[Waterluvian]

Treated at home vs. serious is woefully undertaught.

I had never been to the ER before a few months ago. I had an accident with a falling glass jar and sliced my finger open. I spent so many cycles doubting if this needed a hospital visit or if I just needed a bandage.

I later asked the ER doctor and he said that I definitely needed to be here, but maybe a quarter of the people out there in the waiting area don't.

[ngngngng]

I was in the 1/4th that didn't need to be there once. I was bit by a snake in an unfamiliar area. Having grown up in an area with deadly snakes, I assumed I needed treatment. The ER doctors laughed at me and told me that they don't have poisonous snakes in the area.

Now I do a quick google search to check what snakes are in the area when traveling.

[arethuza]

I was bitten by one of our cats a while back and assumed that I didn't need treatment.

A couple of days later the wound didn't look to good and I wasn't feeling too well and I went to our local NHS "Minor Injury Unit" who rapidly redirected me to the full Accident & Emergency department where I was X-rayed and prepped for surgery within about 20 minutes! Was told I would be in hospital for at least a week - fortunately was out after only 3 days although I was getting intravenous antibiotics in both arms at once for a while.

Turns out cat bites can be very nasty - I since spoke to a nurse who told me she knew someone who lost a leg to a domestic cat bite.

[vram22]

Wow, good that you thought of getting it checked.

>Turns out cat bites can be very nasty - I since spoke to a nurse who told me she knew someone who lost a leg to a domestic cat bite.

Same is the case with leopard or other big cat bites, I've read. Used to read books by Jim Corbett (the famous hunter of man-eater tigers (and leopards)), and similar, as a kid; that may be where I read about it. I guess the reason is that the food (meat) they eat sticks some in their teeth and decomposes and grows bacteria, which infect people when they are bitten. In fact I read that even if the big cat does not kill the person, there are high chances of dying from infection from the bite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Corbett

Update: Just saw this from the link above, the story of how Corbett hunted and killed a very large tiger, the Bachelor of Powalgarh:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Powalgarh

[arethuza]

"you thought of getting it checked"

I guess its an advantage of systems like the NHS - the only concern I had about money was what the car park bill would be (I had parked in the first car park I saw). Turns out that the hospital in question has free parking so I didn't even have to pay for that.

Bandwidth on the free wifi was pretty good as well!

[samus]

Yeah, their bites are /deep/. These teeth are like needles that can cut through and puncture bones, leaving behind whatever bacteria they had on their teeth and in their saliva. Bites from humans can be nasty too. The mouth is one of the most unsanitary spots on our body, and the bacteria there are adapted to live in or around humans.

[reaperducer]

Cat Scratch Fever is more than just a mullet rock song.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-scratch_disease

[arethuza]

Yeah - wasn't a scratch was a deep bite in my forearm. Cat was terrified as it had been attacked by a neighbours dog and it bit me when I rescued it - took quite a long time to separate it from my arm :-)

[reaperducer]

Yeah - wasn't a scratch was a deep bite in my forearm

Even if it's a bite, it's still called "cat scratch" because that's the name of the disease. See the linked Wikipedia article.

[arethuza]

Apologies - yes I should have read that first.

[babyslothzoo]

> maybe a quarter of the people out there in the waiting area don't

That's probably a very low estimate, depending on the ER and region anyway.

The ER is too often used as a general clinic / doctors office, psychiatric ward, or even homeless shelters in many areas. The latter issue with the homeless taking up considerable ER space and hospital beds may be unique to the west coast, where homelessness is far beyond crisis levels.

This is obviously a multifactorial problem at many levels.

[cyphar]

> The ER is too often used as a general clinic / doctors office, psychiatric ward, or even homeless shelters in many areas.

A quick comment that this is a US-specific problem. In Australia, despite the attempts by our conservative governments to ruin our healthcare system, our universal healthcare system means only people who have actual emergencies (or at least think they do) are in ERs. Everyone else goes to a GP whenever they need to, for free. Similar things are true in with regard to the NHS in the UK, or most other nations with universal healthcare.