I tend to have someone around as well, so know that if I do feel really ill there'll be someone around to check up every now and again. It's probably more difficult for people who are alone.
Around here a trip to ER means a two hour wait... I'd need to be pretty certain I was dying to be willing to go through that. [edit: Actually - I've not been to ER since before I got ill, so I may not have the best knowledge on waiting times.]
Hi. @
Esther12 You reminded me that I stopped telling people when I was having "life threatening" symptoms. Partially because I'm still alive after all these episodes. And partially because most people can't understand why I'm not freaking out because they're freaking out just from hearing my symptoms.
The few people I know from the health field just repeat what we hear from the rest of the medical field. Go to the ER or go see your doctor .. blah blah blah. Lol.
This isn't practical for us. And if we did this, we'd be ridiculed for being hypervigilant.
Thanks for all the replies here. I've learned something from each of these. It's great having the opportunity to run these thoughts past a group who truly understands.
One of my first exposure to learning how to ignore "life threatening" symptoms was when my dd first started having episodes of anaphylaxis. She was a self reliant teenager at that point.
It was early in the morning and I was still sleeping while she was getting ready to go to school. She popped into my room to say she was having trouble breathing. I told her to stop stalling and go to school.
The next thing I heard was her gasping for air. ( Bad bad mom. )
In case you've never heard the sound of someone gasping for air, it's a horrible sound. She was flailing around on the floor trying to say "Mom. Can't breath".
I called 911 and was told to get her some Benadryl and tell her to try to relax. And they sent an ambulance. The Benadryl helped a little but they took her anyways of course.
While there her breathing normalized and other than the trauma she seemed ok. So they let her go. The ER doctor told us calmly in what I took as southern hospitality " If this happens again, just come back".
Well it did happen again about 2 hours later. I drove her which was a huge mistake. Never get in a car with someone gasping for air. We're lucky we didn't have a car accident.
Lesson learned was that anaphylaxis can repeat itself sometimes within hours. So WHY did they release her ? ? I fought the second ER fee and they dropped it because they had endangered her life.
What I took for southern hospitality was actually a warning. Lol. This dr really should've made it clear that she might do this and that I was to call an ambulance.
Her allergist later told to her if it happened again to use an epi pen and then go to the ER. This was happening regularly at first and we quickly learned these instructions weren't practical. We learned that if she took Benadryl quick enough her symptoms would resolve.
When I asked the nurse about how we were treating this she said that we were doing the right thing and that Doctors just tell patients to go to the ER to cover their asses in case the patient gets worse or dies.
So where does this leave patients ? Go ? Don't go ?
Gotta rest. Hope this makes sense. X
Eta. The difference between what we're experiencing and my dd's experience is that she has a concrete diagnosis (peanut allergy) and a proven treatment plan. If avoidance and Benadryl don't work, use an epi pen. Kow. At least so far.