I am the patient ER doctors make fun of...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

On Monday I went to see a GP for a complete checkup and referrals to the various doctors I am sure will want to poke me. It was mostly follow-up on a condition that was AFAIK resolved, but I have moved to another city and need to see new doctors.

The good doc sent me for a bunch of tests, prompting my husband to complain “why they are not more like the doctors of old times? They just saw you and gave you treatment without any tests”*. I had to remind him that in those days “treatment” consisted of such things as blood-letting and trepanation.

Anyways… I got most of the tests done Monday and go home, I have to go back on Friday to see the doctor.

I had some heartburn all day, but I didn’t mention it to the doctor because it didn’t feel serious, or bothered me too much. So I go home and have a small meal about 4 hours after lunchtime has passed. Then it hit me. Chest pain, tight chest, shortness of breath… It’s not the first time it happens lately but it is much worse this time. Two hours later the pain is still there.

My husband convinces me to go to the ER, just in case. The ER doctor is not entirely pleased, there are a few patients bleeding in the nearby examination booths, another is on the way. I don’t look like an emergency patient. They take my vitals and in the course of an hour do some tests, including and EKG. I am not having a heart attack, and the doctor starts acting like I am out of my mind. I assure him that I have never being to the ER if I wasn’t bleeding.

I am dismissed and told to go see the doctor on Friday as scheduled, I am given a report to give to the doctor and I see it: the diagnosis is a term that doctors use to indicate that the patient is probably just making it up (more or less). I am not happy.

Last night I had it again, it was bad, and today I have only eaten very small amounts of food after noticing that my pain comes after eating (along with bad heartburn).

Two more days of this shit… At least I am probably losing some weight out of this.

:mad:
*My husband is trained as a paramedic. He was joking.

2

What was the term?

Perhaps if you gave voice to your displeasure and indicated you knew what the term meant, you could put their feet to the fire a bit?

3

I’m curious too. If it was “idiopathic” that just means “we have no clue what’s causing this.” I’ve seen it in charts where something is obviously wrong and the problem can be directly observed by the doctor, but they just don’t know the cause.

4

I think almost all medical people would tell you to go to the ER with chest pain.

My 37 yr. old husband sat in the ER for 6 hours after an EKG test did not indicate a heart attack, waiting for blood test results (the enzymes show if heart damage did in fact occur) which, surprise surprise, indicated he DID have a heart attack. EKGs don’t show heart attacks that occur on the back of the heart (or something like that)

Don’t feel bad that the doctor was a jerk. He shouldn’t’ve made you feel like you were wasting his time. He should’ve joined you in relief that you were not in fact having a heart attack.

I’ve gone twice to the ER with chest pain that wouldn’t go away. Both times I was reluctant to go, but it seemed like the prudent thing to do. Both times it turns out I was fine and I was treated courteously by the ER staff ( and one time I had the pleasure of being checked out by what has got to be the handsomest resident ever. He was like a soap opera doctor!).

People who do not match the usual heart attack patient stereotype DO have heart attacks and people have the symptoms of heart attacks turn out not to be having them all the time. The only way to sort them out is to do the tests, not to treat people like hysterical idiots.

sorry your doctor wasn’t the best. Don’t let it interfere with making reasonable decisions in the future.

5

Sorry to hear about the chest pains. :frowning:

If it makes you feel any better, I totally thought this was going to be a story about how you got a sexual aid stuck in your anus and had to go to the emergency room to have it removed.

6

If it makes you feel any better, I went to the ER with similar symptoms twice and twice was sent home after they ruled out anything major to do with my heart. The first time, they said the only thing they could figure was “maybe pleurisy.” The second time was much more interesting, because they sent me home without a diagnosis, but my GP told me (over the phone, no less, laughing his ass off*) the diagnosis based on a CT-scan was “congestive heart failure 90%.”

