Vile dry cough

[ColinJ]

I don't make it 9 hours usually without peeing! And I don't have a prostate

Sounds like you didn't drink enough!

 

[vickster]

I had at least 3 750ml bottles of water and half a litre of coke! Plus another half litre of water after the ride, finished before I got off the train home

 

[ColinJ]

I had at least 3 750ml bottles of water and half a litre of coke! Plus another half litre of water after the ride, finished before I got off the train home

I drank 5 * 750 mL bottles of DIY sports drink plus a coffee plus a Coke on one ride but came home weighing several kgs less, so I evidently had still not drunk enough. I met friends at a pub that evening and it took lots of beer to get me peeing again!

We block-booked a go-kart centre for a mate's 40th birthday party. It was a baking hot day, and the karting took place in a large former aircraft hangar building with a corrugated iron roof. It was horrendously hot in that building from the heat of the sun beating down on the roof plus that from the kart engines exhausts. The problem was made worse by the thick protective suits we all wore. I was drinking water all day and must had 7 or 8 pints of beer in the evening before I finally got my fluid levels back up again to the point where I could pee.

 

[vickster]

I lost no weight but did have swollen feet and ankles so fluid retention. It was a warm day but at no point did I feel especially sweaty. No real headache which is a sure sign for me

 

[ColinJ]

I lost no weight but did have swollen feet and ankles so fluid retention. It was a warm day but at no point did I feel especially sweaty. No real headache which is a sure sign for me

Oh ... I just did a search for 'causes of oedema' and one of them is chronic lung disease!

(Blood clotting is another, but I already knew that from my own experience - my left calf ended up 2 inches bigger than the right.)

 

[jefmcg]

Oh ... I just did a search for 'causes of oedema' and one of them is chronic lung disease!

Stop scaring @vickster! That's my job!

Oedema is also the result of exertion. I hadn't expected 100 miles to be enough, but on LEL, it happened to lots of people. A French rider I met on the road by the halfway point had no knees, his legs were swollen so much. And after 1100km had no ankles, sausage fingers and was hoarding 5 litres of fluid.

 

[vickster]

I'm fine. I've seen the doctor (actually to get a physio referral for my grumpy knee but @jefmcg suggested I mention the stitch too) . I just over did it. 10 miles or whatever at 17mph average is way quicker than I normally ride over said distance and with no stops!

I haven't got COPD, I think I'd know by now, stopped smoking years ago

I realise you're just cautious because of what happened to you, so thanks

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Oh ... I just did a search for 'causes of oedema' and one of them is chronic lung disease!

(Blood clotting is another, but I already knew that from my own experience - my left calf ended up 2 inches bigger than the right.)

This is why searching on things medical is bad. Our first advice to anyone we meet who is newly, first time, pregnant is to get rid of any medical books they might have bought for it. (Which shows how long it is since we were in the 'hanging around with people likely to become pregnant' demographic). All the ones we tried basically had two flow charts 'bad stuff happens - death' or 'bad stuff happens - miscarriage - death' I guess they are just covering their backsides but still, precious little use to an anxious parent to be with a twinge at 11:30 on a Friday evening...

I'm yet to find an internet search correlated by a GP visit, no matter how exact the NHS Choice diagnosis seems to be.

 

[vickster]

And probably asking for advice on web forums on medical issues

 

[ColinJ]

This is why searching on things medical is bad.

...

I'm yet to find an internet search correlated by a GP visit, no matter how exact the NHS Choice diagnosis seems to be.

Funnily enough ...

When I got ill, I was bedridden for 3 weeks, lost over 2 stone in weight, but the first GP then merely said - 'It is probably just a nasty chest virus - carry on resting'.

My sister looked up my symptoms online and said 'Thank goodness it is only a virus - the website I looked at suggested that you might have a DVT and a pulmonary embolism'!

 

[w00hoo_kent]

I prefer my proof of the rule to your proof to be honest.

Yeah, it's going to be right at some point and then it'll be terrible, because they always come up with the terrible option when you search.

