"Sorry, I'm super drowsy and it's making me have a weird look."
-An exchange between my Great Texts professor and myself
I love how vague medicine warnings are. "If sore throat is severe, persists for more than two days, and is accompanied by fever, headache, rash, nausea, or vomiting, consult a doctor immediately."
First, what is severe? Is it "Timmy doesn't want to go to school today" severe or "Oh dear God, I can't even swallow my spit" severe? And is there a middle ground of severe? I mean is there a "God it's burning!" severe, or a "Ugh" severe? This is the type of language that plagues doctors with useless patients exhibiting symptoms of not a serious illness, but of being a hypochondriac.
Secondly, don't sore throats persist for an entire cold? Maybe it's just me, but I know that I'm getting sick when I wake up with a sore throat, and I know I'm better when my sore throat goes away. Have I been ignoring serious illness these past years?
Fever? Really? I think that's just a cold. I don't think it really needs to be seen by a doctor.
And the others are just strange. Admittedly, those things could all happen in conjunction with a sore throat to be symptoms of a larger problem, but it seems like they just strung along some ailments. Seriously, any of those things could just pop up.
Except vomiting. You should probably see a doctor if you're vomiting.
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7 years ago
2 Responses to ""You Look Stunned""
Oh so if I have a cold, decided to slam 20 Budlites the night before, and proceed to vomit everything the next morning, I should go see a doctor? I guess I could always lie too in order to save the embarrassment of telling my doctor that I don't know how to keep down light beers.
However, I don't think its entirely the pharmaceutical distributor's fault. It's pretty difficult to "pea-size" everything other than dosages. I always thought it would be fairly obvious when you need to visit a doctor because your symptoms aren't as normal as you've experienced them beforehand.
October 1, 2008 at 2:46 PM
Well, if you just woke up after slamming back 20 Bud lights you really should see a doctor, and maybe attend a few AA sessions.
Anyways, yes, I'm exaggerating the vagueness of medicine. What I'm really getting at is how the vagueness is a factor in people going to the doctor's for a minor cold thinking it's the plague.
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