1. #1

    How to go about finding medical care?

    So I know this is not the best place to be asking this, but I've seen many threads that seemed stupid yet yielded really good results. (Incoming wall of text, bear with me. I would appreciate the help).

    Little bit of background info:
    I am a 19 year old (20 in less than a month) male sophomore at a university in the United States. I do not have health insurance and I currently feel a great need to seek out medical attention. Right after winter break my group of friends decided to go to the gym and get off our lazy asses. I may have overexerted myself during that period of 3-4 days I went. I hadn't ever really done any sort of work out since we were forced to back in high school. I went from being in shitty shape, to maxing heart rate on the treadmill for two days in a row (180-possibly 200 bpm). Really, really bad decision on my part. This caused me to have a really bad chest pain right above my heart. This also caused me to have back pain and pain in my left arm. I pretty much couldn't move that part of my body. I went to the student health center, they treated it as nothing serious. It eventually went away after a few days.

    On a random day a month later, my pain flared up. I hadn't done anything to aggravate it but it came back with a vengeance. Instead of being a throbbing, dull feeling pain it was a sharp, stabbing pain straight over my heart. I went to the emergency room, but came back with a normal EKG, x-rays that showed nothing irregular in the chest, and worst of all: a $700 bill without being insured and no answer to my problems.

    The pain went away after a week and I felt fine, but I had a very slight, dull ache still hidden somewhere in there. I didn't feel the pain, but I did feel a slight discomfort. The thought of the pain returning also persisted. Over spring break (about 2 weeks ago) my father and I moved some furniture. This aggravated the pain, but not to the point it got to the first time. Right after spring break ended (pain was still slightly present from moving), we went out to play a game of volleyball (another dumb move on my part). Once again the pain came back and it has been around for a long time. It comes and goes but it's there nevertheless. Now to top it all off I have the same stabbing pain in my right side of the chest. It's like right above the nipple and it just hits me without warning. It's not constant and it only flares up at random times of the day. I also am experiencing really bad constant muscle spasms. Muscles everywhere in my body twitch without any known reason (legs, arms, torso, neck, everywhere!). My legs and arms "creak" when I try to pick up things or stand up, as if my muscles are weakened. I'm very worried about this. These symptoms are pretty worrying (me being a hypochondriac and all thinking this could be Muscular Dystrophy).

    So after this long post, what can I do to find an affordable doctor? I know this is a vague and almost unanswerable question, but I need all the help I can get. Google gives me no results. The free clinic of the area will not take me as they say I have "medical coverage" in the form of the health center here at the university. However, the student health center is utter garbage. All they do is take your pressure, weight, and height, and prescribe Ibuprofen because that's all they can do. How does one go about finding a doctor that's affordable? Or better yet, a good cheap walk-in clinic? I will appreciate all the help I get from you all
    Last edited by Ace192; 2012-03-28 at 05:02 AM.

  2. #2
    Eat healthy and take vitamins for 2 months and see if the issues go away. Stay well hydrated too.

    Avoid any and all drugs.

    I had similar issues, it ended up being muscle pain / cramps combined with some minor nerve damage. I was a heavy drinker for 2 years, which depleted my body of vitamins and progressively damaged myself.

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