 

[jefmcg]

This is why searching on things medical is bad. Our first advice to anyone we meet who is newly, first time, pregnant is to get rid of any medical books they might have bought for it. (Which shows how long it is since we were in the 'hanging around with people likely to become pregnant' demographic). All the ones we tried basically had two flow charts 'bad stuff happens - death' or 'bad stuff happens - miscarriage - death' I guess they are just covering their backsides but still, precious little use to an anxious parent to be with a twinge at 11:30 on a Friday evening...

I'm not sure about this. There's a lot of paternalism associated with pregnant mothers. And a lot of belief that pregnancy was dangerous, but isn't anymore. It's better, but babies and mothers still die, more often than you'd expect. For example, I've got two friends, whom I am very close to, who both had still births. Full term, otherwise perfect babies who were dead. One went to hospital in early stages of a labour and was sent home. The next day, there was no heartbeat, and she had the ordeal of delivering a baby she knew was dead. The other one had an incompetent midwife who couldn't detect a heartbeat midway through labour and kept thinking it was an equipment failure. As it turned out, it was because the baby's heart had stopped, and by the time an ambulance was finally called, it was too late. Maybe a little ill-informed proaction from the parents might have made a difference.

I've got a friend who was advised to see a chest specialist because of a nagging cough. He didn't get around to it for a year, and by that time the benign tumour was impinging on his spinal cord, and couldn't be removed - he survived, I am pleased to say. Another friend who is a doctor told me of a couple who came in with a lump the size of a fist on the wife's arm. Turned out to be malignant melanoma, and so far advanced they could only offer her palliative care. A little googling of their symptoms in both the above cases could have got them to help quicker by frightening them. Both these stories are pre-google, so maybe this has changed.

A colleague I didn't know well had lunch with me one day, and told me about things going on in her life. I "diagnosed" her, from reading and a tv program I had seen, with schizophrenia and found her suitable mental health support. She later thanked me for saving her life - schizophrenia has a huge death toll from suicides and accidents.

Too much information without knowledge is scary, but can save lives.

(and yes, I once had an ECG because I had indigestion. I'm not proud, but I'm not embarrassed)

PS: @ColinJ and @w00hoo_kent both posted while I was drafting this.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Again, perfectly happy with this and feel I should make clear I Am Not A Doctor so really, do what makes you feel best.

I've experienced similar, with our only child during pregnancy my wife was spotting blood. We hit the books (early 90's, no home internet to talk of and it was either late evening or the weekend of course) and it was all death and miscarriage. Went to GP it was 'yeah, that can happen, look out for it getting worse and come back if it does, but it probably won't' and it didn't. Then again, my mum wasn't feeling right, she rarely went to the doctor, but was unhappy with it all so went and asked for 'an MoT of some kind' because she knew there was something wrong with her but couldn't pin it down (I'm sure she gave some symptoms). The doctor said 'we don't have time to deal with every minor niggle, come back when you have something you can describe wrong with you.' As quite a stubborn woman she didn't go back until she was regularly passing blood and she was dead from cancer 6 months later at 63. It was about 9 months after she died that the NHS started talking about 'doing MoT's for people'...

So, apologies if it seemed flippant (to be fair that is my default setting) but I still doubt you'll ever look up your symptoms and find the result 'yeah, no worries, have a beer and chill.'

 

[jefmcg]

So, apologies if it seemed flippant (to be fair that is my default setting) but I still doubt you'll ever look up your symptoms and find the result 'yeah, no worries, have a beer and chill.'

Just remembered one, about 3 weeks ago! Got bitten (for the first time in my life) by a march fly. Very painful and the bite didn't settle down. As someone with an over-reactive auto-immune system, and perhaps a currently lowered immunity to infections (had cellulitis earlier this year) I was about to go to see my GP. Google told me that it was a march fly, that the bites hurt a lot, and they take a while to settle down, though prone to infection. So I had a beer and chilled.

 

[summerdays]

I just looked up March Fly, as I hadn't heard of them, and it's what I call a horse fly, and they are vicious. I think everyone in my family has been bitten this year!