No 911 service here in Kenya :-(
Nairobi has pretty good medical facilities though. We fly in from neighboring Uganda.
Just had a heart attack
201–210 of 219 posts
Re: Just had a heart attack
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 16%[1][2] of Americans don't have health insurance. While the situation you describe is tragic and too common, it is a gross exaggeration to say it's "typical." Someone unfamiliar with the United States would read what you wrote and assume that this is the usual situation, when in fact it is relatively rare. Should something be done to help that 16%? Yes, of course. Is it common? No. [1] http://www.gallup.com/p…
It is often typical for those with health insurance. Back in 2009, 75% of the families bankrupted by medical bills in the US had health insurance. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/04/us-healthcare-bank...
This does not tell us that it's "typical" for those with health insurance in any sense. It tells us only that bankrupcies of insured people are often caused by health bills. This does not imply the inverse, that insured people's health bills often cause bankruptcies.
This is reasoning backwards: you are starting with the conclusion you'd like to see (that bankruptcy is typical for people with health insurance), then trying to adapt the evidence to fit that conclusion. Let's try it the other way around, looking at the data first, and then drawing conclusions:
There were about 1 million non-business bankruptcies in the US in 2013[1]. Reuters says that 60% of them were caused by health bills, and of those, 75% had insurance. Taking the bankruptcy and the Reuters figures at face value, this gives us about (1m * 60%) = 600,000 bankruptcies due to medical bills in the US annually; and of those, (600k * 75%)=450k had health insurance.
Going by the earlier Census.gov figure that 16% of Americans are uninsured, and a US population of about 316 million[2], this means that about 265 million Americans have health insurance.
We can then calculate that of those American who have health insurance, only 0.17% (450k/265m) wind up in bankruptcy due to medical bills; in other words, 99.83% of Americans with health insurance do not wind up in bankruptcy.
I think we can thus safely say that it is definitely not typical for an American with health insurance to wind up in bankruptcy due to health bills. It does happen, but it's very rare.
[1] http://news.uscourts.gov/bankruptcy-filings-drop-12-percent-...
Re: Just had a heart attack
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 16%[1][2] of Americans don't have health insurance. While the situation you describe is tragic and too common, it is a gross exaggeration to say it's "typical." Someone unfamiliar with the United States would read what you wrote and assume that this is the usual situation, when in fact it is relatively rare. Should something be done to help that 16%? Yes, of course. Is it common? No. [1] http://www.gallup.com/p…
That's a peculiar interpretation of 16%. Something that is true for 1 in every 6 people surely isn't a rare event.
I said it is "relatively rare"; it is definitely not "typical," as the original poster wrote.
Re: Just had a heart attack
#204I had mine in 2006 at 32. Details http://davidcrow.ca/article/1130/barcamper
Make sure you go your an annual check up. Figure out how to get some exercise. And pay attention to the warning signs.
Worst part for me was the 8 hours waiting for troponin levels. Well and the angiogram/pasty/stent.
Re: Just had a heart attack
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is often typical for those with health insurance. Back in 2009, 75% of the families bankrupted by medical bills in the US had health insurance. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/04/us-healthcare-bank...
This does not tell us that it's "typical" for those with health insurance in any sense. It tells us only that bankrupcies of insured people are often caused by health bills. This does not imply the inverse, that insured people's health bills often cause bankruptcies. This is reasoning backwards: you are starting with the conclusion you'd like to see (that bankruptcy is typical for people with health insurance), then…
That's the yearly percentage, not the lifetime percentage. The chance of something happening to someone in a given year is vastly smaller than the chance of something happening to someone during their life.
So if 600,000 medical bankruptcies a year happen, how does that compare to other yearly numbers? Well, there are about 4 million births a year in the USA, so someone being born in the USA happens only 7 times more often than someone becoming bankrupt through medical bills.
It may have been slightly inaccurate to use the word typical, however these figures seem to indicate that it is at least fairly common.
