So she desensitized you. That’s cheating. My sister loved the great indoors and I was always outdoors. I suspect I got even by getting her lost in the woods (on purpose) and watching her reaction for longer than I should have. That might be what turned her into a TV lover.
Some insurance plans, like my BCBS PPO do NOT require a referral for seeing a specialist. I can try to make an appointment with any specialist, with or without a referral. I tend to be seen sooner if one of my doctors refers me but I can still see a specialist with absolutely NO referral. It’s the same copay for me either way.
I don’t think it has anything to do with where you live, but what kind of insurance you have. My insurance requires no referrals (Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield). I can go to a specialist whenever I like without anyone’s permission. I do check that they are in network (most everyone is), I pay a $40 copay and I go. Now we do ask for recommendations from doctors, because we don’t know who to go to, but that’s not required and it’s our choice.
Cross posted with HImom. Sounds like we both have BCBS PPO, which is a dang good plan!
A couple of weeks ago, one of my sisters was on a trip and woke up with a sore/numb arm and went to the emergency room, because we have significant history of stroke and heart problems in the family.
good news - she is fine. They did all sorts of tests, including a heart cath, and everything was normal.
As others have suggested, if this is a concern to you, go to ER. They will do the tests in a fraction of the time this thread has been going on.
good luck to you! I hope your tests are all normal as well.
@alh, I hope they did neorological testing on her also, if she showed stroke symptoms. Just one suddenly numb limb can be all the indication you get. And this is from my own experience when it happened to someone close to me.
We never needed a referral to a specialist when we were on my husband’s corporate insurance.(We didn’t have a copay either.). I don’t need one now that I’m on Medicare. Don’t think my son needs one on his insurance.
My copay for any provider—specialist, NP, internist or other is the same low amount, $15/visit. I have no deductible. I have a max out of pocket I would pay and then once I reach it in any year, insurance thereafter pays 100% for all in network charges, including Rx.
I don’t need a referral either. I have carefirst bc/bs. I also choose the plan for the company so I always make that an option.
As others have said, the best thing to do is go to the ER with active symptoms. They’ll order all necessary tests, and since they’ll be testing you during an episode they’ll get better data than testing at rest or even with artificial stress.
Bc/bs here also and no referral necessary.
Very quickly because I’m on a short break… it’s not our health share that requires any sort of referral for anything. It’s the doctor offices that ask for it. OB/GYN doesn’t, but everyone else I’ve been with has.
Hopefully between now and June I won’t have to worry about active issues (significant chest pain things). The breathing stuff is constant, but not the chest pains. I can’t predict those and don’t care to try to potential for extra exercise to bring it on. My lad graduates within two weeks. School ends the week after that. June works far better timing wise. Early June would be nice, but mid June is the first they had anyway.
This PCP said she has trouble with referrals/payment issues to cardiologists if there are just breathing issues (no other cardiac types of signs). It’s why she went pulmonologist first - that and the length of time, etc.
“This means 3mph walking with a little bit of incline, a couple of flights of stairs, or carrying something like a full watering can or hay bales, water buckets, laundry baskets - all sorts of heavier or bulkier items.”
I keep noticing ^ this. You previously used 4-5 flights as a reference point and I thought, who expects that to be easy, if it’s occasional? We aren’t 20 or 30. You’ve described farm tasks, but not a concerted cardio and pulmonary exercise routine, which includes duration. (Aerobic, not random.)
You can walk on flats but have trouble with climbing exertion and carrying heavier loads. How do you know this isn’t muscular? I know mine is. I know how the right exercise changed what I can tolerate.
You have knowledgeable people weighing in, those with their own heart or lung histories and some med pros. So I’m just going to ask the hated question, apologies: how much role is depression playing?
And for heaven’s sake. If you need ER, go. I thank my stars DH agreed that day, cancelled his other “priorities.”
Interesting that you should mention depression. I just realized myself earlier today that the “stress” of all of this is pushing me back that way the same as it did post tumor when doctors quit looking for causes of things and concluded they were all side effects without further (vascular) testing. I decided then that it was best to quit the appts (esp since it was a no-win situation for me). If they were right, I’d be fine. If they were wrong, I’m ok with the afterlife I expect. Good enough. My decision was to learn to live with the symptoms or call it quits if the quality of life isn’t what I want - pretty much the same choice humans have had through the ages. One can learn to live with many things even if when they’re new they seem cwappy.
I decided then that there would be no more doctor appts unless something is super obvious to all and fixable (or tetanus/flu shots or similar routine things).
I thought I knew what was going on this time (totally unrelated to the other) and that it would be super obvious to all (since it is to my family and peers). Three decades ago I was told what it was. It changed my whole life plans back then and they told me to expect issues in the future. This should have been routine. Finding out that was incorrect admittedly was quite a WTH moment - coupled with “Then WTH is this???”
I need to back off again mentally before I get stressed out as before. They will do their testing mid June and either find something or not. If they find something I’m sure they’ll have suggestions that I can pursue or skip. If they don’t, I’ll assume it’s just another thing I can learn to live with - I’ve been living with it already after all - or opt out when the quality of life isn’t there any longer. In that respect, nothing has changed.
I had a question based upon the current doc’s “best guess” (is there a potential fix) and I got a good link to what it could be if he’s right. There are some possibilities. That’s good enough to continue on rather than stopping (appts) and assuming I have the final answer.
The rest is pretty much a rabbit trail of what ifs. There should be fewer what ifs after mid to latter June. If I need to deal with any of those paths, I’ll do it then. It’s not worth stressing out about them at this point in life - esp with important (fun) things coming up. The bottom line (for me) remains the same - if the worst happens, I’m ok with my expected afterlife so it really isn’t any big deal - their mistake or mine.
