What does it take for you?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Yes, that.

The only doctors I’ve seen since leaving my mother’s care are obstetricians for pregnancies (and I had two or three Paps done at Planned Parenthood sometime in the last 10 years.) In that time, I’ve had the following that I would have insisted anyone under my care go to see the doctor for:
[ul]Sprained (or broken, maybe) ankle. Eh, ice, elevate, take it easy, right?[/ul]
[ul]Persistent cough lasting 2+ weeks. Many times. Prob’ly bronchitis, but eh, it’s a cough, I’ll survive.[/ul]
[ul]Clinical depression (or, at least, I felt like I did back in the day when I was seeing a doctor and diagnosed properly with it). Eh, I feel sad. Boo-hoo, life sucks anyway. (This is only mostly a joke; I think the cruelest symptom of depression is how hard it makes it to seek help. But eventually, after a few years, I got better without treatment.)[/ul]
[ul]Vaginal (labial, actually) cysts - the girly equivalent of Cervaise’s nutsack issue. Eh, they swell, they hurt, they burst, they bleed, life goes on.[/ul]
[ul]Two miscarriages. Yeah, yeah, I should have seen someone to make sure the “contents” evacuated properly. Figured if it wasn’t smelly and didn’t hurt, it wasn’t infected.[/ul]

Mostly, though, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of what healthy is - or at least, “healthy enough” for a doctor to not be interested in me. I have a lot of alt medicine and herbal training, as well, which makes me more likely to try, say, an herbal compress for those cysts instead of home surgery. Philisophically, I feel like I’m responsible for my own health care, and when I get in over my head (which only I am allowed to define), then I’ll seek help - but usually that’s help from my acupuncturist/herbalist friends, before an MD. They’re free, you see.

Honestly, the depression is the only one I regret not getting treatment for. I hid that one too well, even from myself.

22

People. Really.

The Hospitals will see you, even if you ahve no insurance.

That being said, most states will have some sort of emergency coverage program. My wife had an emergency Apendectomy in California back in 2001, and we ended up paying I think $100 out of pocket, and the hospital was more than happy to have payment arrangements.

The Hospital will have more information. Just ask.

23

Right, but that’s not the problem. I HAVE insurance, so they won’t do indigent or charity care for me. I HAVE insurance, but it’s shitty insurance*. It costs me $2500 (after my $500 a month premiums) before the insurance will pay anything. So for a sprained ankle, I’m paying out of pocket.

I have insurance for things like my emergency c-section and my daughter’s 3.5 month NICU bill (which happened in the same year, obviously). Then we were able to scrape up the $5500 we needed to for the year, and everyone was happy. Without that insurance, we would have had to declare bankruptcy. With that insurance, I can’t afford preventative or non-emergency care.
*It’s shitty because it’s an individual policy, not a group one. It’s actually Blue Cross Blue Shield, so it’s not shitty like “Bob’s Health For U Insurance and Cheese Shoppe”.

24

I’m not insured. On top of that, I’m not a fan of taking medication. I very rarely get sick, so usually when I feel a little under the weather, I work out extra hard in the gym.

That’s really my insurance plan/medication: the gym.
Ooh, Bob’s Health For U Insurance and Cheese Shoppe? I’m intrigued!

25

In my adult life, I’ve been to the doctor fewer than ten times. For instance, when I had blood posioning from an infection, when I had a bike accident, when I got pneumonia, when I developed a pilonidal cyst. Otherwise, I haven’t been a sickly kind of guy. It’s a waste to go if you only have a cold. I don’t have any medical conditions that I’m aware of, and I take no medicine.

My wife and I have a doctor. He’s moved offices three times in the last ten years. I never saw him at the second location. I don’t think I’d recognize him if I saw him anywhere. There would have to be something really wrong with me before I’d even consider taking the day off work to sit in a waiting room for two hours beyond my appointment time, then an exam room for an hour, be seen for four minutes, and have to threaten to leave after having sat there an extra half hour because they were wasting my time. And that’s what they did the last time I went there, for a referral to an oral surgeon! I didn’t even need any medical treatment from the doctor! Screw that.

26

(missed the edit window)

I’ve never been to the hospital in my life (outside of visiting someone). I stay away from that place at all costs.

27

I agree. I have good insurance so, to me, the doctor is just like any other service, just a bit more expensive, time consuming and debasing.

I’ve had funny lumps taken off my head recently (benign cysts nobody but me even knows are there, because they are under my hair). No different from taking my car in for work. Well, except for the slight stabbing pain in the head and in the wallet.

And let’s avoid that old saw about men vs women regarding doctors. Years ago, my wife finally agreed to see a doctor about her bad back when she couldn’t actually stand up anymore and had to crawl around the house. Only took a couple of days of that. I believe it was because she had been through a long period without insurance so that her natural response was to wait and see.

28

FYI… what you’re describing sounds like a textbook migraine with aura, right down to the length of time between onset of the aura and progression to headache.

IANAD, obviously. I just speak from personal experience. The nurse likely wanted you to see a doc just to eliminate the possibility of a more severe neurological issue - not very likely, but a good CYA measure.

29

Yes, that was my self diagnoses later in the day yesterday as well. However, the visual descriptions didn’t really match what I saw. Close enough though.

I feel fine today, but the husband is demanding that I make a doctors appointment, so here I go on my search for a doctor that is taking new patients.

(This is also why I don’t go, it’s hard to get an appointment. If you go to the walk-in, it’s waiting for hours.)

30

I call my mother the ER nurse. If she’s not worried, I usually don’t have to go to the doctor. On the other hand, I usually go to the doctor anyway, since I was raised by an ER nurse. ER nurses don’t get worried unless it’s a sucking chest wound. Me and my brother have some interesting scars as a result of Mum going “Neh, you’re not gonna need stitches - I’m just going to hose this off and tape it up”.

So - I’m the family hypochondriac. I once made the mistake to go to the hospital where my brother and mother worked (bro also being an ER nurse at the time). There’s nothing quite as humiliating as sitting in an examining room with your family chuckling over your cut hand. Because their last patient was a guy who’d lopped off his fingers.

31

First, I’d have to learn how to set up a doctor’s appointment. I know 'll eventually have to figure it out, but thus far I’ve been lucky enough to not need to.

32

Only when my prescriptions run out or it hurts to pee. A bone sticking out, or enough bleeding to make me dizzy would probably motivate me a bit.

Otherwise, if I’m well enough to make the appointment, I figure the problem will eventually go away. When I’m not well enough to fight him off, hubby has been known to drag me to a doctor.

33

Up until three years ago, I never went to the doctor, except for annual pap smears.

But three years ago, I had an incident while at work while pooping, no less! I was constipated, and straining kind of hard, when a pain started in the back of my head and enveloped my whole head. I became dizzy and sweaty. I got off the toilet and buttoned up and staggered to the sinks to wash my face. We had a little couch in there, and I tried to lie down but the pain was horrible!

Somebody came in, and the company nurse came in and took my blood pressure, which was through the roof. They called an ambulance.

Turns out I had a brain bleed! A little bitty vessel in a membrane around my brain burst. Turns out I had high blood pressure. And diabetes. My sugar count was close to 400. :eek: It got better, but damn that was some headache. It lasted three weeks. I was in the hospital for 8 days.

So since then, I go in for regular checkups. I’m on meds for both conditions, and they have to be monitored.

I still won’t go for other stuff, though. I’ll wait until I have a pre-set appointment which is every couple of months.

34

Yeah, right. Even on unemployment paying me $250/week I make too much to qualify for the Oregon Health Plan and there’s an in between plan that only opens up about once every three years (last time they could only accept about 300 new patients) and I figure there are other people who need it more than I do. I don’t have any chronic health issues, y’see.

As for that emergency care shit, ask a friend of mine who got clocked in the head during a dispute with a family member. The cops said he could either get in the ambulance or get handcuffed and go to jail–he picked the ambulance. Stupid move–he has an income of ZERO and now he also has a bill for $8500 from the hospital and the ambulance. That’s transport of an ambulatory, oriented patient for three miles, then some time in the emergency room where he got checked for a concussion and had a butterfly bandage applied to a cut on his temple. Yes, he did inquire about hardship help and was told, sorry you lose, fuck off. The irony is that if he’d gone to jail they would have had to give him the exact same medical care, would have kicked him loose in the morning anyway and it would have cost him zilch.

