Nhs 24

[framheim]

anyone else find this website absolutely terrifying and useless?

everytime i've ever used it because i'm not feeling to hot and just want to know what i should take to feel a bit better and it always ends up saying i should dial 999 and ask for an ambulance.

like just now i've felt a bit off allday but nothing too serious so i looked up some of my symptoms on nhs 24 and at one point today i felt a bit dizzy so i looked up dizziness. first thing it asked was if i was unconcious to which i obviously replied no. it then asked if i had any of a whole list of symptoms one of which was feeling sick but others were tight pain across the chest and a pain in the left arm. i'd felt a little sick earlier so i said yes and it told me to phone an ambulance. bah.

as a few people at work have been off with colds and virus' i'm certain it's nothing too serious and was just curious as to what i should be doing to feel a bit better. imagine how many people must waste ambulance and hospitals time cause of this but at the same time it's probably saved a few lives too.

[Alan Cynic]

You'll be fine, Dave...just forget about any illness/pain etc and go to bed (but first, quickly scribble on a wee bit of paper that you'd like Alan Cynic to have all your worldly goods if you don't waken up)

(Think I tried this with Camie a while ago...but he's not pushing up the daisies yet).

[framheim]

You'll be fine, Dave...just forget about any illness/pain etc and go to bed (but first, quickly scribble on a wee bit of paper that you'd like Alan Cynic to have all your worldly goods if you don't waken up)

(Think I tried this with Camie a while ago...but he's not pushing up the daisies yet).

ha, i don't have many wordly goods so i'm afraid you'd be fairly disappointed.

[Kookie]

I called the NHS24 number last year sometime, and they told me I had meningitis and that they were sending an ambulance for me.

Then after spending 6 hours in hospital the docs decided that no, it was just tonsilitis...

Hope you feel better soon

[Chris#2]

The service must have had a kick up the arse since I last used it, if they keep sending you lot to the hospital...

2 years ago I went to see them because I'd had a hellishly sore head all weekend and my nose was pouring blood (and great big, thick clots too!). The student doctor who seen me said I just had a really bad migraine and an irritation in my nose. They gave me some tablets for my nose, told me to take some ibuprofen, and sent me on my way.

Within half an hour of leaving their building I had collapsed from a brain hemorrhage. On speaking to the neurologist who looked at me when I did get to hospital, he was shocked they hadn't referred me as I'd had all the symptoms a particularly nasty strain of meningitis.

[Guest Steven Dedalus]

anyone else find this website absolutely terrifying and useless?

everytime i've ever used it because i'm not feeling to hot and just want to know what i should take to feel a bit better and it always ends up saying i should dial 999 and ask for an ambulance.

like just now i've felt a bit off allday but nothing too serious so i looked up some of my symptoms on nhs 24 and at one point today i felt a bit dizzy so i looked up dizziness. first thing it asked was if i was unconcious to which i obviously replied no. it then asked if i had any of a whole list of symptoms one of which was feeling sick but others were tight pain across the chest and a pain in the left arm. i'd felt a little sick earlier so i said yes and it told me to phone an ambulance. bah.

as a few people at work have been off with colds and virus' i'm certain it's nothing too serious and was just curious as to what i should be doing to feel a bit better. imagine how many people must waste ambulance and hospitals time cause of this but at the same time it's probably saved a few lives too.

Dave, I'm worried about you.

My diagnosis is:

You are probably dying.

Seek help.

[pogofish]

I got scunnered them a while back when I'd gone down with a rather nasty chest infection over the Christmas holidays. My own doc was shut so I had to phone them & ater speaking to the nurse on the phone, I was told to go up to see a doc a Foresterhill. Fine.

However when I got there, the doc assigned to me was none other than the twat who had nearly killed me a few years earlier by completely misdiagnosing an obviously serious illness (they initially gave me a week to live when I was finally taken into hospital) & was eventually dismissed from my practice after an incompetence inquiry following fatalities that resulted from his misdiagnosis of a number of other paitents - In the meantime, I believe he made ends meet by renovating houses & re-selling them. Seemed he had got his licence to practice back somehow.

I have seldom been closer to doing someone serious physical damage than I was during those five minutes.

[The Kernel Loaf]

it then asked if i had any of a whole list of symptoms one of which was feeling sick but others were tight pain across the chest and a pain in the left arm.

I am glad someone else has the same symptoms as I currently do. I was starting to get a bit worried about it being more serious then just a cold/flu/virus.

