In case you're wondering why I'm in the ER...

[Dan Druff]

Whatever his AIDS are/were, tor think that a 'mouth rinse' is the panacea is laughable.

The docs clearly realized that simply coating his throat with saline satisfied his WebMD detective work, which lessened his anxiety and made him a manageable patient.

The placebo effect is a real phenemenon, and they likely bled him financially to get him there.

But he feels better so no harm, no foul. All in the game.

The dry mouth rinse's success was a surprise.

I tried a bunch of solutions prior to that -- some medical, some "alternative", and all of them failed. A lot of these I came in with high hopes because people on the internet gave them praise. "Everything else failed, I tried this, and it worked!!!" Then I'd try it, and... no help. If there were ever a placebo effect potential, it was there, but (unfortunately) my mind wasn't buying any of it.

I only used the dry mouth rinse because I had mentioned to my griflriend, "Oh, and my throat has been dry lately, too, which is annoying", and she got that rinse when she was at the store, without my even asking.

Then I tried it, believing it would only help with the dry throat (and not the LPR sensation or the choking). I didn't even have an outside hope that it would do anything for the LPR. I just used it for the dry throat.

I fell asleep quickly. I said to my girlriend the next morning, "This is going to sound weird, and maybe it's a coincidence, but I fell asleep quickly with no choking, and the only difference was using the rinse."

I then used it again, and I noticed from then on that things were significantly better for a few hours each time.

It's annoying and dismissive when people say "it's just anxiety" or "it's just a placebo" when you know that's not true at all. The dry mouth rinse actually worked for a logical reason. My LPR was largely due to a dry throat problem I developed (and still have). Since that's not most people's cause of LPR, the solution eluded me for awhile, even after very extensive reading about it. I've since suggested the rinse to others, some of whom also found success from it (and interestingly, the ones who did were also ones who had no reflux issues.)

BTW the "docs" didn't bleed me financially at all. They didn't suggest the rinse, nor did I tell it to them after the fact. I realized that the "docs" would be useless to treat the LPR after exhausting the standard reflux-type treatments for it, finding that they failed, and reading online that LPR is really, really poorly understood, and that for many there is no relief. At that point I used the doctors more to do tests and rule out potentially bigger problems, and not to solve the LPR. I solved it myself, albeit by accident.

[Sloppy Joe]

Whatever his AIDS are/were, tor think that a 'mouth rinse' is the panacea is laughable.

The docs clearly realized that simply coating his throat with saline satisfied his WebMD detective work, which lessened his anxiety and made him a manageable patient.

The placebo effect is a real phenemenon, and they likely bled him financially to get him there.

But he feels better so no harm, no foul. All in the game.

The dry mouth rinse's success was a surprise.

I tried a bunch of solutions prior to that -- some medical, some "alternative", and all of them failed. A lot of these I came in with high hopes because people on the internet gave them praise. "Everything else failed, I tried this, and it worked!!!" Then I'd try it, and... no help. If there were ever a placebo effect potential, it was there, but (unfortunately) my mind wasn't buying any of it.

I only used the dry mouth rinse because I had mentioned to my griflriend, "Oh, and my throat has been dry lately, too, which is annoying", and she got that rinse when she was at the store, without my even asking.

Then I tried it, believing it would only help with the dry throat (and not the LPR sensation or the choking). I didn't even have an outside hope that it would do anything for the LPR. I just used it for the dry throat.

I fell asleep quickly. I said to my girlriend the next morning, "This is going to sound weird, and maybe it's a coincidence, but I fell asleep quickly with no choking, and the only difference was using the rinse."

I then used it again, and I noticed from then on that things were significantly better for a few hours each time.

It's annoying and dismissive when people say "it's just anxiety" or "it's just a placebo" when you know that's not true at all. The dry mouth rinse actually worked for a logical reason. My LPR was largely due to a dry throat problem I developed (and still have). Since that's not most people's cause of LPR, the solution eluded me for awhile, even after very extensive reading about it. I've since suggested the rinse to others, some of whom also found success from it (and interestingly, the ones who did were also ones who had no reflux issues.)

BTW the "docs" didn't bleed me financially at all. They didn't suggest the rinse, nor did I tell it to them after the fact. I realized that the "docs" would be useless to treat the LPR after exhausting the standard reflux-type treatments for it, finding that they failed, and reading online that LPR is really, really poorly understood, and that for many there is no relief. At that point I used the doctors more to do tests and rule out potentially bigger problems, and not to solve the LPR. I solved it myself, albeit by accident.

What you're describing is placebo effect in action of course, but glad it works.

Being hydrated mitigates dry mouth/throat, as it does for the other anecdotes you found online.

See if drinking 32 oz of water as opposed to Pepsi or OJ has the same impact; then you'll have lots of fodder to pwn the billing team with hours of customer calls and will likely get a couple hundred back.

Either way, you win hard.

[limitles]

The dry mouth rinse's success was a surprise.

I tried a bunch of solutions prior to that -- some medical, some "alternative", and all of them failed. A lot of these I came in with high hopes because people on the internet gave them praise. "Everything else failed, I tried this, and it worked!!!" Then I'd try it, and... no help. If there were ever a placebo effect potential, it was there, but (unfortunately) my mind wasn't buying any of it.

