I am in the US, so financial calculations need to be factored in.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, felt like I was going to die, then vomitted.
Now heart beating slightly off, not feeling great but not terrible, had mild chest pain earlier in evening…
Kinda feel off. Have medical insurance with large deductible.
Ignore it? Taxi to ER? Call 911? Genuinely don’t know and don’t like 911 since police are involved.
Also I feel hot, feel burning around my neck.
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.
Frame 1: “Hey USA, how’s it going?”
Frame 3: this post
Frame 4: “Jesus Christ…”
I couldn’t be arsed to do it in a higher quality“i hope i don’t have to sell my gun collection to survive”
No, just frame 2.
> 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
'Murica
The only valid reason. lol
Lemmy has made it. It’s Reddit from 10 years ago
secretlyaddictedtolinux
Probably just Linux withdrawl.
he did say hes from the us.
Typical
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.
Its actually funny (in a fucked up way, that is), because for appointments, you have to pre-pay, so if you are already bankrupt, you might as well just go to the ER where you do not have to pre-pay.
Pre-pay for PCP and Specialist visits? What is this plan you are on?!
Poor people insurance like the majority of the US.
I have yet to see anyone sued over medical debt.
If you’re in my area they sue you without telling you and it goes straight to garnish out of your paycheck. I had to spend a better part of a decade committing fraud just to keep enough money to pay for rent and food.
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
Yeah this is hospital visit worthy. Please seek medical attention
Are you sure? It could just be food poisoning. I ate a lot of candy earlier before sleep.
I want real world answer, not “always seek medical care answer.”
I can risk a 20 percent chance of death to avoid medical bills.
It sounds like heart attack symptoms. It is worth seeing atleast a clinic
I’m in the US. It’s late at night.
The United States should be dismantled entirely and its leaders should be shot for making people think like you are right now
Its been a day , this was their last comment…
Whoa 😶
A twenty percent chance of death is 1 in 5. That’s insanely high. That’s like if you chose to walk through 5 doors in your house and one of them kills you. You should always go to the emergency room if you have symptoms like this.
Or just don’t pay the bills and debt is gone in 7 years 🤷♂️
What do you even got to lose?
I think medical debt is exempt from declaring bankruptcy, no?
No, you’re thinking of student loan debt; but even for student loan debt, that are some special circumstances where you can get rid of those debt.
Yeah, you’re right. I probably mixed them up.
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.
Healthcare, in the US, is still pretty expensive even if you have insurance. Chosing between maybe dying or being disabled, and being homeless is pretty common place here in the best country in the world.
I am a disabled American in my 50s, I have dealt with serious medical issues my entire life, including the ones that have made me unable to work for the last ~15 years. I understand the healthcare ‘system’, such as it is, far too well. But you know what sucks worse than being broke? Being dead.
We’re not talking about being dead vs being broke. We’re talking about being MAYBE dead vs being homeless, hungry, and unable to clothe your children.
Health insurance exists for medical emergencies; vomiting and chest pains are signs of a heart attack which, I dunno where you’re from, but where I’m from that sounds like a medical emergency to me.
I get that the US healthcare system is bad and exploitative and absolutely leaves people in crippling, life-altering debt. But one fucking trip to urgent care is not going to render you homeless unless something is very seriously wrong with you in which case see also: being dead also sucks pretty hard.
Personally, I’ve seen a lot of doctors and received very little help for my considerable trouble, and more than a little harm. I was fortunate that I rarely have to pay for medical service (but have to forgo it when I do) but if I had been paying all this time, it would be very easy for me to choose feeding my hypothetical children for the current week over another probably useless visit.
Removed by mod
I am a disabled American in my 50s, I have dealt with serious medical issues my entire life, including the ones that have made me unable to work for the last ~15 years. Please tell me some more of these wild-assed assumptions you’ve made about how little I understand about healthcare in the US.
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.
Welcome to like more than 50% of the world.
This entire fucking planet is a dystopia.
America is probably the reason those other places don’t have health care as well.
Welcome to like more than 50% of the world
But it’s the bottom 50%. And, in 100 years, it has fallen to 50%.
Trending is good.
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!
I live in the US
We have to weigh the cost of a medical visit versus the likelihood it’s nothing
If it’s food poisoning and I overreact, that’s a 20K overreaction in the US
Everyone who downvoted this can get fucked with a cheese grater and no reach around. This is how America works. Do some research.
If you don’t have insurance, you would get hit with this.
However, in most states I’ve lived in, if you don’t have insurance, you get off with less than I’d end up paying in copay after subsidies/negotiations.
You can negotiate down any medical bill. Do some research.
As someone who lives in the US, you literally didnt need anything but the first sentance.
Get checked immediately chest pain and vomiting are signs of a heart attack
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.
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
USA, USA, USA!
You definitely want to get that checked out
Vomit, burning, heart pain etc… Are all in the “pretty alarming” category