191–200 of 333 posts
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I've had PCS my entire life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precordial_catch_syndrome Definitely not worth going to the ER for.
Wow, thank you so much! I've had this my entire life, but never knew what it was, and never met anyone else who also got it. It's nice to be able to put a name to it.
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"What’s the biggest single factor that puts you at risk for ignoring your health? Being a man. Sociologist Lisa Wade, interviewed in New York Magazine, says that 'some scholars argue that being male is the single strongest predictor of whether a person will take health risks.' Men like risk it turns out. Most of them also hate putting lotion on their skin (too girly) and being afraid of things (not manly). They are a…
About a decade ago, I got a physical after having not set foot in a doctor's office in about 12 years. The doctor asked what made me come to get a physical after so long, and when I said nothing in particular, he pretended to write on his clipboard "Wife made me come here." He said middle-aged guys with no obvious health problems pretty much only come to the doctor for one (or both) of two reasons: Their wife made th…
I was very sickly as a child. Every doctor's visit did nothing to change this (it wasn't even "Hmm, you have a trend", it was "oh, you have a cold/bonchitis/etc.) It wasn't until I was 30 that I learned I was allergic to pollen, molds, dustmites, cats, dogs, and rats - basically everything that won't kill you (no food allergies I've nailed down) - and that discovery was made when my symptoms suddenly got dramatically worse for months, and I pinned down the only three things that had changed in that time and went to an allergist myself.
Each winter for several years since then I would get bronchitis, and the coughing and shortness of breath would last for months. Every doctor told me to take some Delsym and wait 4-8 weeks. I eventually pieced together that this is my allergies (which, while treated, aren't gone) draining into lungs overnight and slowly being coughed up during the day. Some anti-inflammatory treatment that is now legal in Washington turns out to have stopped that for the last few winters.
I've had two rounds of kidney stones in the last 5 years (each involving at least two stones, because apparently the inflammation from a kidney stone tends to "shake more loose") - Doctors couldn't do much beyond painmeds and flowmax. (First time though, I had a $1000 CT scan (I think it was CT - I get CT and MRI mixed up) because the doc suggested it.)
I had pneumonia once - didn't realize it, it was just a bad cold/cough that got dramatically worse. Calling my doctor for an appt gave me something in 3 days. Day of, I wasn't sure I would be breathing by the time of the appt, so I was going to go to the ER. (which would have been ridiculously expensive). My wife took me to a local urgent care clinic (PatientFirst in VA) because she was worried about the wait time at the ER. They were awesome, saw me immediately as I walked in (they could hear me breathing), did in-house xray of my lungs and o2 sensor. Now that I'm in Seattle, the local clinics work differently - they REALLY want you to have a primary care physician. I recall a doctor there once saying that's because they want someone to coordinate your care, maintain a big picture view, and proactively look into potential issues. I told her I'd never had a PCP do any of those things)
I'm not knocking medical science - it's a near impossible job: "Debug this program to which you don't have the source code, can't control or even know all the environment and inputs, and if you crash it someone dies". It's amazing they can do what they can, and in certain circumstances they are responsible for saving and improving a lot of lives (see above having pneumonia).
But the reality is that if I went to the doctor every time some part of me hurt (and now that I'm 40, that's a lot of parts) based on my past experiences, I'd just spend a lot of time and money and be not much better off. So I'm all for being cautious on big things like chest pains. I'm all for knowing the warning signs of stroke, heart attack, and the like. But going to the doctor for every little thing? Seems a waste.
I sat on a "weird pain" in my chest for a few days. Basically it was uncomfortable to sleep on my left side, and I felt a bit short of breath. Turns out I was suffering from a double pulmonary embolism , and that the only reason I wasn't doubled over in pain is because by an odd fluke of nature, the interior of the lungs do not have nerve endings (only the exterior) and had I waited any longer I could have died. At t…
"What’s the biggest single factor that puts you at risk for ignoring your health? Being a man. Sociologist Lisa Wade, interviewed in New York Magazine, says that 'some scholars argue that being male is the single strongest predictor of whether a person will take health risks.' Men like risk it turns out. Most of them also hate putting lotion on their skin (too girly) and being afraid of things (not manly). They are a…
There's a difference between taking risks (if you take risks, and bad things happen as a result, that's often outside of your control; e.g. sharks when swimming in the ocean, there's always a risk) and self-neglect, which is within your control. Self-neglect is a consequence of low self-esteem, and has nothing to do with masculinity. This may be uncouth, but: think of the men who you think are least masculine, and ask yourself if they nurture themselves more, go more to the gym, and eat better. If anything, the opposite is true.
