So, I understand that this is kind of a tough topic and I’m sorry that the images are long.
Earlier today my younger sister overdosed and slit her wrists and is currently hospitalized. My mom was telling me on the phone how she responded, and while her intentions were good, she didn’t really know what to do. It’s not my sister’s first attempt, and at this point, everyone in our fairly large household needs to be educated on what to do. I did some research online and made a little booklet for them.
The images above are just a starting point, but they’re formatted so the most important info is obvious. They’re designed to be printed and kept somewhere handy so you don’t have to try and google things in a crisis. I encourage anyone who might be at risk or spending time with someone who is at risk for the above things to read, print, and keep those pages.
Also, if anyone has advice about dealing with the above or other related issues, please feel free to message me. If I listed anything incorrectly, please let me know.
Reference regarding tourniquets: they ARE a last resort because of their potential for tissue damage, BUT if someone is bleeding bright, bright red, or the blood is spurting with any sort of rhythm (both signs of a severed artery), or the bleeding doesn’t slow after direct application of firm pressure (like, your arm should be sore or you’re not pressing hard enough), a tourniquet may be their best bet for survival. They are not pleasant to apply or to endure, and yes, they carry the risk of major damage to tissue and blood vessels if left on for multiple hours (hate to say it, but if you’re that far from a major hospital, your chances decrease drastically regardless) but Life Over Limb is a good concept to adhere to in such situations. If anyone wants direct tips on tourniquet application, feel free to message me.
I have no concept of the pain scale, like…I just realized that last week I said I was in especially awful hip pain and when my pt asked to rate it I said “3”. And then this week I said I felt a lot better than last week and when she asked me to rate it I said “3”. I really don’t know what the numbers are supposed to be. I know it’s supposed to be out of ten but like. I think I rate the pain by what time of the day it is. Like “i will rate the pain I’m in at a 5 at the end of the day, so compared to what my pain level will be later, what I’m feeling right now is a 3.” I also think i rate in overall pain rather than specific pain? Like, systemically I’m at a five. Some parts will be worse or better but i just rate it all at five because that’s the average
That and the Mankoski pain scale are what I go by! Two important things to note though: make sure your doctors know what scale you’re going by because we, especially women, have to play these mind games to get taken seriously- don’t just say “7″ because they might assume you’re being dramatic, say “7- as in my pain is impossible to ignore and severely restricting activities.” And secondly I don’t know about all hospitals, but at the hospital where I had my surgery my nurse told me to never underrate my pain because their protocol doesn’t have “use your own judgement’ if a patient is requesting more meds, but if you tell them your pain is an 8 or above they’re allowed to put in request for more meds with that as the reason.
STOP REBLOGGING THIS FUCKING GARBAGE POST. IT IS 100% FUCKING BULLSHIT AND CAN AND MOST DEFINITELY WILL LITERALLY KILL.
DO YOU NOT SEE WARNING LABELS THAT SAY “DO NOT INDUCE VOMITING”? THEY AREN’T FUCKING AROUND. YOU CAN FUCKING BURN THEIR ESOPHAGUS BY CAUSING VOMITING, CAUSE CHOKING, DROWNING, OR MAKE IT WORSE!
AGAIN DO NOT FORCE ANYTHING DOWN ANYONE’S THROAT. THEY. CAN. DROWN.
IF SOMEONE IS LOSING CONCIOUSNESS ALL THE CHIT CHAT IN THE WORLD WILL NOT PREVENT IT AT THAT POINT THEY ARE IN SERIOUS DANGER.
“Buuut i don’t wanna take them to the hospital!!!”
WELL SUNSHINE GLAD YOU’D RATHER HAVE A DEAD FRIEND THAN A LIVING ONE BUT YOU’RE IN LUCK
CALL FUCKING POISON CONTROL. THEY ARE NOT THE COPS. THEY WILL HELP YOU.
AND IF THEY SAY GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL YOU GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL. NO EXCUSES. 0. NONE.
I have seen this shit cross my dash SO MANY TIMES so PLEASE fucking reblog this and prevent some well meaning idiot from accidentally killing someone they love!
For the love of god PLEASE REBLOG THIS
I see this stupid fucking post one a goddamn week and someone is going to literally fucking die from it
They’re not going to rat you out. They’re going to adjust your anesthesia dosage so you don’t WAKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF SURGERY.
Some anesthesiologists will refuse to put you under if you’ve smoked cannabis within the past 24 hours – and let’s be clear, this is NOT because they’re morally against it – it’s because THC and anesthetic react in unpredictable ways and waking up in the middle of surgery is slightly less of a concern than SLIPPING INTO A COMA OR DYING.
