I am in the US, so financial calculations need to be factored in.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, felt like I was going to die, then vomitted.
Now heart beating slightly off, not feeling great but not terrible, had mild chest pain earlier in evening…
Kinda feel off. Have medical insurance with large deductible.
Ignore it? Taxi to ER? Call 911? Genuinely don’t know and don’t like 911 since police are involved.
Also I feel hot, feel burning around my neck.
I am in the US, so financial calculations need to be factored in.
God I fucking hate what capitalism has done to what should be basic human rights.
Welcome to America. Where medical advice is asked to a bunch of weebs on the internet over going to the fucking hospital when you feel ill because of money concerns… I hate it here.
Welcome to like more than 50% of the world.
This entire fucking planet is a dystopia.
America is probably the reason those other places don’t have health care as well.
Welcome to like more than 50% of the world
But it’s the bottom 50%. And, in 100 years, it has fallen to 50%.
Trending is good.
Here’s some general life advice: if your body (especially your heart) starts doing things it shouldn’t be doing you should probably talk to a doctor. You have insurance, this is what it’s for. Hit up your nearest urgent care.
Edit: I’m gonna go ahead and add this because I’ve now had two people tell me how ignorant I am of the US healthcare system: I am a disabled American in my 50s who has been dealing with serious medical problems my entire life. I understand the ‘system’ far too well. But I’m gonna state what is apparently an unpopular opinion in this community: being dead sucks a lot worse than having medical debt.
Healthcare, in the US, is still pretty expensive even if you have insurance. Chosing between maybe dying or being disabled, and being homeless is pretty common place here in the best country in the world.
I am a disabled American in my 50s, I have dealt with serious medical issues my entire life, including the ones that have made me unable to work for the last ~15 years. I understand the healthcare ‘system’, such as it is, far too well. But you know what sucks worse than being broke? Being dead.
We’re not talking about being dead vs being broke. We’re talking about being MAYBE dead vs being homeless, hungry, and unable to clothe your children.
Health insurance exists for medical emergencies; vomiting and chest pains are signs of a heart attack which, I dunno where you’re from, but where I’m from that sounds like a medical emergency to me.
I get that the US healthcare system is bad and exploitative and absolutely leaves people in crippling, life-altering debt. But one fucking trip to urgent care is not going to render you homeless unless something is very seriously wrong with you in which case see also: being dead also sucks pretty hard.
Personally, I’ve seen a lot of doctors and received very little help for my considerable trouble, and more than a little harm. I was fortunate that I rarely have to pay for medical service (but have to forgo it when I do) but if I had been paying all this time, it would be very easy for me to choose feeding my hypothetical children for the current week over another probably useless visit.
Removed by mod
I am a disabled American in my 50s, I have dealt with serious medical issues my entire life, including the ones that have made me unable to work for the last ~15 years. Please tell me some more of these wild-assed assumptions you’ve made about how little I understand about healthcare in the US.
Hope you’re doing better now. As someone who works in the medical field, it can be a real bitch to navigate everything.
For the future: Nobody here knows your baseline. If you tell any clinical medical worker you have had chest pain followed by difficulty breathing and vomiting they’re very likely to tell you to go to the ED/ER (Emergency Department / Room). Speaking for myself only, that would depend how stable I feel following the vomiting incident and if the chest pain persisted, and baseline conditions and history (e.g., do you have a history of hypertension, high cholesterol, overweight, etc.? When was your last physical exam?).
We also don’t know the full context on what you mean by couldn’t breathe and feeling like you could die. For example, did you have a major GERD / Acid-Reflux incident (could explain mild chest pain)? Did you eat something and have an allergic anaphylactic reaction followed by a surge of adrenaline from your fear of death and a panic attack followed by vomiting? Have you had sinus congestion say from a cold and a glob of postnasal drip obstructing your airways? Do you take drugs? And yes, it’s possible you also had a heart attack.
Worth noting: Urgent Care has limited resources beyond an X-ray machine, usually. The moment you mention chest pain, they’ll hook you up to an ECG to take a reading. If your vital signs are okay (blood pressure, SPO2, heart-rate, temperature) and your ECG reads no active heart attack, then they might just refer you to a cardiologist follow-up. If on the other hand there are signals of a recent or active heart attack, they will pretty much demand you get loaded up into an ambulance and send you to the nearest hospital with a cath lab (due to liability on themselves). You’ll thus be triple-dipping costs from urgent care, ambulance, and hospital when you might’ve been better off going straight to the ER.
ER will be a higher co-pay with insurance and absurdly costly without (but there are options, some ethical some not surrounding this). The good news is unlike Urgent Care, they cannot refuse treatment based on lack of insurance, if that’s your predicament. Urgent Care will.
Also when you call 911 for a medical emergency, police aren’t going to be involved. ACAB rhetoric aside, DO NOT REFUSE TO CALL 911 BECAUSE OF THIS. The moment the dispatcher sees this is a medical emergency, nearby fire departments or ambulances will be notified.
**tl;dr ** Probably severe acid reflux but hard to say, use your insurance to get checked out, cops are a non-issue for this kind of call. To the Europeans, yes we know our health system sucks.
