Ask Lemmy

I can back this, though not for a heart attack. I was foolish and never went in, twice.

My body typically runs a degree below what most of us know as the average human body temperature, though this is disputed. Some time ago I got sick. Not like sniffles and some aches, what I got brought my body into fill siege mode for a week. My temps were fluctuating from 102 into mid-104 if I made the mistake of staying covered up for too long, or sometimes just cause. I struggled to eat due to almost no appetite, though I did eat what little I could put down, and slept on-off constantly, mostly dozed. When I was awake it was constant discomfort. Just me being a human torch and downing as much fluids as I could, with a careful mixture of otc drugs. I lost 17lbs that week. Many of you are aware of how dumb I was to not bring myself to a hospital. For those of you who do not understand: My body was in a state of absolute war. Me creeping into 104° was dangerous on a level that's difficult to grasp, especially if it stays there, god forbid if it goes up another degree. Plainly put: I got lucky. I have no idea what I had caught.

The other situation was a stomach issue caused, I'm convinced, by my body reacting very poorly to pineapple enzymes. Considering I am rather strongly physically adverse to going near pineapple now I'm sort of assuming my body knows what's up. Anyway, I spent 4 days in and out of the bathroom, often nauseous, with commonly nothing to show for it. No matter what I did my body refused to process something. It's like those moments where you forget how to breathe, except my stomach forgot how to process. Tums, Peptol, toast, time, heat, cold, showers, light exercise, nothing moved whatever lever some goblin pulled to cause my body to just say no regarding processing through whatever I was dealing with.

Now neither of these situations are heart attacks. Point is, they don't have to be. Our bodies are remarkably resilient and modern medicine understands this. We have developed advanced medical techniques that, with few exceptions, exist largely to give our bodies time to figure shit out. So just go. Even if it's no more than a quick consultation and $100 for someone to say "You're probably not going to die." cause fuck me if it wouldn't have helped me in both these situations.