Ok so you have a sniffle
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: UK
Posts: 1,440
Ok so you have a sniffle
What do you do? Assuming you do not have BUPA, Private medical or company plan ....
Go to A&E and after a 6he wait you are not urgent go home?
Go to get a appt with your Doctor? We can give you 10 days time ...by which you are well or dead?
Call 101 and after a 30 minute telephone consultation advised to go to your pharmacist?
Go to your Pharmist and get a pack of expensive Paraetamol?
Or man up go to the pub and phone in sick tomorriw?
Go to A&E and after a 6he wait you are not urgent go home?
Go to get a appt with your Doctor? We can give you 10 days time ...by which you are well or dead?
Call 101 and after a 30 minute telephone consultation advised to go to your pharmacist?
Go to your Pharmist and get a pack of expensive Paraetamol?
Or man up go to the pub and phone in sick tomorriw?
Last edited by Kiltrash; 11th Feb 2019 at 19:11.
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: UK
Posts: 1,574
Originally Posted by Kiltrash
What do you do? Assuming you do not have BUPA, CSMA Private medical or company plan ....
Go to A&E and after a 6he wait you are not urgent go home?
Go to get a appt with your Doctor? We can give you 10 days time ...by which you are well or dead?
Call 101 and after a 30 minute telephone consultation advised to go to your pharmacist?
Go to your Pharmist and get a pack of expensive Paraetamol?
Or man up go to the pub and phone in sick tomorriw?
Go to A&E and after a 6he wait you are not urgent go home?
Go to get a appt with your Doctor? We can give you 10 days time ...by which you are well or dead?
Call 101 and after a 30 minute telephone consultation advised to go to your pharmacist?
Go to your Pharmist and get a pack of expensive Paraetamol?
Or man up go to the pub and phone in sick tomorriw?
What you don't do is waste the NHS time at A&E or the doctor's surgery, and certainly don't go into the office and spread your germs to other (healthy) colleagues.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 75
Posts: 16,374
Our GP works Tuesdays.
More than 10 days for an appointment BUT . . . The secret list:
Go to the surgery before 0830 or 1400. First come first served and you get an appointment. In my case, almost immediate chest infection in Monday, pain in throat. Tuesday backing spasm cough. Wheezing over night and again Wednesday. Got an appointment Thursday with confirmed congestion in left lung and prescribed antibiotics. After 7 days cough almost gone and breathing almost free. By the Saturday clear but completely sacked doing anything vaguely active. Essentially no temperature control.
One tip, having gobbed up a load of phlegm I took a pic that I could show the Doc.
More than 10 days for an appointment BUT . . . The secret list:
Go to the surgery before 0830 or 1400. First come first served and you get an appointment. In my case, almost immediate chest infection in Monday, pain in throat. Tuesday backing spasm cough. Wheezing over night and again Wednesday. Got an appointment Thursday with confirmed congestion in left lung and prescribed antibiotics. After 7 days cough almost gone and breathing almost free. By the Saturday clear but completely sacked doing anything vaguely active. Essentially no temperature control.
One tip, having gobbed up a load of phlegm I took a pic that I could show the Doc.
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Not where I want to be
Age: 65
Posts: 189
Warm milk, honey, cinnamon and lots, and lots of cognac. Doesn't cure anything, but makes you feel better, and better, and better, and ...
I also have a recipe for next morning's hangover. Some other time.
Per
I also have a recipe for next morning's hangover. Some other time.
Per
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: yes
Posts: 118
I get up and bring the kids to school. Then retire to the couch afterwards. Later I carry on because I have no choice.
I remember having the actual flu. The kids bounced on me having giving it to me because they were basically immune.
But I carried on because I had no choice.
It was flu. Not a cold. I've had flu twice. It's like a bad trip. I don't do drugs but you don't need to when you get the flu. Crazy stuff.
I remember having the actual flu. The kids bounced on me having giving it to me because they were basically immune.
But I carried on because I had no choice.
It was flu. Not a cold. I've had flu twice. It's like a bad trip. I don't do drugs but you don't need to when you get the flu. Crazy stuff.
Thought police antagonist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Where I always have been...firmly in the real world
Posts: 901
Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator
Our GP works Tuesdays.
More than 10 days for an appointment BUT . . . The secret list:
Go to the surgery before 0830 or 1400. First come first served and you get an appointment. In my case, almost immediate chest infection in Monday, pain in throat. Tuesday backing spasm cough. Wheezing over night and again Wednesday. Got an appointment Thursday with confirmed congestion in left lung and prescribed antibiotics. After 7 days cough almost gone and breathing almost free. By the Saturday clear but completely sacked doing anything vaguely active. Essentially no temperature control.
One tip, having gobbed up a load of phlegm I took a pic that I could show the Doc.
More than 10 days for an appointment BUT . . . The secret list:
Go to the surgery before 0830 or 1400. First come first served and you get an appointment. In my case, almost immediate chest infection in Monday, pain in throat. Tuesday backing spasm cough. Wheezing over night and again Wednesday. Got an appointment Thursday with confirmed congestion in left lung and prescribed antibiotics. After 7 days cough almost gone and breathing almost free. By the Saturday clear but completely sacked doing anything vaguely active. Essentially no temperature control.