The real problem is self-neglect, whose root cause is low self-esteem.
I don't think women's average self-esteem is any higher or lower than men's, but theirs manifests itself in different ways, which explains why women would be more conscientious of their physical health, and push men to do the same. Still doesn't change the nature of the problem, or its real solution.
I sat on a "weird pain" in my chest for a few days. Basically it was uncomfortable to sleep on my left side, and I felt a bit short of breath. Turns out I was suffering from a double pulmonary embolism , and that the only reason I wasn't doubled over in pain is because by an odd fluke of nature, the interior of the lungs do not have nerve endings (only the exterior) and had I waited any longer I could have died. At t…
My wife did this last year. Out of an abundance of caution they checked in her into the hospital for 8 hours and ran a battery of tests. A full work day and $30k in medical bills later they didn't find anything. By then she felt fine and went home. I'm not faulting the original advice, but medical intervention can be expensive and frustrating.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"What’s the biggest single factor that puts you at risk for ignoring your health? Being a man. Sociologist Lisa Wade, interviewed in New York Magazine, says that 'some scholars argue that being male is the single strongest predictor of whether a person will take health risks.' Men like risk it turns out. Most of them also hate putting lotion on their skin (too girly) and being afraid of things (not manly). They are a…
It's not popular these days to claim that there are differences between men and women.
For example, I know lots of people that want women to be able to be in combat roles in the military. I've not heard anyone suggest that any qualification standard that actually applies to fitness to do so be lowered. Given the biological range of the genders, this would mean that:
* there would be women who physically qualify * that number would be less than men that physically qualify
...and everyone seems okay with this.
Frankly, I've heard far more people get angry about some theoretical upset person than I've ever seen actual upset persons.
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The idea of a 'routine checkup' is an American thing as far as I can tell. I've lived in the UK and New Zealand and adults only go to the doctor when there's something wrong, or if you have known chronic conditions. You certainly don't have regular blood tests.
How do they catch things like kidney disease early? I have stage four kidney disease and there are barely any symptoms. Stage five means dialysis. For me it is too late to properly fix it but if caught early with regular blood tests there are ways to slow it down. My feeling is regular blood tests are a necessity for many health issues.
I sat on a "weird pain" in my chest for a few days. Basically it was uncomfortable to sleep on my left side, and I felt a bit short of breath. Turns out I was suffering from a double pulmonary embolism , and that the only reason I wasn't doubled over in pain is because by an odd fluke of nature, the interior of the lungs do not have nerve endings (only the exterior) and had I waited any longer I could have died. At t…
>If there's any unusual pain in your chest cavity at all, just drop whatever it is you're doing and get it checked out. My wife did this last year. Out of an abundance of caution they checked in her into the hospital for 8 hours and ran a battery of tests. A full work day and $30k in medical bills later they didn't find anything. By then she felt fine and went home. I'm not faulting the original advice, but medical i…
The USA tells us their model of capitalism is the best. They apply their system to healthcare. It utterly fails to deliver versus "socialist" solutions.
At what point are you guys going to join the dots on this contradiction?
I've had several more subsequently and went straight to hospital each time. Thankfully I haven't had a recurrence in years now, but I learned the same lesson the author of this post did - you shouldn't ignore chest pain.
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Those are the best kinds of headlines for most informational writing. Look at a newspaper from the early 1900s. You can skim just the headlines in a minute and have a pretty good idea what's gone on. EDIT: see: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/New_York... Basically an unbeatable news consumption interface. Notice even the smaller headlines down the page, which are either independent lower-importanc…
That's great, but it's totally irrelevant to the style of writing linked here.
I sleep with my Fitbit Charge 2 on my wrist, and I found that the Resting Heart Rate value is extremely sensitive to what happens with my body. Drank a little alcohol? See a change on my Resting Heart Rate value for that night. Got too much stress, or maybe spent a day at home without exercise? Yes, I see it on the graph. So my question is whether such an event as the one that is described would be clearly visible to…
The story includes a lot of things that sound like heart attack symptoms. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-attack/i...