Hospital Stays and E/R visits

Ok, I will be the first to admit, I really do not know what constitutes a medical emergency. Since last year, I have been hospitalized nearly 6 times: 3 for heart/chest related issues, 2 for diabetes. I even went to the E/R two other times as well, but was not admitted at all.

What almost all of these had in common was that I did not feel particularly sick for the most part, didn't think that going to the E/R was necessary and that I would be wasting the Dr's and E/R staffs time.

I have this fear that I am overreacting when an illness ails me, and so I am very reluctant to go to the E/R as a general rule. Sometimes I have to have either friends or Dr's tell me quite blank that I need to go to the hospital, otherwise I will not think that it is all that serious and then not go.

In the past 7 days I've been to the E/R 3 times now. I was admitted 2 of those 3 times. One was for a high diabetes count, which I knew I had to go then and the other for shortness of breath. Both those times I took public transportation in. This just goes to show how lightly that I took it.

This 3rd time which was last night, I had tightness in my chest, I called 911. My blood pressure shot up a little bit, but went under control. Because I had already done a stress test on Thursday and passed, they didn't do anything related to my heart at all.

I was discharged only about 2 hours later. They decided that it was acid-reflux and anxiety related. Case and point I do not know when something is serious or not.

Feel free to comment.