I am happy that I can love my wife and my children dearly. However, the flipside of this is whenever any of them show any signs of getting sick I get extremely worried. I simply do not want anything bad to happen to them, and am worried to go to a doctor too late. My gut instinct is to go to the emergency room for every small issue, but I consciousely understand that this is not a logical response.
Do any of you have suggestions on how I can figure out what an appropriate response to different types of sickness symptoms would be?
Critical care Paramedic here: The reaction above is the worst one basically. Worse than doing nothing. Don’t do that.
Yes, anaphylaxis is bad and kills people. If it is that bad ,you will know that something is wrong within 60-120seconds. (That’s why epipen exist)
But: There is a shit load of things that can be done in between “getting stung” and “cardiac arrest” in terms of first aid - and emergency medical dispatchers can and will tell you what to do. None of them can be done properly in a moving private vehicle.
But what happens - more often than it should is people doing these stunts risking the lives of others, having an accident themselves or simply delivering a dead patient to a hospital that could have easily been saved by basic first aid and an ambulance.
And to make matters worse: You will very likely be in a even worse spot. EDs in a lot of countries(it is surely the case in Germany)are not necessarily staffed by people who are experienced with paediatric anaphylaxis patients and only a minority of hospitals deal with any paediatric patients at all. If you’re unlucky an intern with 1.5 years of post graduation experience who didn’t even see an adult anaphylactic reaction so far will staff the ED, has no equipment to deal with paediatric patients and one can only hope the intensivist/anaesthesiologist on duty is not currently dealing with other stuff. While ambulance staff get trained in this shit regularly, it has more than enough equipment available, and can bring in specialist staff (critcare, physician response units, helicopters) - and believe me,most ambulance systems will make that a “send everyone” call. (For my neck of the woods: Neighbourhood app alarm to send off duty personnel, volunteer first responders from a charity or closest BLS ambulance, ALS resource, physicians response car, potentially helicopter with paediatric intensivist)
So…for fucks sake people,call an ambulance. In most industrial nations they will be faster, they will know what to do, where to transport and you won’t risk crashing into other people or having a dead patient in the backseat by the time you arrive.
(BTW: It’s extremely rare for an sting into the skin of the neck to actually impede the airway due to it’s location - there are very few tissues where this can become an issue. Totally different for stings within the airway and mouth, but most stings outside that lead to airway obstruction would have led to the same result for a sting into the arm. The location does not have direct causation for the location of the systemic reaction)
Hey, I really appreciate you jumping in, I’m glad I randomly checked on the thread because since you replied to the other guy, I didn’t see it myself (I’m the OP).
You made some great points and raised a bunch of info that no one really gave me so far, not at the hospital that day or when talking about it with others since, all very valuable stuff.
I just want to clarify that I was exaggerating for dramatic effect, and definitely drove to the emergency safely, respecting all driving laws and while his mom was in the back monitoring him the whole time. There was no speeding above the limits, no red lights, etc, I’m not a dumbass.
I do want to add that if I did call an ambulance right away and they sent in a heli or something I would’ve been even more mortified, having taken crucial resources away from people who might actually need it. I understand now the actual advice is “wait until you see if there’s any reaction, and then call an ambulance if needed”, and that they would first start by evaluating the situation/give us advice.
So yeah, just for the sake of anyone reading, don’t be like me, don’t panic, and call the appropriate services if/when needed. It’s tough as new parents sometimes and I learned the lesson that day, I do think it’s relatable and sharing it led to your valuable insights so hey, that’s a win right?
Good, that makes it a bit better. Sorry if I am a bit salty about this topic, but I literally had to attend a 13 year old girl who got hit by a car due to someone “racing to hospital” once - was not a pleasant call and ended with life altering injuries. (And the reason for the “emergency” absolute bullshit).
The “drive safely” is relative,btw - even for professionals, believe me. There is a small study that compared the driving skills of regular first responders (lights&siren drivers) in a simulated family/partner/work-partner emergency under regular driving conditions (no lights and sirens) to their normal driving skills. It’s between 4 and 7 times more likely to commit a potentially accident producing traffic infringement.
Anyway: Just because we can send these resources doesn’t mean we always do - emergency medical call takers generally know what they are doing and will ask you the right questions. It won’t be “I need an ambulance, by kid got stuck by a bee in the neck” “okay,we send one,bye!”.
And even if they decide to make it an “all out” call there are plenty of people along the way who can stand resources down once they reach you and assess you. But we would rather send resources 10 times and be not needed 9 times than have the one call that actually needs that response not getting it. So… Don’t be mortified. In doubt,call us.
No need to apologize, you live and breath that stuff and are aware of all the dumb shit regular people like me will do I’m those situations, the harshness is coming from a place of love I can tell. I’ll definitely have your good advice in mind shall something like this occur again, thank you (and thank you for the work you do).