I. Am. In. PAIN.

The BBQ Pit
1

Otherwise, why would I have gone to the emergency room? I just feel like another person’s company at 2 o goat felching thirty in the morning? If I didn’t feel I might be in, say, danger of losing my hearing in the next few hours, or maybe if I wasn’t in PAIN i might have waited to go to urgent care in the morning.

Before emergency room visit: Both ears hurt horribly when my heart beats, hearing reduced below %50 easily, cough and slight runny nose. And when I say both ears hurt, I mean I am in PAIN. Did I mention I’m in motherfucking goddamn freakin fucking stupid cuntlicking whorebangering pigmongerfelching pain PAIN PAIN?

After emergency room viist: Both ears still hurt, still can’t hear very well, still coughing, but I have a few scrips that cost $100 and work less well than $10 of robotussin and codiene. Not one stupid yanni-listening nascar watching verhoeven apologizing nociceptor has ceased yelling at my brain since I got out of the ER. And it took them 3 hours to do this. If I wasn’t in PAIN i would have just waited a couple more hours and gone to urgent care if I knew I wouldnt get treated till 5:30 am!

You already made me cry once when I was waiting on a bed in the ER listening to all the workers idly chatting around me contemplating the fact that if I really truly was losing my hearing that not only is this a great symbol and example of the facelessness of an uncaring bureaucracy but that the last words I hear would be you inane goatbags yakking about your favorite shock jock. Luckily no one was looking at me when I did so.

Now at 6:30 am I still lie in bed unsleeping because your stupid medicines do nothing. I cry again because I spent upwards of $300 for someone to tell me “now young man get plenty of fluids and plenty of rest [HA!]” and you goons don’t even care about my PAIN.

I could update you about my current status vis a vis comfort levels but I’ve forgotten what it is. Stupid assbag Kafka loving douchelickers.

2

Sorry for your pain, but I must give the rant a 10 out of a possible 10. Nice use of the descriptors.

3

It completely sucks to be in pain, and unable to do anything about it. I hope you’re planning on going to said urgent care clinic, or maybe a doctor, who will really take care of you!

4

Wait a second, you went to the ER for a COLD? You didn’t think that you’d be sidelined due to being non-emergent? You didn’t consider that there’s nothing they could really do for you or your ears? You don’t know that there’s no magic pill for virally-induced illness symptoms?

After some of the experiences in Emergency rooms that I’ve had, I’d only go there if I could show them BLOOD, or if a limb was broken, partially severed, or deformed/mangled in some fashion. Otherwise, you wait behind all the people who are vomiting, know how to act more emergent(there are some drama queens out there), or are truly emergent.

Then we get back to the earache-they might have performed an ear bath on them, but there’s not much else they can do besides prescribe antibiotics.

Sam

5

Your ears should feel better shortly. The antibiotics used to work really quickly on my kid. I’d say 12 hours to the road to recovery.

6

Meh. Significant ear pain is truly difficult to tolerate.

Tympanic membrane pain is easily relieved in seconds with a few judiciously placed drops of lidocaine. External canal pain can be reduced significantly in a similar fashion.

Pity they didn’t offer it to you.

If you find yourself in prison with a bad earache, just ask for me.

Otherwise, ask if numbing drops for the ear might be useful. Hopefully your attending doc will be like me, and smack his head and say “hey, that’s a good idea, let’s try it”. Or at least “I’m sorry, it’s a good idea for some, but it is not appropriate in your situation”. Rather than one of those types who says “I’m the doctor here, you get what I give you”.

QtM, MD

7

Thanks! I’ll mention that next time!

8

Itemized:

– IANAP. Not having even had an earache before in my life I didn’t know how to judge its severity.
– Yes, I expected that.
– IANAP. Never had an earache requiring a physician.
– Yes. Oddly enough they gave me an antibiotic which was weird. I never said I was sure it WAS a cold, and if I did whether the earache was caused by it or was bacterial. Again, IANAP.

[/quote]

Not if it’s caused by a cold, like you just said. But they could sure as heck do something about my…awww forget it.

9

Well, 14 years ago when I was in college, I lost the hearing in my left ear because I had an earache and cold symptoms. By the time I saw a doctor (I waited only two days), my hearing was gone and I have constant tinnitus. I was given antibiotics and a medication for dizziness (boy, was I ever dizzy!), but it was just too late.

Now, whenever someone complains about their ear, I tell them that story. It’s not something to f*ck around with, in my experience. Yeah, it could be something simple, but do you really want to chance it? Plus, maybe the five or six hours before urgent care opened could have made the difference between hearing and not.

Now, if you reply to me, you’ll have to speak up. :wink:

10

I’m going to have to remember numbing drops the next time I get an earache – I was incredibly prone to ear infections as a kid and still get one every couple of years or so. Owie.

I hope you feel better soon, Ludovic.

11

Qadgop, when’s the last time you met an understanding ER doc? Most of the time when I went in for non-emergent, but wholly uncomfortable, painful conditions it was met with eye-rolling-just like the OP.

I’ve learned my lesson.

Sam

12

I’m sorry to hear that! That’s very sad!

13

I never said it was something to fuck around with, but in an ER, you’re likely to have the same situation crop up-3-5 hours of waiting and very little, if any relief medically. Most of the time, ER staff just don’t have the time or energy to devote to earaches.