[medichi]

completely misdiagnosing an obviously serious illness

they initially gave me a week to live when I was finally taken into hospital

So they were BOTH wrong?

Seriously, its a complete waste of time calling NHS 24 - but Dave, why the fuck are you looking up symptoms on the website? I assume you're not a complete idiot, so if you're a bit peaky, take paracetamol +/- ibuprofen. If you're sicker than that, see your GP, and if you're REALLY fucked, go to A+E/call and ambulance.

NHS 24 is for fuckwits with no common sense (and is run by them too!).

[framheim]

So they were BOTH wrong?

Seriously, its a complete waste of time calling NHS 24 - but Dave, why the fuck are you looking up symptoms on the website? I assume you're not a complete idiot, so if you're a bit peaky, take paracetamol +/- ibuprofen. If you're sicker than that, see your GP, and if you're REALLY fucked, go to A+E/call and ambulance.

NHS 24 is for fuckwits with no common sense (and is run by them too!).

i was mainly bored at work.

rest and paracetamol seems to be sorting me out.

[Snowball]

I called up the service a good while back because I had horrible flu like symptoms and noticed I'd developed a rash that wouldn't shift under a glass. The nurse insisted that she would send a mini bus to come and get me and take me to some all night clinic, which they did.

So there I am, totally freaking out that I might have meningitis at 4 in the morning due to everyone talking in very concerned voices and some obnoxious wee upstart doctor comes along and tells me that in fact I have four different minor things wrong with me that were combining to provide all the symptoms of meningitis. The rash was a side effect of another medicine I was taking and I was obviously a complete moron for not realising this right away (I looked after, and a skin rash was one of the side effects right down at the bottom, along with the crazy things like growing horns and changing gender) and all I needed was a sleep and hot drinks. He made me feel like I had called up and demanded an ambulance within the second for having the sniffles when in reality it was the very service that employed him that had insisted I go up in the first place. Nae impressed.

[scottyboy]

I called up the service a good while back because I had horrible flu like symptoms and noticed I'd developed a rash that wouldn't shift under a glass. The nurse insisted that she would send a mini bus to come and get me and take me to some all night clinic, which they did.

So there I am, totally freaking out that I might have meningitis at 4 in the morning due to everyone talking in very concerned voices and some obnoxious wee upstart doctor comes along and tells me that in fact I have four different minor things wrong with me that were combining to provide all the symptoms of meningitis. The rash was a side effect of another medicine I was taking and I was obviously a complete moron for not realising this right away (I looked after, and a skin rash was one of the side effects right down at the bottom, along with the crazy things like growing horns and changing gender) and all I needed was a sleep and hot drinks. He made me feel like I had called up and demanded an ambulance within the second for having the sniffles when in reality it was the very service that employed him that had insisted I go up in the first place. Nae impressed.

surely a better outcome than 'yeah you have meningitis' though

[Snowball]

Oh yeah, definitely! I'd rather be made to feel like a blithering idiot than have a life-threatening illness any day!

[Skamikazee]

Actually ended up phoning NHS24 today after i slept for 14 hours and woke up with a lot of Meningitis/Glandular Fever type symptoms, got a flatmate to drive me up to the NHS 24 place up at Foresterhill after the nurse told me it was 'urgent' that i see a doctor within an hour. Was a tad freaked out by that but after lots of poking, prodding and second opinions it turns out that I've somehow managed to get tonsilitis and a bladder infection.

I feel rough.

[medichi]

Actually ended up phoning NHS24 today after i slept for 14 hours and woke up with a lot of Meningitis/Glandular Fever type symptoms, got a flatmate to drive me up to the NHS 24 place up at Foresterhill after the nurse told me it was 'urgent' that i see a doctor within an hour. Was a tad freaked out by that but after lots of poking, prodding and second opinions it turns out that I've somehow managed to get tonsilitis and a bladder infection.

19 year old male with "bladder infection" = unusual. You sure you saw a doctor, not one of these trumped-up nursie things?

[Metarie]

when you phone the folk who answer have a list of questions they *have* to ask you and because the calls are often recorded they do have to ask. My mates brother works on the phoneline and has a million and one stories about stupid people asking stupid questions. But for every 10 idiots there's someone who really is ill and scared and needs help.

If you're going to look up symptoms online be care of the site you used. Patient.co.uk is pretty reliable. My doctor looked it up to show me stuff when I went to see her last. Having said that her diagnosis was totally wrong...