So there’s that.
Yes, this too. Should have included this. It just wasn’t on my mind when I made the original post because my mind was full of NOPE NOPE NOPE after, you guessed it, one of my patients woke up in the middle of her surgery because she didn’t tell her anesthesia team she used marijuana.
When I was 17 my appendix ruptured because I thought I was just having period cramps and didn’t go to the hospital so don’t tell me PMS symptoms are no big deal
this actually happened to me during my math final and i didn’t think anything of it and when i was later admitted to the hospital my math prof was asking me ‘you didn’t have to take the final! why didn’t you tell me it hurt?!?!’ and i told him i’ve had cramps worse.
he gave me 100
This is actually an extremely common occurrence simply because in sex ed they don’t teach you how to tell the difference between menstrual cramps and other more serious pains. The way to tell the difference between cramps and appendicitis is that while menstrual cramps are generalized toward the middle of the stomach below the belly button, pain from a swollen or burst appendix will start in the middle of the stomach and relocate to only the lower right side, even lower than menstrual cramps, and is a very localized pain. It also comes on extremely suddenly and will worsen over time or when you make a sudden movement, like a cough or a sneeze.
Basically, if you’re feeling any sort of pain, even if it’s menstrual cramps, don’t hesitate to tell the school nurse or a parent, or if you’re out of school and home even make a doctor’s appointment. Chances are if your cramps are that bad there’s something they can do to improve that as well.
I am boosting the shit out of that reply, because I am twenty-fucking-five years old and did not know how to tell the two pains apart
Adding another diagnostic tool! This is something we use in the ER called the rebound test. Basically, appendicitis and cramps react differently to certain things. If you’re still not sure if you have cramps or appendicitis, take two fingers and press them into your abdomen where the pain is (try repeating this on the lower right quadrant of the abdomen just to be sure.)
When you press in firmly, it will probably hurt. Here’s the test: LET GO. Does it get better or get worse? Appendicitis will immediately hurt worse when you let go. Cramps will not. Go to the ER if the rebound test makes it worse!
THE REBOUND TEST IS REALLY IMPORTANT.
My husband got sent home from the ER with a rupturing appendix. When he came back and was rushed into surgery, the surgeon was super angry – “Why didn’t anyone do the rebound test?!”
I’m almost done with EMT school, and I can verify this 100%. We don’t give a shit what you’ve taken or how illegal it may be. We want to know what and how much so we can save your ass. Unless its directly related to a crime scene in some way, we don’t tell.
It makes me enraged and also deeply saddened that the police state has become so entwined with every aspect of our lives that people are afraid to tell the truth to people trying to render them with emergency care. We’ve broken ourselves.
Boost because everyone should know!!!
My uncle was an EMT and I can verify this is true.
It’s a hundred percent true the only time police will be involved Is if you have endangered the lives of another adult or child. Until that happens you will not get in trouble, your life means more to a doctor than the mistakes you made to put yourself in that position
Beyond the legal concerns, I know some of the people at my school are embarrassed to admit things to EMS workers (because they feel like an idiot for drinking too much or mixing drugs and don’t want to admit that they fucked up, I guess). Listen very closely: I guarantee any EMS worker has seen weirder shit than you. I guarantee it. The EMT or paramedic isn’t going to judge you for being an idiot, okay? They want to make sure you live through whatever mess you ended up in, that’s their priority, that’s their job. Tell them the truth. ALWAYS.
This is REALLY important. This is for any doctor appointment. Whether it be cuz you are sick, or disabled, or ANYTHING. Unless it’s a MRI, Xray, Catscan, etc where NO ONE can be in the room with you (cuz of machines and radiation etc), you do not have to listen when someone says you can’t bring someone back with you.
You are the patient. This is YOUR body. Don’t let them tell you it’s ‘a small room’ don’t let them tell you that it’s not common. This is YOUR body. If you are more comfortable with someone in that room with you- INSIST. Insist multiple times if you have to, be REALLY upset, show that you are upset.
