By Anonymous - 20/10/2010 04:41 - United States

Today, I went to the doctor's for the third time in a week for a huge growth under my jaw. I have seen an urgent care doctor, an emergency room doctor and an ear, nose and throat specialist who all gave me different diagnoses. I've so far spent $300. FML
I agree, your life sucks 27 401
You deserved it 2 967

Same thing different taste

Top comments

doggone456 0

hey your better safe than sorry, money can be replaced and gotten back, a person can't, u might wanna get a PET scan on it to see if it's cancerous or benine

It seem obvious to me that you should trust the third doctor (the expert). ER and urgent doctors are adept at all medicine but only experts at emergencies like trauma.

Comments

mintcar 9

I understand it's frustrating, but you must keep trying until you get to the bottom of what's going on. Your FML reminded me of "Mystery Diagnosis" on Discovery Health.

Action_Bastard 0

Oh man that show is awesome and, yet, very disturbing to know that those kinds of illnesses exist!

perdix 29

Don't worry about the money -- where you are going, you cant take it with you. Sorry, man, Requiescat in Pacem.

you've seen that many medical professionals and it's only cost $300! That's not expensive at all.

Totally agreed. Last time I went to the ER it cost me $300 just to walk in. He must have better insurance than me...

Well, cheap so far. Few more appointments and you'll be wishing we actually had socialized medicine.

EvilDave 13

Why, so he could wait 4-12 weeks to see his primary care doctor, then another 8-20 weeks to see a specialist? That is what happened to my friend in Canada. Of course, she was lucky. Her friend died waiting to see an oncologist to get the re-occurrence of her cancer diagnosed. The earliest appointment was 6 months from the day she tried to make an appointment.

yeah it's a lot like that over here in the UK with the NHS, but when I contemplate re amount of money I would've had to pay for my various health care needs I'd probably be bankrupt.

32, the idea that it's like that in all of Canada is a myth. I'm married to a Canadian and he's spent more time waiting for doctors here in the US than he ever did in Canada.

you're an idiot for using a stock bs story.

Dave, even if that story is true, the same thing happens every day in the US already. The big difference is, many people here have no chance for an appointment at all, no matter how long they wait. That is, unless they happen to win the lottery in the meantime.

sweetcheeksjvl 0

That's Canada I heard their healthcare is government runned and pretty shitty I guess it's true,if your story is Dave.

Maybe you are getting the Bubonic plague.

EvilDave 13

If it is like what happened to my co-worker, you may have a MRSA infection. If it is like what happened to me, it is a bacterial infection. It could be a lymph node, or half a dozen other things too.

uridea 14

they wouldn't know until they took a sample and ran some tests lol so I suggest doing that if you really want to know what the growth is

Ummm...I'd actually like to know which specialists you went to see, because seeing three doctors in specialized fields and only paying $300? I know it sucks to be out of that money, but that's actually pretty cheap.

NightGod 0

And this is why ERs are overcrowded. Unless the lump was spurting blood or making it difficult to breathe/swallow, you didn't have an emergency. Hopefully you live in a large enough city that you had to wait a few hours as the people with real emergent situations got the care they needed. And, yeah, trust the ENT diagnosis-urgent care/ER docs are trained to handle a very specific sub-set of medical conditions, everything else is in the "know enough to know when to refer you to someone else" category. It's like taking your computer to a TV repair shop-you might get lucky and have the problem fall into their knowledge base, but more likely they're going to tell you to go down the street to the computer store where they see your problem 10 times a day.

RedPillSucks 31

Actually, the ER is overcrowded because people with no insurance use it as their primary medical care.

Red, you hit the nail directly on the head.

Exactly, RPS. Besides, you can't just call up a specialist and say "Hey, look at this lump for me." You need referrals. Maybe a GP would've been a cheaper option, but if there's a chance that it is an emergency, a clinic is going to send you to the ER.

sofakingweetoddi 0

There are a lot of informative comments here for OP from what seems to be health professionals. Anyone else notice there seems to be a lot of health professionals here on FML?