It's worrying that medicine seems to be a game of chance sometimes :-/

[Guest Jake Wifebeater]

I had to phone them up a few times when I worked in residential care, basically to cover my arse because of some drama queen taking kid-on paracetamol overdoses. I always found them very efficient and helpful, the good thing was that they keep details so if someone's coming it then they can look it up, i.e. if they've phoned them up before. It was a great feeling when you phoned them, gave the name and they said "Oh, paracetamols again, is it?". They always gave good advice and I couldn't fault them, so I give them a resounding...

[pogofish]

So they were BOTH wrong?

I think they underestimated my bloody-mindedness about staying alive.

I also owe my life to another doc in the same practice who saw me sitting there one morning, called me into his surgery, took samples & got his son to run them to the lab & wait for the results - I was in hospital by the end of that day.

It was over 6 months before I walked out of hospital tho & only after some very major surgery. I was very seriously ill indeed but this doc decided I just had gastro-enteritis.

[scottyboy]

sounds exciting, so what did you have?

[pogofish]

Acute pancreatitis. Pretty disguisting way to go - my guts were pretty much failing from being steeped in pus. At the time, something like 90% of acute sufferers died of it/within months of surgery & 90% of the remainder were dead within a decade. I've outlasted the stats & the surgeon who saved me & seem to be a bit of a curosity to them now.

A couple of years back, I found that the film they shot of my operation had been digitised & was on the online resources for med students. I've not had the courage to have a look yet.

[Skamikazee]

19 year old male with "bladder infection" = unusual. You sure you saw a doctor, not one of these trumped-up nursie things?

Was actually surprised I didnt have to deal with a halfwit when I was there, the doctor who saw me seemed pretty competant (and old enough to not be a junior doctor) and when he was a little unsure about the result of the urine test he brought in a senior doc to confirm the diagnosis.

Just looked for the symptom list for the infection and I had a fair few of those(not sure if it was just something similiar, i'm pretty sure the medication they gave me was just for the tonsilitis, Ciprofloxacinin). Seems to have calmed down today, still feel like shit because of the tonsilitis though.

Not looking forward to my exam at 9am tomorrow.

[medichi]

Cipro is good for urine infections, might do the tonsillitis a bit of good. Maybe.

[Chris]

Not looking forward to my exam at 9am tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure if you spoke nicely to your tutor you could probably get a buy for your exam. I had a hospital stay in the run up to an exam and they game me an automatic pass for it as I did well on the related coursework. Which was nice.

[Rachie]

Acute pancreatitis. Pretty disguisting way to go - my guts were pretty much failing from being steeped in pus. At the time, something like 90% of acute sufferers died of it/within months of surgery & 90% of the remainder were dead within a decade. I've outlasted the stats & the surgeon who saved me & seem to be a bit of a curosity to them now.

A couple of years back, I found that the film they shot of my operation had been digitised & was on the online resources for med students. I've not had the courage to have a look yet.

*Scurries to have a look*

Bah, can't be bothered searching, prolly actually have to be at uni to access videos anyway.

And ouch, by the way, not fun.

I'm on the fence with NHS24. I think it's a great idea in that in theory it should have helped free up much GP appointments (no, I can't wait 3 weeks to see a doctor, I have a chest infection NOW, not in 3 weeks) by weeding out the total unneccesaries who have managed to be reassured about their cold/flu over the phone.

Buuuut, obviously because stuff like meningitis and flu can be so similar up until things get critical there's bound to be things that slip through the net.

It's a good service to have, and I've certainly benefited from it in the past, as is G-Docs although I've never entirely forgiven them for sending me home at 5am when I had flu like symptoms and a pounding headache (admitted for a week a couple of hours later with septicaemia) BUT it clearly isn't a proper substitute for face to face, full history and examination.

I wouldn't dawdle about with websites though. The internet's a sodding curse in some respects, it's easy to put two and two together, make five and think you have cancer with the amount of damn sites there for self-diagnosis. NHS 24 website is particularly misleading.

Smoo, feel better soon Dave.

[Skamikazee]

Cipro is good for urine infections, might do the tonsillitis a bit of good. Maybe.

Was beyond spaced during that visit, they should write down what you have on a bit of paper and give it to you. Does this mean they havent given me anything for the tonsilitis?

edit: Just looked up tonsilitis and it just said rest and keeping hydrated is the treatment so I guess the pills were given to me for a urinary tract infection of some sort?

I need to start paying closer attention to people when they're speaking to me.