My wife woke me this morning telling me that I’m getting worse and so is she. So off we went to urgentcare, which is still better than the ER or trying to get into our regular doctor on short notice. All the same, uncomfortable chairs, florescent lights and trying to remember every medical detail of my life. The doctor was by telemed, but they did everything else in the clinic.
So bad news part 1; I weigh 250 pounds which is almost the heaviest I’ve ever been. I thought I was at 215, which wasn’t great, but I didn’t feel bad about it like I do 250
blood pressure good, pulse normal, no extreme temperature
My wife was right by me getting all the same checks done on her, but it doesn’t feel right sharing her details, nothing particularly worrying came out of her exam either, in relation to being sick.
Then they gave us each three tests: Covid, Strep and Flu. That’s two swabs up the nose which I didn’t mind but she hated, and a throat swab, which I had difficulty stopping coughing long enough to do
We both came back positive for flu. Today is our grocery day, so I thought just send it over to our grocery store, we’ll pick it up there……… and that didn’t work out. So I spent a fairly large portion of my awake time today getting scripts I can’t use.
Which isn’t that what I said? I’d spend a lot of time and energy being examined, and I would have far better stayed home and taken a nap.
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What scripts did ur dr give? There is no medication that can kill viruses. there’s antibiotic that kills bacteria, but they do not work on viruses. There is NO medication known to kill viruses. There’s only medication to make you FEEL better.
apparently for me a cough suppressant and musinex, the second of which I already have. The cough suppressant wasn’t covered by insurance, so I didn’t take it. Apparently what my wife got is some kind of anti viral, might be effective might not be. My flu has gone on too long for it to work for me
I usually just take decongestant and expectorant, both of which are focused on getting the mucus out. When my system stops making mucus then I’m “well”
how long have you had the flu? what kind of antiviral did she get? cuz i’m still currently sick, after FOUR fucking weeks of hacking up a lung. though…after all that time, i guess it’s useless to go urgent care anymore…
IDK what to do- I still have the bacterial infection- all over my body- mainly my hands and legs left. I was already treated by oral antibiotic 3 weeks (failed), IV antibiotic for 4d (wasn’t long enough, original ER dr wanted 10d but the b!tch nurse told him I didn’t want to be in the hospital when I literally only asked how long is the wait to get a bed and the dr changed it from 10d to 4d).
Anyhow, I need to get antibiotic via IV- but the ONLY way to get that is by being re-admitted in-patient. But bc I was already “treated” and discharged, they’re going to think my infection is gone, and won’t admit me.
I could try going to ER and waiting, but the wait could be 20 hours, 30 hours. I mean I could get lucky and there’s very little wait but I’m generally fucking unlucky. AND after all that waiting, you go to the actual ER area and you then wait inside for many hours to see the dr. AND then if the dr doesn’t believe me I don’t get admitted, after having waited like 20 hours. Or if he think the infection is bad enough, who knows how many hours I have to wait for a bed.
I could also go back to my shitty dermatologist place and TRY to convince them to prescribe me oral antibiotics, but they’re not very strong and just taking them might not work- they already think I “only” have eczema, which I clearly do not and it’s the infection bc it’s spreading the way bacteria does and not random red splotches like eczema.
“and I would have far better stayed home and taken a nap.”
or should i do that? idk how long i’ll have to wait and if they’ll even admit me, or if it’s just wasted effort and pain. i’m currently hacking up a long so it’s going to be bad to be there waiting without use of a clean bathroom/sink.
I don’t know how applicable my approach would be to non sinus symptoms. I’ve spent so long sick with various nose and throat problems that I think I’m better at treating it than can be helped by a doctor who probably hasn’t spent a fraction of the time I have working on the problem.
Meanwhile, I have almost no experience with bacterial infection. I have a little second hand experience with psoriasis and exema, one of my exes had a pretty serious case of both. But, reflecting on it, there was always only so much that could be done. She had a special soap and that seemed to help, but that was the only thing I remember helping.
I have a small skin trouble spot that I haven’t figured out what it is. My father in law has a similar one and he says it’s exema. The only thing that seems to do anything is called “working hands”, because it’s on one of my fingers, but it never fully heals, it just bothers me less with the cream.
OMG, I just hacked up a HUGE chunk of phlegm. Hurt like hell coughing up a storm for several minutes preceding that but god, getting rid of that chunk phlegm felt like 10 lbs has been lifted from my chest.
It’s fucking insane that it’s been FOUR fucking weeks and I’m STILL hacking up phlegm. Fucking torture.
How long you’ve been sick?
OMG I haven’t coughed in ~15 fucking minutes. It’s insane how when you’ve been so sick so long that not fucking coughing for ~15min feels like bliss. -_-
damn, i just jinxed myself. soon as i typed this…UGH.
so far my guess is about 9 days. The issue is that for at least the first three I was hyping myself that I wasn’t at all sick. Weird things you do when you have a psychology education and a lot of data on psychosomatic symptoms, you end up thinking health because it increases the probability that health does happen.
So last Thursday to Saturday, I was convinced it was a mild allergy thing. I’d run myself pretty hard, this is the time of year that kind of thing happens. Which I guess is kinda twisted, that my allergies have been that bad. Sunday was the point that I decided it was definitely an infection of some kind. but even then, I thought it was a sinus infection.
That’s still the thing, I’ve had worse sinus infections than this. All it takes is me not taking allergy meds during a major reaction. Also at the time, up until tuesday, I didn’t have a thermometer, so I couldn’t tell if I was running a fever.
but until Wednesday, I thought I had just rolled through a particularly rough bout of allergies. Then my wife had us go to urgentcare, and I tested positive for flu. So I’ve been taking it easier still for the last four days, but I haven’t really felt that sick since Tuesday. Once it moves to the throat, I can endure that almost indefinitely, cough suppressants work really well for me, as opposed to decongestants which apparently can stop working…..
seriously, didn’t know that until this last week. I had a lot of good years with next to no feeling sick because I kept the right medications on hand. Today all I have left is a cough and a little runny nose. I’ve coughed less than a dozen times today, and you’re right you don’t appreciate that as much until you’ve been coughing near constantly for days on end.
i’ve been dealing with this for 30d. fucking horrible. Idk how much longer I have before it fully goes away. It better not be more than 5 weeks, holy hell.
wow, getting rid of that phlegm actually did something. i mean the past 4 weeks it’s been constantly hacking up phlegm, but this last one- getting rid of THAT one somehow did something- this feeling of “goodness” is lasting a few hours. I’ve coughed and hacked since then, but that feeling of “ahhhhh” is finally here. maybe i’m finally going to get better, after 4 long long weeks of this crap.
It’s taking much too long to pass and clear -_-
WAIT- so you guys physically went IN to the urgent care, and they had all the workers there drawing your blood, doing nasal swabs, etc, but the dr is through a phone screen? even though you’re physically there?
I mean I guess it makes sense to see you two behind a screen, you both have a viral infection. But kinda funny that it’s telemed despite you guys being physically there at the urgent care in person.