Disappointing experience AGAIN with an ER

[Straitlover]

I hear ya. They misdiagnosed my mother extreme pain in her upper arm that was cancer (had eaten a hole through the bone) saying they saw nothing on the xray or on the blood tests that were specifically looking for cancer markers, telling her to go to the doctor for a cortisone shot. Luckily the next day her doc called the orthopedic telling him he needed to see her right away, and he saw the hole right on the xrays. And the oncologist looked at the blood tests the ER had done and said the info was right there.

 

[minkydog]

We have been very fortunate with our visits to the ER. Of course, by the time one of us actually goes to the ER, we've just about got one foot in the grave.

The only time that I felt mistreated was about 6 years ago when I slipped a disc in my lower back. Now, I know that back pain is one of those things that ERs see all the time and a slipped disc isn't the end of the world. It just feels like it. It was Friday night and I couldn't sit, stand, or lie down without excruciating pain. So, I had DH take me to the ER. As part of their workup they discovered that I take several meds for depression--I have bipolar disorder--and from that point on they treated me as a drug-seeking addict. It was so humiliating. They gave me a prescription for exactly *4* pain pills to get me from Friday night through Monday when I could see my own doctor. One pain pill per day. Suffice to say, it was a miserable weekend.

 

[manning]

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[manning]

This is a terrible sad story but it is true. My friend was visiting her mother with her new (five week old) baby when the baby got sick: fever, lethargy, weak suck. My friend took her to the ER and the doctor there gave her a very cursory examination and asked her how she was feeding the baby. She said she was breastfeeding, and the doctor said that was the problem - baby was hungry and needed formula. My friend said no, that wasn't it, the baby was sick. He got quite annoyed, said he'd told her what to do and he was VERY BUSY. She left the ER in tears and decided to drive back to her home town (3 hours away) to see her family doctor. That doctor immediately admitted the baby to hospital - she had meningitis - but she died soon after. Just terrible. I don't known 100% that the baby could have been saved with earlier treatment but at least she might have had a chance.

I,m old now but when I was a couple months old I had be taken to three doctors before one of them said I had pneumonea. He was right.

 

[AmazingGrace]

I had both good and bad experiences at our army ER, ironically, both with the same problem.

I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach pains, gravitating to my right side. Couldn't hold anything down. Went to BAMC, an army hospital, and they took it very seriously. Like quietly seriously. They were all calm and smiling, but had me scanned and diagnosed and heading to surgery for a bowel obstruction in record time.

I was told to go directly to the ER if I had stomach pains after that. About four weeks post op, woke up with horrible pains, went to the same ER and sat there for 10 hours. Spent 4 of those hours in the outer waiting room in level 6 pain, while sprained fingers and strep throats came and went.

I finally went up to the desk and asked what was going on. Turned out, the triage nurse didn't write down my history. I called back, gowned and IV'ed, then waited again through numerous trauma calls. Not complaining waiting for that, it IS a trauma center. But the triage nurse not writing my history down added more time than was necessary.

 

[firecracker725]

The local ER in my hometown misdiagnosed my mother. Said she had brain lesions that looked to be metastatic cancer, "probably breast cancer". Sent her to an oncologist the next business day for a full workup. Turns out she'd had a stroke.

 

[Kimberlyann11]

I went to the ER with a gall bladder attack and the young doc diagnosed me with food poisoning. I thought that was odd because x-DH and I ate out that night and ate the same things. He actually sampled my dinner too. Well, I figured that some people have better immune systems than others so - ok. Then my pregnancy test came back positive so he told me it was morning sickness. I knew that was wrong because if that was morning sickness, the human race would die out because no one would ever want to have kids. The doc called my OB who reamed him a new one. He told the young guy that morning sickness doesn't hurt and if I am telling them it's my gallbladder, then ultrasound my gallbladder.

I think my big mistake was telling the ER doc what was wrong with me and usurping his job.

 

[DisneyOma]

While I appreciate your Monday morning quarterbacking...no wait, I don't. I did what I did. And now he's on the mend thanks to our doctor, and no thanks to the useless ER.

Hopefully it won't happen again, but as you mentioned a few trips to the ER, I shared pointers I've been given by medical staff.

 

[Jennasis]

DH being discharged this morning. They're showing me how to pack his surgical wound (no fun for either of us), then I can take him home. I really like this hospital. The nursing staff has been great. His surgeon has been wonderful and even the security guard escorted me to my car when i left late last night.

 

[tcufrog]

My pediatrician has told us that if it's at all possible to take our children to the ER at the children's hospital the next city over and to skip the local ERs. I know of at least 3 parents who didn't get that advice from their pediatricians so they went to local ERs. The local ERs admitted them and the ER doctors refused to treat their kids because they didn't have pediatric equipment and the proper training so their kids were discharged and they were told to go to the children's hospital ER. They later got bills from the local ERs even though the ERs did nothing.

I made the mistake of taking a friend to the nearest local ER when she suddenly got sick at my house. The ER doctor gave her medicine that we later learned should only be given during surgery. It negatively affected her cognitive function to the point where she had to sell her house, give away her dog, quit her job and move in with her parents who lived in another city. It took more than a year for her to recover to the point where she could work again and even longer before she could live alone again. They settled the malpractice suit out of court.