital

till after midnight. That is because the pricing policy baack then was that if you arrived before midnight, that was the first day of your stay. Since insurance companies would opnly pay for a couple of days for childbirth, they didn't want to lose that time in-hospital, if possible.

[japple]

17. I always have liquid Benadryl and Zyrtec on hand for allergic reactions.

It has saved me a lot of distress and, in one instance, one of my kitties. She got stung by a wasp and her face started swelling. I put a tiny bit in a syringe and squirted it down her throat. It must have tasted awful to her because she ran around like her tail was on fire, but the swelling went away within about an hour.

[electric_blue68]

33. I have to get some (more) Benadryl always kept it as a just in case...

no plant allergies, but certain cleaning products etc bother me.
Never thought of liquid. I assume it works faster?


Your poor Kitty! Good thinking!

[erronis]

18. Damn. Now the hospitals will start charging by the minute for sitting in their lobby!

[calimary]

22. Well, so far, they can't pick your pocket for just waiting in the parking lot.

At least not until they install parking meters…

[Pepsidog]

20. I did that when i had an attack of ventricular tach while i was cross-examining a witness. ER down

the street from court. Sat in car for an hour-then ER parking lot for 15 minutes-it did not stop. Sat in ER for 30 minutes then went to front desk. Dr. Comes over, taps on the monitor like my 275 heart rate was a malfunction. Rushed back to ER room where I was shocked 3 or 4 times until normal rhythm returned. Had an ablasion and all good since.

[ecstatic]

23. omg! 275? nt

[Pepsidog]

28. Yes. ER doc at level one trauma center was impressed. Was cardio-verted

several times during the night while awake. Not fun.

[ecstatic]

24. my issue would be getting there in the first place

If I'm not "presentable" in appearance at the time of my issues that means I have to take a shower, do my hair, pick an outfit, etc. I could skip the hair and makeup part, I guess. But then I'd have to decide which hospital to go to. I guess I should come up with an emergency plan.

The rest of my concerns would be addressed by your dad's advice: Not wanting to be uncomfortable or look foolish, preparing myself mentally to sit in the ER for hours.

I actually spent all night at the ER with a friend and his final diagnosis was gas. lol

[AllaN01Bear]

25. i have afib. when heart goes off to 150 or so , i dont mess with it.

[Peregrine Took]

26. Not sure you can actually get into the ER but you could get into the hospital lobby that's close.

In fact I know a nurse who works at a big hospital downtown and she says she sees the same seniors sitting in the lobby day after day reading or whatever.

Her surmise is that they just feel more secure being so close to the doctors and hospital itself.

[TeamProg]

27. Right, but that's not what I said.. Park just outside the ER, or go sit in the main hospital

entrance (ie: lobby).

Just so were sure on this..

"""If you are undecided that you might need to go to an ER, it won't cost you anything to go to the hospital property, park near the ER or go inside the main hospital entrance / reception area and just SIT AND WAIT. """

[Hortensis]

34. Yes. I've done that. I have seizures, normally controlled on medication.

One time when I hit my face and neck on a table during a breakthrough, though, my neck swelled and I wondered if it could close off my windpipe if it continued. So my husband and I went and sat in a busy ER waiting room just to be safe. When I was still fine after a while, we left.

While I was there, btw, with a humongous black eye and other obvious facial bruising developing, one of the guys at triage came down the room to me and asked me how I was and what happened. Doing the job the hospital and society puts them there to do.

Just remembered another time when our toddler fell on his head nearly 50 years ago and his scared parents took him in the middle of the night to a small local ER. While waiting, he (and his father) had so much fun running around the empty waiting room with the wheelchairs, though, that they never did formally examine him. We waved goodbye that time.

[TeamProg]

35. Life is fragile. Be well. nt

[Mr.Bill]

31. I worked as avolunteer at a hospital for six years,

most of it at the desk in the OP waiting room. There are people who just like to hang around hospitals for various reasons. Most hospitals have pretty decent, healthy food for reasonable prices in their cafeterias. Some are there for the reasons you spoke of, too. They are usually elderly and quite harmless. Some of the waiting rooms have free coffee. Some of them are just looking for someone to talk to. If they cause any problems, security will be quick to escort them out.

[area51]

32. If only we could convert to universal healthcare &

we wouldn't need to worry about ER bills/copays, etc.

[MineralMan]

38. I did that once, many years ago.

When I was a teenager, I had a reaction to a bee sting. A few years later, I was riding my motorcycle when I was stung by a bee on the arm. I guess I ran into the bee on the road.

I thought about it, and rode to a nearby hospital and walked in the the ER. I took a seat in the waiting area, just to wait and see if I would have a reaction to the sting. After about 10 minutes, a nurse came over to where I was sitting and asked if I needed help. I explained the bee sting and that I was just waiting to see if I had a reaction. She said, "Smart. Good idea. Let us know."

That was it. After 15 minutes, I had no reaction, so I left, but not until after telling that nurse I was leaving and was fine.