Re: Just had a heart attack
#206Glad you are ok. I've heard this advice before and always wondered what degree of pain qualified. If you are up to it, would you mind describing the chest pains you were having?
It was a dull ache that slow spread through my whole chest. Also, my teeth stare to hurt, and I got chills / cold sweat. That was enough for me to pull the trigger on calling 911.
Re: Just had a heart attack
#207You're quite lucky that you could afford that hospital trip. In the US, it would typically go like "My doctor made some tests and he said that it doesn't look like a heart attack but something is wrong with one of the lines on my ECG. He asked me if its ok to call the ambulance for doing more checks at the hospital. I said no, I can't afford that. So I died four weeks later." This isn't an exaggeration. Many people l…
He is in the US? UNC Chapel Hill hospital?
Yes.
Re: Just had a heart attack
#208One time I came back from a ski week with friends, I was feeling weak and had pain in my chest on the left. I fall gently on the floor and said to my friends I had pain on my heart, they panicked a little and quickly called the emergencies, I described my symptoms to the operator and they promptly told me it only was intercostal pain, that I should eat and rest for the day. The pain sometimes come back when I lift or run an move my arms, it is slythly annoying, I just hope it won't dull me from a real sign.
Re: Just had a heart attack
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Literally yesterday I treated a patient who has had 4 presentations this year to emergency with chest pain that sounds cardiac enough, except it lasts for several hours sometimes and sometimes she can 'feel it coming on' and heD it off by relaxing. Still, it could always be a heart attack and until a through work up is done to exclude it (acutely, ECG and troponins, as outpatient, stress test), it is worth investigat…
I suffer from anxiety and panic and have for years. Just reading this post and your post makes me anxious. The reason being I have seen a Cardiologist and had stress tests but years ago. 2 of them about 9-10 years ago after so many ER visits and then another about 5-6 years ago. All were fine. EKG's have always been normal as has blood work when I did go to the ER. At my primary care doctor EKG's have also always bee…
Hi there.
I'm sorry it caused you worry to read what I had written.
I was speaking largely in general terms - as I am sure you would be aware discussing medical situations, despite being medically trained, over the internet is not the best way to do things and I would hesitate to tell anyone that it is ok to sit at home and do nothing if they experience chest pain they are concerned about, it should be investigated at least once throughly.
It certainly does sound that if you are known to a cardiologist. have previously had negative stress tests and have had recurrent episodes of the same type of pain with negative ECG's then you have been worked up appropriately to exclude a cardiac cause. Your primary care doctor knows you much better than I ever can over the internet so I defer to their more expert opinion and interpretation of your recurrent presentations. Take solace in the fact that previous investigations have shown the pain to be non-cardiac in origin.
Re: Just had a heart attack
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which part is an exaggeration? The death? Hardly. It usually takes some time to get someone to an emergency room, so if their heart fully clogs, the outcome is often death. Or that people will usually forego seeking treatment because they can't afford to rack up huge bills? Again, not really an exaggeration. If you have a house that you live in with your spouse and child, then you need that house, and people will oft…
It is an exagerration to say that the situation you described was typical (though "too common" might fit). You implied that you could not obtain treatment if you cannot afford it. And now you're adding the largely fictional risk of losing your home into the mix. Yes, it is possible to lose your home in bankruptcy but only if the equity in your home exceeds your state's homestead exemption (often, but not always, $50,…
>And now you're adding the largely fictional risk of losing your home into the mix. Yes, it is possible to lose your home in bankruptcy but only if the equity in your home exceeds your state's homestead exemption (often, but not always, $50,000) by an amount large enough to make it worth selling.
So what about this is fiction? As the proud owner of a 1-million-dollar spinal cord injury treated within the US, I don't understand where the fiction starts. Also, I was insured.
(also, is 'largely fiction' synonymous with 'rarely'?)
"The risk of a head-on-collision during city driving is largely fictional." doesn't sound quite right.