As someone who has been in PLENTY of different doctors offices and procedure rooms, the only real reason to not allow someone else in that room is if it’s because of sanitation/safety reasons (ie - surgeries, MRIs, X-rays, Catscans). Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
^^ Very much this. I usually take a great deal of pride in being able to deal with anything alone, and I’m old enough now that it’s strange for me to bring people back with me. BUT I was severely traumatized during a dentist appointment when I was seven and I still REALLY NEED to have someone with me who knows me well enough to tell a dentist (or literally anyone who puts me in a chair and comes at my face, really) to back the fuck off in the event that I start to panic harder than usual. So hell fucking yeah, you better believe I tell them my mother’s damn well coming back with me, and when they give me shit I trust her to press the point. If you’re too anxious or unwell to argue with a medical professional (the stress of visiting a medical professional makes me lapse into old behavior patterns in which I view any authority as a direct threat, which is AWESOME and super helpful), discuss it ahead of time with the person you want to bring with you. It’s so much easier to defend someone else rather than yourself, and a good friend or a trusted family member can make the whole experience less painful.
can i just say like telling people not to smoke or drink alcohol while they’re pregnant is ableist and classist as fuck and it needs to stop
first off the majority of smokers/substance abusers are from disadvantaged and poor backgrounds or are struggling with mental health issues and they use it as a coping method so to tell them theyre a bad person for doing that is both classist and ableist
the main argument against it is that your child will come out disabled but honestly if that happens so what??? whats wrong with that??? this whole mindset has deep fucking roots in ableist thought process and im fucking sick of it. like. why do you hate people with disabilities lol
okay but if you’re not going to go outside could you at least open a window and let some air in
Am I reading this right?
All yalls kids gonna have fetal alcohol syndrome and my kids are gonna be zooming past them in school
These folks have drank so much of their own kool-aid
If you do anything while pregnant that you know could be an active risk to your child’s health, could have a negative impact on their ability to navigate the world? Once the child is out of the womb, we’d call that child abuse. Once you’re a parent, you have a responsibility to the tiny person you helped create. If you’re going to carry the pregnancy to full term, yes you need to stop doing certain things, or at least damn well try. My cousin was born addicted because his mother was, and he did nothing but scream endlessly while in withdrawal. If you voluntarily choose put put your child through that, even if they don’t have permanent health repercussions from it, you’re a bad damn parent. And honestly, if your baby is disabled as a result of your refusal to stop doing addictive things, you aren’t going to be able to provide for their special needs because you’ll be too busy accommodating your own desires over what’s best for them, just like you did before. If you really cant quit, you shouldn’t be carrying the kid to full term in the first place.
^^ This exactly. This is not coming from some sort of terrible anti-vaxx logic, where people think that they’d rather have their child die of a COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE disease than somehow magically ‘contract’ autism from a vaccine (spoiler alert in case my derision did not carry through the internet: vaccines do not, have never, and will never cause autism, because that is not how autism works and also not how vaccines work, and furthermore if you’d rather indulge your baseless paranoia than protect your child and those who can’t be vaccinated, you’re a bad parent; the tag ‘vaccinate your spawn’ contains my rants to this effect). The logic of “do not smoke or drink or do drugs while pregnant, OR, if you know you cannot quit your vice of choice, avoid pregnancy” is based on the desire to protect newborn children from preventable problems that can threaten their lives. As mentioned above, children born addicted to a drug suffer brutal withdrawal–fun fact, withdrawal can KILL adults. Delirium tremens, the last phase of alcohol withdrawal, has a mortality rate of between 5% and 15%. FOR ADULTS. Even with the best medical care possible–and by the way you’ll need to pay for that and, in the US, it won’t be cheap–there’s obviously a mortality rate for addicted neonates. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and other related disorders can include problems ranging from mild developmental issues (ADHD or autism-like symptoms, and as someone who manifests a nice dose of the former with an option on the latter, I can confirm it ain’t a picnic) to severe neurological problems (actual damage to the central nervous system or brain which…um, do I really need to go into detail here). Among other things. I included a nice link to Wiki so you can do your own research.
Hell, if for some reason protecting a kid from preventable life-long problems isn’t exactly your cup of tea, try some self-interest on for size: being on strong drugs or vasodilators (like…well, alcohol) while pregnant can increase the risk of problems FOR THE MOTHER. (We’re going with ‘mother’ here as the generally accepted term for ‘person whose uterus is physically containing a growing fetus’ and I just…I don’t want to hear about it, okay.) Pregnancy is already a risky business, because it demands a total alteration of the mother’s body (more here x, also this is the CDC’s page on pregnancy complications which is actually a little thin on the ground but hey gotta start somewhere). For the love of all that you hold holy, why WHY WHY would you knowingly increase that risk by adding drugs (illicit or otherwise) and/or alcohol to the mix? Christ, it’s recommended that pregnant folks avoid COFFEE so that they don’t mess up the delicate system–in the later months of pregnancy, you’re not supposed to lie on your right side because everything’s so squished by that point and lying in the wrong position can bring on a faint as the vena cava is compressed. See above re: WHY WHY WHY.