I still can’t imagine an ER visit with myself as the coherent patient ever being reality in my life short of a car accident or similar, but I suppose one never knows.
Back to my regularly scheduled programming - mentally and physically.
Isn’t that why we pay experts, like doctors, lawyers, architects, or anyone?
Because we can’t know everything and it may be super obvious to someone who is educated in that area.
I wish you the best, you don’t have to figure it all out ahead of time or on your own. You can have decision points along the way. Take the first step and see.
My mother shared that attitude. I said, what if some incident doesn’t lead to the quick, smooth death you envision (or welcome?) What if instead you’re profoundly disabled, long term?
In death, it’s the living who are left to mourn.
In both cases, think of your son(s.)
Of course this may be something easy or easy to explain. Or maybe you’re overworried. But take care of yourself.
That’s all.
This is an interesting statement to ponder when one recalls that it was an unchallenged mistake from an expert or two 29 years ago that totally changed my life with a medical discharge from the AF.
Then my mind moves on to several other mistakes made just among relatives and friends, some (literally) deadly and some not, but all mistakes.
I don’t think anyone is superhuman or all knowing, even less so when all they see is 20 minutes or so of someone’s life and need to go with “best guesses” vs “What’s 219 x 494?” (or any other “subject” with a factual answer). I believe their best guesses are worthy of consideration, but older me sure wishes I’d challenged the conclusion 29 years ago rather than being so trusting feeling the experts knew what they were doing.
But that’s different than getting stressed out now wondering if I’m playing with fire. If there’s smoldering, I’m pretty sure it’ll wait another 6 weeks as it would have had to if I’d done nothing up to this point (or even not started this thread with the original question). I appreciate the heads up that there might be more done swiftly if the tests show a need as I can allow more leeway in our plans - just in case.
And if all ends up well, I’ll know I can up the exercise regime in order to not have issues with daily life.
No referrals needed on my plan either–United HealthCare.
(As an aside, the company Dh worked for had never required a referral for specialist visits for years & years, but decided to required a referral as mean of containing costs. Three years later the Co. quietly dropped the referral requirement because its costs actually went up. Instead of discouraging specialist visits, the number of specialist visits remain pretty steady, but the number of primary care visits went way up because everyone who wanted to consult a specialist had to go to a primary care doc first to get the referral.)
And do think about the potential for your death & the potential long term disability that doctor/test avoidance may cause.
As a thought experiment for med students, our local med school asks each class of students to state how they want to die. Everyone says, at home quietly & quickly during their sleep. The reality–less than 5% of people die that way.
Let me share an experience I had last summer. I mowed my grass. Nothing unusual about that, but this time when I came inside after I’d finished, my chest felt tight. I started coughing. I coughed so hard and so long, I began vomiting . I was getting worried after 20 minutes of coughing & vomiting, so I did what I aways do, I texted my daughters (one is a doctor, one a senior med student). My doctor D–who on duty at the hospital-- immediately called me back and told me that in her professional opinion I was having a heart attack and needed to go to the ER. I refused, said I would be Ok once I caught my breath. She again insisted and I refused. She put the head of the emergency medicine dept on the phone with me and he too told me I was having a heart attack and needed to go the nearest ER. Again I demurred. So he called for ambulance to come get me–from 2000 miles away. It turned I wasn’t having a heart attack, but I was having a major asthma attack, my first ever. It was serious enough that it could have killed me (including by giving me a heart attack) if I hadn’t been treated right away.
Normally I try to avoid the ER like The Plague, but there are some times when NOT going to the ER is just plain stupid.
I think something came up in the news a few months ago talking about Top 10 Causes of Death because it was a discussion one day at our science teacher lunch table. When we looked at that list, heart attacks topped our list of ways we’d choose to go. Definitely if “at home quietly and quickly during their sleep” were one of the Top 10 it would be there, but heart attacks are competing with things like cancer IRL. Way too many of us have first hand experiences with relatives, friends, and co-workers with cancer - and Alzheimers or other forms of dementia affecting too many who reach older age. The sudden loss from a heart attack (or accident) or the lingering loss of cancer/Alzheimers… which is better/worse? It certainly makes one think a bit about reality.
But that’s another rabbit trail just brought to mind from the part you quoted. Our group still opts to eat healthy foods and stay active in general, etc. We haven’t switched to bringing in fast food all the time trying to sway the odds.
I agree with this - and then will add that humans are weird in that sometimes rational thought is not our primary default when it comes to actually doing things. How many of us text and drive? I don’t! But I know many who admit it’s dangerous and still do it regularly. That scares me. I know many who will choose to drive instead of flying too. It doesn’t matter that the drive is considerably more dangerous - partially due to those who still text and drive.
If I’m going to be honest on an anonymous message board, I should have probably gone last night and it’s likely that exercise does bring it on. I didn’t really mean to test it, but in doing laundry I had to go from our basement to second floor three times in a row due to “forgetful brain syndrome” old age brings on. It made for an interesting night as I thought about this thread, but all seems ok this morning. I’ll be more careful in the future to slack off until I know it’s ok and see what June brings. It’s still quite possible it’s due to a brain misfunction as listening to my pulse didn’t seem to show that as “off” (once the rate slowed back down as it always does).
Oh Creek - I’ve known you way too many years to brush this off. What if something happens AT graduation in a foreign city? If I lived near you I’d have come and gotten you and brought you in yourself? Can you guarantee you don’t have to walk around at graduation? I’m really worried for you. Pretty please - just go to the ER before the should I shouldn’t I debate turns into - she should have.
“I had to go from our basement to second floor three times in a row.”
Of course that’s tough.