Embarrassing moment at the ER....

[Dan Murphy]

You did right, glad you are feeling better. I was there some time back, last year, or maybe year before. I drove there (got told that was bad here on the DIS, LOL ) and proved to be nothing, but it could have been. Better safe.

PS: Our BD's are coming up soon.

 

[DVC-Don]

Went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack via ambulance the summer of 2001. After 4 days in the hospital it was determined to be a reaction to some medication I was on.

 

[believe]

I worked in cardiology, completed EKGs in the ER. It is very common.

 

[clh2]

Originally posted by Annie&Hallie'sMom
Better to be embarrassed than dead.

So true...the husband of a teacher in my daughter's school died on Monday of a heart attack.

 

[arminnie]

A dear friend of mine died of a heart attack at 47 in the parking lot of the fire station where the paramedics are. They surmised that she tried to drive over there to get help. They had NO idea that she was there until hours later when they found her body. Doctor friends have told me that it happens at hospitals all of the time.

If you have chest pains DO NOT call someone to take you to the hospital, NO NOT try to drive yourself and DO NOT try to wait it out. Call 911 IMMEDIATELY.

I've done it twice and was never embarrassed. The first time they thought it might have been an esophageal spasm.

The second time was a couple of years later when I was out of town, they gave me nitro and sent me home, I went back to ER (since I was out of town I had no doctor) the next day and they gave me something for nausea. The third day I had a haircut and the hairdresser told me it was my gallbladder. On the four day I go back to ER - again in the WORST PAIN IMAGINABLE - and the doctor (masochist) gives me nothing and tells my dad and sister that I must be a real nut case to be imagining such pain when NOTHING is wrong with me. I was in AGONY for about six hours.

I finally begged them to do an ultrasound to check my gallbladder and guess what - I had a stone stuck in the bile duct. I was hospitalized for two weeks with a laparoscopic gall bladder removal and had tubes out my liver for another month. They botched it up awful. My hairdresser knew better than the doctors. So even if it is "just" gallbladder trouble it can still be very serious if untreated. You can die from a burst gallbladder just like from a burst appendix.

 

[arminnie]

My aunt went to the hospital with chest pains - her husband made her go because he'd had two heart attacks. They sent her home and told her it was only indigestion.

She drove into work (long drive from suburb to downtown) the next day, worked all day and that night got a phone call from the hospital asking her to come back. They put her into cardiac ICU immediately and told her that the blood work came back and indicated that she had experienced a heart attack the previous day.

So always make them do the blood test thing not just the EGK.

 

[Doc and Family]

Cheeringmom,

You did the right thing. I am a cardiologist and I tell patients in the ER all the time that the graveyard is full of people who died from "indigestion" and refused to get it checked out.
Look at it this way, the worse thing that could have happened is that you would indeed have had a heart attack--this is why you went to the ER.
The best thing that could have happened is that they tell you your heart is fine, but you have reflux, indigestion, etc., and you get to go home. Embarassed-maybe; Intelligent-definitely.

Personally, I'd rather the latter than the former.

And to anyone else with chest discomfort--please dont dismiss it--get it checked out.
Youngest patient I've treated with a heart attack-19 yr old college athlete (no drugs)--and the other posters are right--
Heart Disease is the Number One killer of men and women, and women more often than not have atypical symptoms.