First off, I am not a health professional. However, based on somewhat common knowledge, If you’re barfing blood or pooping what looks like coffee grinds, immediate 911 call you’ve got less than 24 hours left. If your chest pain continues, that’s highly likely a trip to at least urgent care, don’t ignore chest pains. If you woke up choking on your barf, but it settled down and able to catch your breath, and your chest pain is going away it’s highly likely acid reflux which can be caused by a lot of different things. Either way you need to get looked at by a doctor soon and not consult the Internet. Your copay is shown on your insurance card for a dr’s visit so you can do your financial calculations. 50 to 100 bucks now is better than 500 to 10,000 bucks later.
Don’t wait either since you have insurance. Urgent care’s usually covered at a more affordable rate. If you get admitted to an ER from the urgent care, MOST halfway decent insurances will cover you so you’re not out hundred’s of thousands of dollars for a Tylonal. Before the Europeans chime in, yes, health insurance in the US sucks. It’s not free. You can talk the hospital down on your bill and you can absolutely renegotiate your minimum payment. Sometimes, if you’re nice in talking to both the insurance and the hospital, a grant can be found and you owe nothing. It’s a lot of work and time so don’t panic when you see the first bill.
So everyone in the US knows, cops are never involved in a 911 call unless there’s a crime in progress or there is an immediate threat to the responding EMS team. Don’t call 911 with some kind of threat. Obviously you’ll be in a panic and the 911 operator will only send what is needed.
Learned recently that reflux can cause throat cancer or some shit. Listen to what your body is saying.
This is what killed my grandfather. Before he passed, they removed half his esophagus and pulled his stomach into his chest to remove the damaged parts, that lasted a few years, then he gave in to cancer.
Definitely get on top of it while you still can.
Chiming in to say you’re right. I ignored acid reflux for years and now have what’s called “Barret’s esophagus”, pre-cancerous cells in my throat. It turned out I had a hiatus hernia. Had that repaired and now have a gastroscopy every couple of years to check I don’t have cancer. So yes, listen to your body.
Get checked immediately chest pain and vomiting are signs of a heart attack
You definitely want to get that checked out
Vomit, burning, heart pain etc… Are all in the “pretty alarming” category
This was me when I had Norovirus, though the puking was preceded by firehose-level shits until I took an Imodium, after which it switched ends before deciding on some rather unpleasant alternating events
Medical debt in the US is an unsecured debt. You won’t be thrown in jail or any impact on credit if it takes you forever to pay it off. Go to the emergency room and ask for a payment plan when the bills due. Then, do what you wish with the first sentence I wrote.
or any impact on credit
Unfortunately I think the regulation that would have made that the case was stopped by the Trump administration
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/26/nx-s1-5406799/cfpbs-medical-debt-credit-report-lawsuit (arc)
Doesn’t look likes it’s passed yet, but that isn’t good news.
Really sorry you don’t have healthcare! Have you tried the NHS symptoms checker?. You don’t need to be eligible for NHS treatment to use it, you don’t even register. IME they are a bit trigger happy with saying you need to get checked out but it will hopefully give you a steer. Good luck
I had those issues before the doctor diagnosed GERD/Reflux, and prescribed medication. Now I take a Famotidine every day, twice if I’ve had something particularly spicy. I never have that problem anymore.
I finally did something about it when I aspirated in the middle of the night, like you did. It can actually give you pneumonia, which happened to me.
BTW, a banana can act as a pretty good acid treatment in a pinch., like in the middle of the night.
Also, which side you sleep on makes a difference, too. Your esophagus goes straight down the middle of your chest, until it reaches your stomach, which makes a left turn. So when you sleep on your left side, the opening to the esophagus is above the stomach, making it difficult for food to slip into it.
But if you sleep on your right side, your stomach is above the opening, and any undigested contents are up against that opening… if it’s weak, or opens, gravity draws that food into your esophagus, causing reflux.
So sleeping on your left side is preferred.
RIP I guess. Hopefully you don’t reincarnate into a poor girl in a third world country.
At least poor girls in third world countries have free healthcare. Not good but free
Not wrong.
Consider going to a walk in clinic. If it’s nothing serious, you pay 100-200 and you’re on your way. If you go to the ER and it’s nothing serious, your insurance may deduct you hundreds more (my ER copay is $500 and I have great insurance).
If it is serious, the walk in will tell you to go to the ER. In that case, the insurance may waive the ER copay. While it is true they can’t deny you care, this system of expensive ER copay was presumably put in place to stop people using the ER to provide free care. Check your insurance policy (preferably before you get sick). I believe some places also have free clinics, but I would expect them to be pretty crowded.
Good luck OP. This sounds serious and you need to take care of your health. Try to find a way you can at least get some real qualified medical advice, even if you seemingly recovered this time.
Heart issues? Chest pain?! They’re not touching OP with a ten-foot frog, straight to the ER is all they will say.
You’re not wrong, but I would rather OP seek any qualified medical care than none, even if all they do is refer them to the ER.
You have medical. Get checked out. Said the guy who hates going to doctors / hospitals. Be safe.
Op, you alive?