So…yeah. No. Honestly? What are you doing? Get clean before you have kids. It’s better for EVERYONE INVOLVED and also for my blood pressure.
self diagnosing is so hard because everytime you’re like “maybe I am mentally ill” theres also a big part of you going “nah you’re probably just a naturally lazy/nasty/disgusting/useless person trying to find an excuse for your behavior” because of the institutionalized ableism that runs through everything
So go to the doctor and get an actual diagnosis?
Why don’t poor people just buy more money?
The way they diagnosed me at the hospital was literally by asking me what i thought i had. so fuck off with that shit. Self-diagnosis is actually better because you know yourself, ur mind, and ur body better than a doctor who doesn’t really give two shits about you.
My GP told me something really interesting at my yearly checkup back in November when i mentioned some concerns i had but prefaced them with “i don’t want you to think I’m self-dx’ing…”
wanna know what he said? Hold on to your butts…
He said “in my experience, most self-dx’s are either right, or are close to the mark. You’re the only one qualified to tell me what you are experiencing.”
I know. Shocking.
don’t even get me started on how bias, stigma, and bigotry on the part of medical professionals impacts diagnosis and treatment, which has been the center of both activism and academic study. I’m lucky to have the doctor i have, but most people don’t. So if you’re gonna act like “official” diagnoses are a unidirectional flow of knowledge, coming from an “expert” and bestowed upon those of us not “worthy” to be considered “experts” in our own experiences, at least acknowledge the power dynamics you are enacting when you do so.
It’s so weird how there’s such a major disconnect between how people assume diagnosis works and how diagnoses actually works. Therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. are not diviners who can just mystically know what you have by blessed providence. They require an understanding of how you feel and what you’re going through because modern psychotherapy is about making sense of what you feel in comparison to generally known medical diagnoses and the practitioner’s (some aren’t even truly doctors yet yall who are so anti-self dx act like they are) own personal experience based on other patients they’ve had.
If you understand how you feel and you think you have a good idea the direction you need to be headed, you’ve already done a good amount of their job for them. It’s when you don’t know how to process what you’re experiencing or how to express it that the practitioner will then begin therapy to understand what you deal with in your day-to-day life and how you react to that. All of this information is brought into context with personal family medical history and, sometimes, regional medical issues as well as additional medical testing (if it’s really necessary), and then a more definite diagnosis can be made.
Most people who self-diagnose do so because they’ve come to understand how they feel and how they react, they’ve done the research into certain kinds of medical issues in lieu of visiting a potentially costly practitioner, and they’ve reached their own conclusion and they feel safe in self-diagnosing.
The hell that people raise about self-diagnosis on here should definitely be redirected into hellraising about the state of medicine in this country and how seriously financially debilitating it is trying to get your foot in the door for any treatment, much less reasonably priced treatment.
Let’s say you make some vegan chocolate chip cookies. (I looked a recipe up for the sake of this post). These cookies are made with almond milk.
You have a friend that you’ve known for a few months now, and you think it would be nice to surprise them.
So, you offer them one of the cookies. You don’t tell them they’re vegan. As far as your friend is aware, they’re made with cow milk and chicken eggs.
Your friend takes one bite, and a few minutes later you’re using their epi-pen on them and calling 911.
See, what just happened is that your hypothetical friend here has a nut allergy that you didn’t know about, and the almond milk in the cookies was enough to put them in the hospital.
You could have avoided this whole situation by informing your friend that they’re vegan, thus prompting the question “It’s not made with almond milk, is it?”
This doesn’t just apply to cookies. While I’ve never found one, if you happen to know of a vegan fake meat that’s not made with soy and looks and smells exactly like the meat version, don’t serve it to someone and not tell them until after they eat it.
“But I, a vegan, would never do that!”
Great, then this post isn’t about you. This post is about the people who post shit like “when you give your friend vegan food without telling them and they like it *insert gif here*”, and it’s also about the thousands of people who reblog it.
- Avery
And some people have dusgestive issues or health issues that conflict with some vegan ingredients too
I can’t have soy products. At all. It makes eating anything a real pain in the ass, but it’s also one of the top reasons I’m not vegetarian or vegan - a LOT of substitution is done with soy-based products and those will put me in the hospital real quick.