Sam

14

Jesus. It’s called an EMERGENCY room, isn’t it? Implying that they deal with emergencies. Yeah, it sucks ass that you’re in serious pain. Pain, however, is not an emergency. Pain because you got your head smashed around in a car accident? Yes. Pain because you’re heading fast for cardiac arrest? Yes.

Pain because you’ve got a cold and possibly a nasty ear infection? Uh…no. IANAD, but I doubt that you can develop a severe infection and go from “perfect health, no symptoms” to “I’m loosing my hearing” in a matter of hours. Why is it suddenly so urgent?

I’m sorry, I just get really pissed off when people go to the ER for relatively minor reasons and then throw little pissy fits that they have to wait while the doctors take care of people who, you know, are having emergencies first.

15

Oh, and FTR, I grew up with constant ear infections due to an immune system problem, so I know of the kind of pain the OP is speaking of.

Sam

16

I’ve had both very good and very bad experiences with emergency.

When I was a teen, I had a rather nasty toboggan accident - I went head-first through a chain link fence (it was a freak accident, I had tobogganed the same hill may times without trouble - wierd weather (icing) did me in). My forehead was terribly gashed.

Leaving a trail of blood, my friends got me to a nearby hospital ER. They processed me right away, and within a minute I had docs examining me, x-raying skull (not fractured) & sewing me up. I was impressed.

The next day, I got really dizzy & started to throw up repeatedly. I decided to go back to the ER. This time, I was left to cool my heels in the waiting room for hours and hours. After many hours, I was feeling better. I went up to the nurse to say that I would be leaving to get something to eat, but I would be back.

I was astonished when the nurse practically exploded with rage. “You said you were dizzy and throwing up - and now you want to get something to eat! Quit wasting my time! You bastard! Bastard!”

Honestly, I wasn’t being obnoxious at all - I had merely checked in, sat quietly for several hours, and then told the nurse I was going out to get a bite.

As calmly as I could, I said that I had indeed been dizzy and had thrown up - but, having waited there for several hours, I was feeling rather better, and having thrown up all night and eaten nothing all day I was somewhat hungry.

The nurse wasn’t listening. She had stopped yelling at me and was now crying & rocking back & forth. Another nurse rushed up to her & started hugging her.

This was all very strange & uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do - apologize? (and for what?) Leave? Go back & sit down?

Fortunately, a passing doc took pity on me, took me aside & explained that the nurse had had a really rough night, not to mind her, and what could he do for me?

Somewhat shaken, I explained the situation, he found the file, and he told me not to worry about it too much - I had a concussion & this was normal, and it would pass.

Well, that was many years ago, and every once in a while I still get dizzy spells when my head is in a certain location. Other docs have told me that the banging I took knocked debris into my inner ear canal, & there is nothing to be done.

The whole experience taught me to avoid ERs unless I have a really acute emergency, like actually bleeding from a head wound. My mistake was to go back to them because of the dizzyness and throwing up - but what did I know? I was scared.

17

3-5 hours?! What crazy, fast-paced, in and out hospital do you go to? Must be nice. :wink: The last time I was in the ER (taken by ambulence, so it was legit), I was there for almost 8 hours!

Ninja Chick, when you’re in serious pain, it seems like an emergency at the time. Sometimes good judgment goes out the window when you’re out of your mind with pain.

18

Hear, hear! I used to be an ER volunteer: it’s all about triage. Part of my job was talking with the patients, and I can’t count the number of times I had to carefully explain to someone that it took so long for them to be seen because of the number of sicker people who were also present. There were always some folks who could not understand that, in some circumstances, “first come, first served” just doesn’t work. It was an ER, not McDonald’s!

Anecdotally, I’ve only been to an ER once for myself: when I was in college, I scratched my cornea. I had a pretty long wait, but they at least found me a side room that I could sit in with the light off (my hurt eye was extremely sensitive to light). I didn’t have to wait as long as I’d expected to, though – maybe having an eye injury got me a little higher up the triage food chain. :wink:

The most recent ER trip I’ve made was with a friend who had kidney stones: he was literally doubled over, and they processed him right away.

19

I’ve dealt with absessed teeth and plenty of earaches. Earaches are worse.I have been where Ludovic is. I could never understand why a dentist has no problem giving you Vicodin for a painful swollen tooth, but a ER doc sends you home with an antibiotic, and nothing else. I’ve had my eardrum rupture after a doctor sent me home telling me that it couldn’t possibly be as bad as I was saying it was. I know my own body better than anyone.I’ve had tubes in my ears for blockage 3 times as a child and 3 times as an adult. Why do so many doctors treat patient’s like drug abusing idiots?

One other thing…Why the hell is the pain always worse at 3 a.m. when the ER is the only possible place to go?

20

So impaired judgement is now a valid excuse to do things? Does that apply to being drunk, too? Anyway - I’m very skeptical that pain that intense develops all the sudden.

FWIW, I’ve been taken to the ER once, after a car accident. I didn’t want to go, but I was 12 and my father insisted I go, for the severe trauma of a scraped-up leg. They put me in a curtained-off bed right away, because apparently that’s what you get when you bog down ambulance services, too. A nurse slapped some ice on my injured leg and we proceeded to wait for about eight hours, so a doctor could come in, tell me to try to stay off my leg for a day or two, and bill us a ridiculous amount of money for the privilage. I guess he needed a new yacht or something. :rolleyes: