Worst Illness/Injury You've Not Sought Medical Attention For

[Siam_Sam]

Dengue fever. I contracted it in northern Thailand in 1989. It made me so sick I could barely move. Everyone I knew thought I was out of town, because I was planning to go somewhere, so no one stopped by. I had no choice but to ride it out. I finally recovered to a reasonable extent a couple of days after enduring the worst part. It was over by the time I’d made it to a doctor in Bangkok, because I wasn’t about to trust any of them up there.

[GrumpyBunny]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Someone upthread beat me to it, but: had a kidney stone, and went to the hospital because I assumed I was dying; got another kidney stone years later, knew what I was up against, passed it at home because, hey, it’s insane agony either way, right?

Exactly. The hospital gives you enough morphine so you don’t scream in agony while you’re there, but don’t provide to-go cups.

[QUOTE=chizzuk]

Stomach flu. I couldn’t keep any liquids down for about 36 hours and by the end was so thirsty, dizzy, and weak I thought I might go mad. It took four days before my resting heart rate dropped below 120 because I was so dehydrated and took such a long time to bounce back. Should have gone to get IV fluids.
[/QUOTE]

I had one where I was so sick that I was hallucinating. I wouldn’t have gone to the ER but my roommate and BF were concerned. Good thing, too.

[The_Stainless_Steel_Rat]

@Missy2U

Broken nose, ribs, fingers, toes, concussion, cuts that should have had stitches, busted up face. And broken teeth but I don’t know if that counts.

So, you’ve been sparring with Rhonda Rousey? :D:D:cool:

[Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil]

@gallows_fodder

E. coli poisoning. (Or, I’m 99% sure it was e. coli poisoning, since, you know, I didn’t go to the doctor to confirm.) I sure had the tell-tale symptoms, though, gah!

That reminds me: this doesn’t entirely fit the bill but… When I was 11 years old, I had a severe case of food poisoning that lasted over two weeks before I could eat anything without vomiting or diarrhea. Unlike every other food-borne illness I’ve ever had, it began with a fever (not stomach problems) and the fever lasted for many days. For the first week or so, I couldn’t keep anything down (even water) and got the dry heaves, and was so weak I couldn’t get out of bed even to use the bathroom when it was necessary. My family and I were on vacation in Spain, and both of my parents are fluent in Spanish, but for some reason they waited for days before taking me to a medical clinic. The doctor there just prodded my stomach a bit and told my parents to make me drink lemonade with baking soda in it. That was it.

So, yes, I did get medical attention, but it was woefully inadequate. (And, no surprise, I couldn’t keep the lemonade down, either, so that was useless.)

At some point I noticed that when I pushed the skin on the back of my hand around and let go, my skin would stay in that position – what I learned years later was a sign of moderate to severe dehydration. I also lost so much weight in just 2 weeks that my shorts would fall right off me unless the waistband was pinned. Looking back, I think I’m lucky I survived.

(And I still scratch my head a little at why my parents didn’t pursue better medical care for me. They even continued traveling on their planned itinerary like everything was normal, just leaving me in the car or hotel since I was too weak to walk around with them! Not their best moments of parenting, to say the least.)

E: And I still don’t know what illness I had! We assume it was food poisoning, but maybe it was cholera or something, who knows??

(Ok, it probably wasn’t cholera. :p)

Not as bad as yours but I experienced something similar a week after my first daughter was born. I spent a couple of days shivering, vomiting and connected to the toilets. The mere thought of moving a finger made me want to cry. I have never felt that weak and helpless in my life. Plus, I was terrified of contaminating our baby. I did not see a doctor, though.

But the first one I thought of was one I did get medical attention for but way too late. I tripped while opening a door and spilled a full cup of boiling hot coffee all over the floor. I started mopping up, which took me about 5 good minutes. Only when I was finished did I realize that my arm hurt. I pulled up my sleeve and saw the skin peeling off with the fabric. I had a nasty bright red burn about 12 cm above my wrist with a line of less badly scalded skin running up to the tip of my little finger.

I waited more than a week to see a doctor who told me there was not much he could do apart from prescribing some disinfecting cream. One day, I felt a stinging sensation on the edge of the burn and thought it was probably starting to heal. The next day, it looked less red and there was what appeared to be pale skin forming. About three weeks after the incident, the healing process was finished. The scar is still pretty obvious almost 6 years later to the day, about 5 cm long and 1 wide.

[GargoyleWB]

A couple of severe concussions that I should have gone to the ER for, lack of money and insurance kept me from going to get checked out.

A cracked rib that I should have had taped up and restricted activity. Took forever to heal since I kept aggravating it. Worst pain in my life while waiting to heal was a surprise sneeze that I didn’t brace for.

[Abner_Ravenwood]

Broke two vertebrae in my lower back, but didn’t find out about it until 6-7 years later when my doctor took an X-ray of my back in 2002.

Broke my foot in 2007 but didn’t realize it had broken until last year when it finally started to affect my running. I thought that it was just a really bad sprain. Had surgery last year to remove the bone spur.