One tip, having gobbed up a load of phlegm I took a pic that I could show the Doc.
Avoid imitations
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Wandering the FIR and cyberspace often at highly unsociable times
Posts: 11,908
The appointment system at my local health centre seems to be geared to the unemployed or those with a job but who want to be given another sick note. Taking a day off work to ring up at 0830 with the vain hope of getting through, being put on hold for half an hour then getting cut off doesn’t make sense for anyone who actually has a job. Or you can go online to book an appointment the week after next. For those of us who fly for a living it means we are effectively shut out of the system. Obviously, we aren’t supposed to self medicate but the commercial pressure to do so is there.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 75
Posts: 16,374
Per, a fine line between simple cold or flu and a chest infection. The trick is not going every time nor waiting too long. As Mrs PN was a nurse she is the one who calls the shots.
As an addition, daughter has a Samsung phone with a fitness App. It has a handy little sensor that will display your heart rhythm and measure blood oxygen levels. Mine was at 97. At the Docs the following day it was 98. Now that I am over the infection it is back at 100.
Although only 3% down there was a marked reduction in cognitive function and a definite feeling of dissociation.
As an addition, daughter has a Samsung phone with a fitness App. It has a handy little sensor that will display your heart rhythm and measure blood oxygen levels. Mine was at 97. At the Docs the following day it was 98. Now that I am over the infection it is back at 100.
Although only 3% down there was a marked reduction in cognitive function and a definite feeling of dissociation.
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Coasting South
Age: 64
Posts: 18
Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator
there was a marked reduction in cognitive function and a definite feeling of dissociation.
Bed, rest, honey and lemon. liquids, a good book, paracetamol, lemsips. Poundstretchers sell paracetamol, lemsips, tea and coffee cheaper than supermarkets.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 75
Posts: 16,374
Originally Posted by hiflymk3
You've spent too much time on JB.
Bed, rest, honey and lemon. liquids, a good book, paracetamol, lemsips. Poundstretchers sell paracetamol, lemsips, tea and coffee cheaper than supermarkets.
Bed, rest, honey and lemon. liquids, a good book, paracetamol, lemsips. Poundstretchers sell paracetamol, lemsips, tea and coffee cheaper than supermarkets.
We also had the perfect storm. Wife broke her ankle and couldn't drive. Needed to be fit for an operation last Saturday. Dog needed walking. Poundstretchers too far away.
Fortunately her ankle is almost fixed, the Op was fine, and I am back dog walking.
Thought police antagonist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Where I always have been...firmly in the real world
Posts: 901
Originally Posted by ShyTorque
The appointment system at my local health centre seems to be geared to the unemployed or those with a job but who want to be given another sick note. Taking a day off work to ring up at 0830 with the vain hope of getting through, being put on hold for half an hour then getting cut off doesn’t make sense for anyone who actually has a job. Or you can go online to book an appointment the week after next. For those of us who fly for a living it means we are effectively shut out of the system. Obviously, we aren’t supposed to self medicate but the commercial pressure to do so is there.
However, the booking an appointment / seeing a GP system is now common place in medical practices across the UK....illness makes no distinction as to whether you are employed or not. This has been the case for the last three practices I have been registered with, thankfully, the second was only briefly before I relocated because they were truly abysmal. My current one displays prominent signs saying "you will never be refused an appointment with a GP " and even the on line appointment system offers options if you are in urgent need of consultation.
The aspect I object to is the emergence of pharmacists in lieu of seeing a GP, and that's not being disparaging to their profession, it's more to do with the fact they have a decidedly vested commercial interest in selling pharma products, plus, they don't have the comprehensive diagnostic skills of a GP......and then there's the even more limited to non existent diagnostic skills of receptionists......as I kindly pointed out to one at the practice I mentioned when I opined, that, for a glorified data input clerk and typist she seemed remarkably well versed in medicine and I had no idea , until now, that you had to be a qualified doctor as part of her job spec.......madam. was, as they say, "not entirely receptive " to this observation.
Last edited by Krystal n chips; 12th Feb 2019 at 10:21.
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: London
Posts: 31
I was in my local A&E last Wednesday from 8.00 pm with my 9 year old son. Regular announcements were being made that the average wait to see a doctor was 6.5 hours, then emphasizing that this was the average and that many people would be a lot longer. At one point there was a 90 minute wait for triage. The nurse looking after my son, who was admitted and went up to a ward at 02.30, said that it wasn't particularly bad, just "somewhere between normal and quite bad".
Avoid imitations
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Wandering the FIR and cyberspace often at highly unsociable times
Posts: 11,908
I can understand, from your professional perspective, the concern about self medicating but other occupations which are deemed "safety critical " also face the same dilemma.
It's impractical for myself and many others to take a number of days off to unsuccessfully attempt to book a "same day" doctor's appointment, when I'm supposed to be at work at 0630, miles from home. I might have what is hopefully only a minor ailment, or possibly not - the CAA doesn't actually deem the individual qualified to decide if he/she is fit to fly.
If I knew I was ill enough not to fly, there would be no problem - I'd obviously self declare illness and my employer would just have to deal with it. The problem comes with a medical problem that the individual isn't so sure about and therefore needs a qualified opinion and possibly medication, which may or may not allow the individual to fly.