It turned out to be my gallbladder going bad. Took a full year of having enough weird chest pains for my GP to check my gb on a hunch of mine – sure enough, the pain was just in a strange place.
*he was laughing because he knew that at the time, I was doing weekly Pilates classes – he actually said, “don’t worry about it – the doctor that read that CT-scan doesn’t know you. If you were in CHF – especially at that level – you wouldn’t be able to walk across the room, let alone do Pilates!” He did do several other tests on my ticker just to be sure. We have no clue what prompted the diagnosis, though – it was just way out there!

7

Heh! That would have just been embarrassing, I am not sure if I prefer painful over embarrassing.
The term he used, Síndrome Vertiginoso (in Spanish) means I was dizzy, which I somewhat was, but I had being told by my aunts (two ER nurses) that it’s *sometimes *used to mean “patient complains of not feeling well, but damn If we know why”. My biggest complain was the chest pain, not the dizziness.

8

Interesting thing Litoris. I have gallbladder stones, have had them for quite a while. The doctor was talking me into taking care of them before I had an attack and it was convenient for me…

Things to ponder.

9

As Litorismentioned, it’s gallbladder.

Well, I know we aren’t supposed to diagnose or anything, but, unless yours is gone, I’ll bet that’s what it is.

10

Obviously, that’s not tractable with heartburn. What is the difference between chest pain and heartburn?

11

I had to take my daughter to the emergency room last week (she’s OK, just a severely sprained knee) and the check in had a big sign saying “Please tell us IMMEDIATELY if you are having chest pains.”

12

My 49-yr-old cousin had heartburn and discomfort last week - took some antacid, burped, declared that he felt much better, and went to bed. Never woke up. We suspect it was a heart attack, but the autopsy results aren’t back yet.

Never use the “mini-bullet” in that way, always choose the one that’s on a cord that leads to the battery case. Yep. :wink:

13

When I went to the ER I mentioned the heartburn in passing, the chest pain was my biggest concern.

14

They didn’t say it was a panic attack, did they? Those may be “all in your mind”, but they’re quite real, as anyone who has ever had one can tell you. They can feel like a heart attack (though not all of them do).

Mayo Clinic’s site on the difference.

15

Well, I mean, when I have heartburn, I have chest pain right in the middle. Obviously I can’t go to the ER every time I have heartburn. How do you tell the difference between chest pain and heartburn?

16

That was my thought too.

I hope you feel better soon, Mighty_Girl.

17

Reading the OP, it sounded a lot like my sister’s gallbladder attacks. Going to the ER for chest pain is absolutely what you should have done, as others here have mentioned. If you’re still getting these pains, be consistent and be adamant. Your health is more important than being a non-annoying patient!

18

I am also greatly disappointed. :frowning:

Could you just make something up for the pervs in the audience?

19

I hear you. My heart went into SVT last summer, as it has on several occasions, and I went to the ER to get a shot of adenosine to slow it back down. I always have chest pain for a few days afterward, but this time it didn’t stop and was accompanied by shortness of breath. Over the course of the next few weeks, I repeatedly went to the ER with chest pain and shortness of breath, and they just told me it was not a heart attack and I should see my primary care physician. Problem is, if I call my primary care physician and tell him I have chest pain, guess where he sends me? I finally get him to refer me to a cardiologist, and they do a stress test, which I can’t even finish, but somehow pass. Now it’s been about 7 months, and I still have chest pain. They have no clue what’s wrong with me, but if I went to the ER every time I have symptoms of a heat attack, I’d live there.

20

Heartburn goes away, chest pain doesn’t. I know there have been cases where people thought it was just heartburn when it was really a heart attack and vice versa, but for me – the chest pain I felt was very, very, very different from indigestion and heartburn. It was PAIN. Because it continued for more than an hour without any change, I went to the ER. But I will tell ya that the pain in my chest was nothing compared to the pain when they stuck my wrist for a blood gas test. Oy Vey!