# My love for Student Health Services cannot be expressed with mere words... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 4, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694 "2005-04-04T17:47:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/21 "2005-04-06T09:48:58Z")
> [@elfbabe](#): > > … **Filmgeek** , I think that story wins. I think FOAF stories can be instantly discounted. So much for fighting ignorance. The OP is bullshit. If you can’t remember measurements, don’t make them up. ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/22 "2005-04-06T19:05:08Z")
> [@Go You Big Red Fire Engine](#): > > I think FOAF stories can be instantly discounted. > > So much for fighting ignorance. The OP is bullshit. If you can’t remember measurements, don’t make them up. First of all, this wasn’t a friend of a friend. She was my neighbor in the dorms. I’d give you names and dates, but you still wouldn’t believe me so why should I bother? Second, why are you even in here if you’re just going to shit on this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/23 "2005-04-06T23:32:26Z")
> [@FilmGeek](#): > > First of all, this wasn’t a friend of a friend. She was my neighbor in the dorms. I’d give you names and dates, but you still wouldn’t believe me so why should I bother? > > Second, why are you even in here if you’re just going to shit on this thread? In the object of fighting ignorance? That IS what we do here right? He blatantly made stuff up in the OP and no-one calls him on it? ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/24 "2005-04-06T23:44:03Z")
This is the Pit, **Go**. Lighten up. He’s sick, and he may have exaggerated. BFD. It’s still fun to tell stories about shitty college student health. ---
**Author:** ![Iacob\_Matthew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Iacob\_Matthew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iacob_Matthew)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/25 "2005-04-07T02:07:01Z")
> [@choosybeggar](#): > > Student health doctors know that their patient population–young, healthy adults–consists of a hearty lot. Almost no matter what the doctor does, you’ll bounce back. This is prolly part of the problem. Being Syrian-Israelite-Ukranian, “very pale” for me looks like “normal color” if I don’t have my beard. Twice my normal pulse is still unhealthy, but it’s nothing that’d floor anybody to look at. So I’m used to toughing out smaller stuff with fluids and bedrest. I haven’t been to the doctor for anything but a checkup in three years, and I rarely even take Advil, so it quickly convinces me I’m feeling oh-so-very-much better. As to mis-remembering, I sez what I saw. If the nurse writes in a Seriff font, you can add 5 to the Systolic, but that’d be a really damned wierd thing for a nurse to do. Aaannd… for a day, I thought “The doctor actually ain’t such a putz after all. This \*perscription[/I Tylenol’s actually doing something!” And, while I was hopped up on Acetominophen and Codiene, that seemed to be the case. My tongue still had the greenish-white film on it, but I was actually able to go to class with only headaches and chills. Thusly, after class, I just eat rather than take a pill with my food, and go study on the lawn for a few hours, since it’s a beautiful day today. I was about to come here and write some worship of the student pharmacy whenever it got dark enough to justify coming back. After about an hour, studying turns into a series of fifteen minute naps, and I start to feel cold. I get in my room, turn the heat on, and go for a six-hour nap. I take the tylenol and now I’m here, still happy with the pharmacy but hating the doc just as much as I used to. But, at least I got to learn that I was contagious in a fun and interesting way. My roommate, when sick, screams “Vagina!” in his sleep. Not “pussy,” not “punani,” but “vagina.” And he uses the perfect voice of absolute terror. Almost makes his taking my Tylenol worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/26 "2005-04-07T03:35:35Z")
> [@FilmGeek](#): > > Ooh, I’ve got a student health story! > > A friend in the dorms was having headaches and **seizures** , and she found a lump behind her ear. She went to student health after she fell and hit her head during a seizure and they diagnosed her with… > wait for it… > _depression_. The prescription? Birth control pills. > > Her mother found out about the lump and took her to a neurologist. Seems that she had a hole in her skull and her brain had herniated through it, causing this lump of brain tissue to be squeezed by her broken skull. She had emergency surgery and they removed a large portion of her temporal lobe. > > I still think she should’ve raised a stink with SH about the shitty diagnosis. So now you have to tell us which school this was and when. Shame on you for not dishing out the full dirt. And yes, if it’s not past any statue of limitations, your friend should file a malpractice suit immediately. It is incomprehensable why they should brush-off an acute onset head lump. **iacob** , glad you are feeling better. From your symptoms, what you’ve got sounds pretty viral, which means that the doctors probably couldn’t have done much more than supportive care. Still, they could have been more cautious. Shit like this is how meningitis gets spread around. And shame on you for gaming in that condition! Gamers are a precious resource! ---