Keep on dreaming about that oh-so-available low income health care assistance, because in a LOT of states, especially those that don’t have a tax base with the equivalent gross national product equivalent to a first world country there IS NO SUCH THING.

In can be November now, plz?

35

Takes back everything bad he ever said about the NHS

36

I’m not sure–count me as another person without convenient access to health care, through a combination of Insurance issues or lack there of, not having been to a doctor since I moved out of state, and lack of inclination.

I think the last time I went to the doctor, it was at my mother’s urging–I had a rash that the doctor thought was just an allergy. It’s not returned.

Last time I possibly should have gone to a doctor, a month ago. I fell repeatedly on ice, and sprained my wrist. This is a self-diagnosis, based on the lack of swelling or discoloration, but significant pain when I twist my wrist the wrong way. If I’d realized how badly it was going to hurt sooner after I fell, I might have gone to see a doctor, but I didn’t realize it was more painful than just general stiffness until Wednesday (I fell on Saturday). Had I been employed in a job where bending that wrist or lifting heavy stuff was important, I’d probably have sought a doctor, so there was more than just me saying “it really hurts, and I shouldn’t do stuff like this until it heals.”

37

I have been both. Prior to moving I never was without insurance so I always could go to a doctor, but I rarely did unless it was pretty bad. Then I moved to Holland and my choices in seeing my family doctor are 1) call him and see him that morning; 2) call during telephone hour and ask what he thinks; 3) walk over and drop in; 4) call him and have him come here that afternoon. Though you only get the last one if you are either really sick or likely to be contagious.

It’s so convenient I dropped by last week because I had a weird mark on my arm I couldn’t see well because of where it was. It turned out to be a bruise, but because of the family history of skin cancer the NP saw me right then and then thanked me for coming to have it looked at and scheduled my next full body mole counting while we were at it.

Universal health care is cool.

38

I have shitty health insurance, so I don’t go the doctors for preventive checkups (because those are not covered). Also, the only docs my insurance will cover are the ones associated with the university (student health insurance), and guess what? They close by the time I get out of my job (senior veterinary student, in clinics all freaking day long, and no, I don’t get a predetermined lunch hour).

I’m lucky that I am usually healthy, so I don’t need to go often… The last few times I’ve gone to the student health center:

  1. After being clawed by a red-tailed hawk. Nothing major, but it was a puncture wound, and some cleaning and tetanus shot was needed. They were ambivalent about the shot until I told them to give it to me, it had been 8 years since my last recorded shot, I needed it anyways for an externship in a few months, and I KNEW that hawk’s lifestyle and was not going to risk it.

  2. One big major knee bruise that happened after I fell from the stairs at the student union. I was able to tell the nurses and they spared some bandages and looked over to make sure I had clean the wound well.

  3. A non-stopping cough that I had for a month before getting it looked at. The health center then wasted another couple of weeks before finally putting me on antibiotics (whatever it was, it was bronchitis by the time I got there). The cough lasted 2 months.

  4. One UTI (it hurt to pee) episode that was not getting better with cranberry and pain meds. This was after I was rejected from the women’s clinic of the student health center (another rant). I had the UTI for about 2-3 weeks before getting it diagnosed and treated (thankfully it was not very painful, and not bloody).

39

My theory on men vs. doctors is that men generally look at doctors as body-mechanics.

What happens when you take your car to a mechanic? They find all kinds of stuff wrong…or at least “wrong” with your car.
Prognosis: expensive.

Therefore, men don’t want to see the doc because other than their minor complaint (or major complaint), they generally feel fine and don’t want to be told “By the way, you have high blood pressure, COPD, Type II diabetes and scurvy. Give me lots of money.”

Irrational? Sure.
Ultimately counterproductive? Definitely.
(stereo)Typical? Absolutely.

Will it ever change? Probably not.
But if it does, can we do something about womens’ shoe collections?

40

Pain that makes me unable to sleep or that hurts so bad it makes me get something in my eye.

Anything that could possibly be appendicitis. I dont know why but I dont mess around with appendicitis.

Ummm, bones popping out, hurts to pee, what else? Hallucinations would probably do it also.