Going to the doctor half the time feels like a waste anyways. No matter how sick I am, I’m never given medicine or antibiotics and I’m always told to wait a week to see if it gets worse. It already had to be a big deal for me to go the first time around, I’m basically done after that and resigned to suffering without help. The worst was when I had been perpetually sick with something for 5+ weeks right before Covid first hit, never got anything and doctor was just like, “Yeah, some colds or flus can go for that long.”
For physical injuries though, that shit is important and that seems like something they can treat, but anything else it’s just, “You’re on your own, good luck!”
The last time I went to the doctor was over a year ago, and it was because my mouth/throat was in so much pain I called my friend, who lived 30 minutes away, and begged her to come take me to urgent care while bawling my eyes out.
The initial nurse that comes in is this dude, and I hate male medical professionals when I’m male-presenting: it’s like this fucking machismo bullshit. He’s trying to do the thing where they swab your throat or are just looking back there, and he’s asking me to open wide, and I’m trying but I’m in excruciating pain and apparently couldn’t open wide enough.
So he drops his hands in this exasperated/annoyed gesture and goes, “C’mon man, it’s not that bad, open up.”
I lost it. “Get the FUCK out of this room and send the actual fucking doctor in here! How dare you tell me I’m not in fucking pain when I can’t fucking swallow or breathe without tears welling up! Get the FUCK away from me, NOW!!!” Funnily enough, my mouth was open plenty wide after I lost it on him, and he scurried out the room as soon as she got his swab.
Woman doctor comes in a few minutes later, sees me bawling my eyes out while my friend is comforting me. Doctor doesn’t give me any shit while she’s examining me, and turns out, I had a serious infection behind my tonsils, not strep like douchebag kept telling us it probably was while telling me to “man up.”
Doctor gave me some steroids and told my friend that my, “throat was in really bad shape,” and that she was putting in a rush order for antibiotics at the pharmacy. I was to take the pills immediately when we got home, and again roughly 4-6 hours later (this was around 4 o’clock).
She ended our visit with, “Listen, if you take the second pill around 10, and if you’re not feeling any better by 10:30, you need to go to the ER for emergency surgery, those tonsils are gonna go septic.” But “c’mon man, it’s not that bad.” 🙄
The pills worked, I survived, but my blood boils just thinking about the whole situation and how comfortable that dude was in his attitude towards patients in pain.
I hate going to hospitals, especially in cities. They really don’t seem to care unless they can physically see how injured you are. I saw an independent nurse and a walk in clinic before they both said to go to the ER when I tore something inside my abdomen. Waited 15 hours to be seen, struggled to breath without pain, and passed out from pain during the Xray. The Dr said I passed out from anxiety and sent me home with nothing and no advice.
One of the absolute worst experiences I’ve had at a hospital, and all I wanted was to make sure it wasn’t my gall bladder. Of course they also charged the obscene US prices too
While working out I apparently tore a bit of some lining that surrounds the organs, it just happened to be near where the gallbladder is. 0/10 would not recommend, breathing and moving hurt a lot.
Antibiotics for colds or flu will not help because those are viral, not bacterial. A general doctor should have given you a referral to a specialist. But Antibiotics would be stupid
Maybe. But after 5+ weeks, you run the severe risk of secondary infection. A “cold” that runs that long, isn’t the virus anymore, but the secondary infection taking hold. Antibiotics may not be the right call, but they might be. A “stick it out” attitude on a respiratory infection is the right path, if your goal is pneumonia.
Edit: source- my doctor, when I didn’t want to take the antibiotics for a respiratory infection that I had had for 8 weeks. It cleared within 5 days of starting the antibiotics…