**Author:** ![choosybeggar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@choosybeggar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choosybeggar)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/27 "2005-04-07T21:15:02Z")
> [@FilmGeek](#): > > Ooh, I’ve got a student health story! > > A friend in the dorms was having headaches and **seizures** , and she found a lump behind her ear. She went to student health after she fell and hit her head during a seizure and they diagnosed her with… > wait for it… > _depression_. The prescription? Birth control pills. > > Her mother found out about the lump and took her to a neurologist. Seems that she had a hole in her skull and her brain had herniated through it, causing this lump of brain tissue to be squeezed by her broken skull. She had emergency surgery and they removed a large portion of her temporal lobe. > > I still think she should’ve raised a stink with SH about the shitty diagnosis. I need to reply to this like I need a hole in my head [cymbal crash] In my experience, co-eds with head holes are vanishingly rare. Any idea how your neighbor got one? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by **Iacob\_Matthew** _ > > As to mis-remembering, I sez what I saw. I’ll give you 10:1 odds that the temperature you reported was innacurate and 2:1 than any heart rate over 145 was inaccurate as well. Glad to hear you’re recovering, though. My sore throat is better too. Choosy (MD) ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/28 "2005-04-07T22:26:13Z")
I wouldn’t dare presume to make a diagnosis without examining a patient, but the details in the OP could certainly be consistent with strep or mono. It really makes a difference how thoroughly the doctor examines the patient. The OP doesn’t tell me. One of my friends suffered from a sore throat and fatigue for a few weeks. She visited the doctor numerous times, was checked for strep, and told she was fine. I met her for lunch, and was shocked at how sick she looked. I could see her swollen lymph nodes from across the room. I made her go back to the doctor and demand to be tested for mono (the doctor insisted it couldn’t be mono because she was almost forty). Sometimes just having a diagnosis and knowing the predicted course will help (yes, she had mono, and cancelled the two week kayaking trip she had planned the next week-with the test results, she was able to get a full refund). As to my student health story…As a senior, I slipped and fell. I felt my ankle go _crack_. Security took me to student health where the nurses made me stay overnight until a doctor could examine me. The following morning, the doctor said “I hope you’re not staying in the infirmary just because you sprained your ankle.” I explained that the nurses had made me stay, and asked him what if I had broken it. He replied “Even if it’s broken, they won’t do anything until the swelling goes down. The orthopedists come twice a week. Come back in four days and they’ll check you.” I hobbled home, on crutches that they gave me (adjusted to different heights, as I finally realized when I kept falling to the left). Four days later, I finally left my room (thank goodness for pizza delivery). The orthopedist looked at the x-ray for less than 10 seconds before telling me I needed immediate surgery for my broken ankle, and that it really should have been done immediately. Now 20 years later, I have arthritis in that ankle with permanent swelling. Not that I’m bitter… Coda…Flash forward 7 years to when I finished my residency. Among the piles of mail with unsolicited job offers, there was one that read: _ **Have you ever considered working in a Student Health Service?** _ You guessed it-it was from my undergraduate school, and signed by the doctor who sent me home. Like I said, I’m still upset-not that he missed the diagnosis, but that he treated me like crap. I like to think it made me a slightly better doctor. ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/29 "2005-04-07T22:40:42Z")
My location should give a huge flashing red light as to what school is involved, and the time was the Spring of 1997. Apparently (and I heard this one third hand, so I don’t know how accurate it is) it was a congenital abnormality of the skull. That sounds fishy, but that’s what I was told. The removal of her brain tissue caused some pretty drastic personality changes (which caused her friends to pull away, as we just got screamed at all the time) and a couple of suicide attempts. I think she and her family wanted to put everything behind them when it was all over, and so didn’t pursue legal action. This is all conjecture on my part, though, as she stopped talking to her friends after we all came back from summer break. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/30 "2005-04-08T04:39:06Z")
> [@FilmGeek](#): > > This is the Pit, **Go**. Lighten up. He’s sick, and he may have exaggerated. BFD. It’s still fun to tell stories about shitty college student health. Ahhhh, so it’s alright to exaggerate in the pit. :rolleyes: Why don’t you rock on over to that [even sven trainwreck](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=310415) and remind them then? ---
**Author:** ![VampyChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5daacb/32.png) [@VampyChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VampyChick)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694/31 "2005-04-08T05:47:20Z")
Ugh, Student Health. TMI–They diagnosed my roommate with _herpes_ when what she had was a bad yeast infection (because obviously it must be an STD). Of course, since she didn’t actually have what she was being medicated for, the medication did not help. And her system was fucked up from mono that summer, so it actually made her sick. Really sick. She was sleeping something like fourteen hours a day. She was acting half-dead for a week before I and her mother persuaded her to go to a _real_ doctor. The only time I ever went in, I was _obviously_ sick–red eyes, sneezing every five seconds, and I had lost my voice completely. I was there to get my study abroad form filled out, but I wrote on my check-in slip that I was also sick. So the doctor did his very brief examination and filled the form, stating that I was in perfect health, and sent me on my way. I was later told that if I’d written ‘flu’ on the check-in form, I’d have gotten five days out of class, no questions asked. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-love-for-student-health-services-cannot-be-expressed-with-mere-words/297694.md?page=1)