pneumonia? flu? OT probably

Hello cpaptalk. I've had a very odd sickness (to me anyway). It started with a bad headache, tiredness and a heavy chest. Within a few hours it was severe exhaustion to where I could barely move, extreme shivering (no fever tho) and extreme dizziness and some confusion. 5 days later the headache is gone and I have more energy again but I'm still experiencing dizziness, confusion and short breath. Also my chest hurts. Is this a flu or pneumonia? I've never had a sickness like this ever in my memory. I've been using my albuterol inhaler a lot. I started to wonder if I had got bacteria in my lungs from the humidifier since I haven't been cleaning it as much as I used to, but I'm really not sure, could it make me that sick? I'm calling my doctor's office tomorrow because the chest pain and short breath is getting worrying. Have any of you had a sickness like this?

nobody wrote:...

If your insuranace has a 24-hr nurse hotline, I'd call and ask about those symptoms.

You should never wait on anything that involves chest pain or even just "heaviness", because MI's don't just show up with sore arms, jaws and acute pain, but can have a lot of different symptoms, and your exhaustion is quite worrisome. What are the chances you can get to a hospital even tonight, rather than waiting for your doctor tomorrow?

Sorry to hear about the bug. And hope the doc will be able to offer some relief from the strain of no energy.

Hey Julie -- what are "MI" s?

araminta wrote:Sorry to hear about the bug. And hope the doc will be able to offer some relief from the strain of no energy.

Hey Julie -- what are "MI" s?

My guess is it means "myocardial infarction" aka heart attack. The exhaustion is pretty much gone now. What's left is short breath, pain in lungs, and bad dizziness. I'm going to sleep tho. I've had this for 5 days I don't think I'll die in the night. I wonder if it's possible to get pneumonia from the aerophagia? I've been swallowing a lot of air and burping it up a lot in the night. I don't really know what is wrong tho, just guessing.

Oh yeah it was another bizzare thing with this is that my temperature dropped nearly 2 degrees during the shaking chills I had. Very weird, that was. I usually associate chills with fever, right?

Nobody, even though you are feeling some better...you really should see a doctor, ASAP.
I had what I thought was a touch of the flu back around Easter...and I wound up in the hospital fighting for my life, almost losing that battle.
I didn't have the flu. I found out I have some serious health issues.
Not meaning you do have anything serious...but any person with symptoms like you've shown...should be checked out by a doctor at the earliest possible time.

Take care.

What's left is short breath, pain in lungs, and bad dizziness.

Very important to get it checked out. You can have something referred to commonly as "walking pneumonia" You can have that for months and it can destroy your lungs over time.
I had pneumonia about 3 years ago and it takes a long time to recover from it. I didn't have any fever (Chills is fever by the way) One day I thought I had a flu the next I was wiped out.

Go to ER and get checked. Immediately!

I'm going to see a doctor later this afternoon.

I definitely won't be voluntarily going to the ER ever again. What a nightmare. The doctor was really rude. The xray showed nothing and the influenza test was negative. I have no clue why I'm sick and neither do they, but they were really rude about it. I still feel as though I can't breathe well and when I try to walk it's like the floor is moving underneath me. I have no appetite and feel tired. I feel like a complete idiot going to the ER when supposedly nothing is wrong.

Have you called your own MD? Have you called the administrator of the hospital you went to and complained? Sounds like you really got the shaft and should definitely not only not put up with it, but definitely continue to try and find help. Don't cut off your nose to spite those awful people!

Those staffers should be reported to the Head of the ER; no excuse for rudeness, you could have been having a heart attack. With that lousy experience, it's sure not gonna make it likely you'll go to the ER if you need to. Maybe another hospital would offer a better ER experience. There is still something not right with your health, sounds like they didn't look hard enough, I'd followup with my primary if I were you. My chosen hospital's ER staff are pretty good; often rushed but still effective in ID-ing whatever it is I had and competent in delivering or recommending a solution, taking the time to explain it to me ensuring I understood what they were communicating.

Never ever leave ER without a clear diagnosis. That is their job and what they are getting paid for and they can damn well do it.

And remember - in directly they are getting paid by you! They are your employees. Don't ever forget that.

At worst they should be giving a referral for further investigation.

I suspect their bad behavior toward me is because I had had mental health services there years ago. The first thing this doctor did when he came into the room was to begin grilling me about why I'm not taking this drug that I was given at the time I went to mental health. I was surprised about this because he was acting like something that was more than 6 years ago was like yesterday and if I wasn't taking this drug or seeking mental health services then the reason I'm there must be because I'm crazy not because I'm sick.

This is actually very typical of what I've experienced for many years trying to get real treatment for real problems. I've noticed that once you are pegged with a mental disorder you never ever get rid of it. Not ever. Even if it's inaccurate. To me it seems doctors are way too quick to diagnose these mental disorders rather than investigate other causes. If I hadn't been aggressive in seeking medical treatments despite being treated like I should just go to mental health and stop complaining I never would have got the sleep studies and I never would have been to the endocrinologist (I also have an autoimmune disorder).

But before that I'd had many other tests that didn't lead anywhere and I was beginning to believe that maybe I was just crazy. It does wear you down after a while. Thank goodness I kept at it or I'm sure I wouldn't have my CPAP now and I'd still be sick and tired all the time. Still, it is shocking to me that after everything I've been through, and the fact that the problems I was experiencing have finally been verified and treated, I still run into people who treat me like I'm an idiot and it's all in my head. It's proof to me that psychiatric diagnosis' are garbage diagnosis' that are doctors' easy way out of doing their job. They get paid one way or another, why work hard when you can just stick a mental label on someone and move on.

That's main reason why I'll never go to the ER again. I thought all that was finally behind me and this experience triggered a lot of bad feelings and memories. Yeah, I could complain to the hospital but I have a feeling they will look at the same inaccurate records and not take my complaint seriously. At the time I was dealing with their mental health services I found their treatment of myself and the other patients so atrocious that I did contact the patient liason to make a complaint. When I met with this person to discuss the issue she told me right to my face that my complaints weren't valid because I was (supposedly) mentally ill.

If these people are my employees then they are all fired! Only problem is I'd have to move to get new ones. There is only one hospital here, within a 150+ mile radius, and all the doctors in the area are affiliated with it. All the medical records are computerized and stored at this hospital. All the doctors in the area have computers that can tap the mothership. There is no privacy within the system. Every doctor I go to in this area for any reason has access to all these medical records at the push of a button. There are great advantages to this system, but the disadvantage is that when there are inaccurate things in your medical records it's impossible to remove them and it often sets the stage for how you will be treated.

BlackSpinner wrote:Never ever leave ER without a clear diagnosis. That is their job and what they are getting paid for and they can damn well do it.

And remember - in directly they are getting paid by you! They are your employees. Don't ever forget that.

At worst they should be giving a referral for further investigation.