I only used the dry mouth rinse because I had mentioned to my griflriend, "Oh, and my throat has been dry lately, too, which is annoying", and she got that rinse when she was at the store, without my even asking.

Then I tried it, believing it would only help with the dry throat (and not the LPR sensation or the choking). I didn't even have an outside hope that it would do anything for the LPR. I just used it for the dry throat.

I fell asleep quickly. I said to my girlriend the next morning, "This is going to sound weird, and maybe it's a coincidence, but I fell asleep quickly with no choking, and the only difference was using the rinse."

I then used it again, and I noticed from then on that things were significantly better for a few hours each time.

It's annoying and dismissive when people say "it's just anxiety" or "it's just a placebo" when you know that's not true at all. The dry mouth rinse actually worked for a logical reason. My LPR was largely due to a dry throat problem I developed (and still have). Since that's not most people's cause of LPR, the solution eluded me for awhile, even after very extensive reading about it. I've since suggested the rinse to others, some of whom also found success from it (and interestingly, the ones who did were also ones who had no reflux issues.)

BTW the "docs" didn't bleed me financially at all. They didn't suggest the rinse, nor did I tell it to them after the fact. I realized that the "docs" would be useless to treat the LPR after exhausting the standard reflux-type treatments for it, finding that they failed, and reading online that LPR is really, really poorly understood, and that for many there is no relief. At that point I used the doctors more to do tests and rule out potentially bigger problems, and not to solve the LPR. I solved it myself, albeit by accident.

What you're describing is placebo effect in action of course, but glad it works.

Being hydrated mitigates dry mouth/throat, as it does for the other anecdotes you found online.

See if drinking 32 oz of water as opposed to Pepsi or OJ has the same impact; then you'll have lots of fodder to pwn the billing team with hours of customer calls and will likely get a couple hundred back.

Either way, you win hard.

right, dry mouth/throat is a common killer/fakekiller

so many of my friends have succumbed to dry throat. it's an epidemic.

hundreds go down every day because of dry throat yet we dismiss

it because psychological problems mask the real killer

yes friends dry throat is your enemy. you can't fight

it, so suck it up and stick to Wendy's every other day

[Sloppy Joe]

It's as simple as Googling 'anxiety dry throat'.

See if you can honestly differentiate the two. Just swap out water for the fattening beverages.

Or believe that you are completely in tune with your big body and that your girlfriend provided a eureka moment.

Whatever works.

[Pooh]

If only Druff had avoided eating this at that mall.....

[Dan Druff]

It's as simple as Googling 'anxiety dry throat'.

See if you can honestly differentiate the two. Just swap out water for the fattening beverages.

Or believe that you are completely in tune with your big body and that your girlfriend provided a eureka moment.

Whatever works.

The anxiety followed the dry throat by almost a week. Prior to that it didn't exist.

I'm surprised that a long sufferer of anxiety like yourself is doing what most people with anxiety hate -- blaming real physical symptons on "just anxiety".

Why is it so hard to believe that something about my body changed in 2018, caused my throat to get or feel drier, which caused the LPR sensation, and it took a dry mouth rinse to relieve that sensation? People's bodies change in slight ways all the time as they age.

That's not at all far-fetched.

Instead you're trying to do mental gymnastics to somehow link it to anxiety, and call the rinse a placebo. Dumb.

It's also not hard to believe that the simultaneous combination of 5 days of sleep deprivation, choking when lying down, a bad reaction to a certain medication, and caffeine withdrawal could bring on a severe anxiety and depression problem which wasn't there before.

And it's also not hard to believe that solving the choking/sleep problem with the rinse, quitting the troublesome medication, bringing back the caffeine, and taking occasional low-dose xanax, could cause the brain to return itself mostly to normal.

Anxiety doesn't just show up out of nowhere at age 46, especially without an external life factor causing it. It's far more likely that the physical problem and the medication brought on the anxiety than the (previously nonexistent for 46 years) anxiety bringing on the physical problem.

[Dan Druff]

By the way, if it was the anxiety causing the physical problems, and not the other way around, then my approach would have failed.

The only solution would have been to solve the anxiety via long-term meds like Lexapro.

Instead, I solved it without any kind of long-term psych meds, which means that the anxiety wasn't part of me in the first place -- it was brought on by something else.

[Dan Druff]

BUMP

Remember when I went to the ER a month ago and it wasn't filled to the gills with coronavirus patients?




Well, I've been dreading getting the ER bill. Last time I went to the ER was in early 2014, and it set me back $6k. However, this was because I had a $6k deductible. Now I have a $0 deductible because the high deductible plans are no longer cost efficient. (It does set me back over $700 month just for myself, though. Thanks, Obamacare!)

Anyway, it turns out that my entire responsibility for the ER visit, the 3 hours in a hospital bed while being monitored, a cortisone shot, a bunch of imaging, and a blood test cost me...


$292!


That's it.

What a pleasant surprise. It was $12 for the imaging, and $280 for the copayment (should have been $350 but they discounted it 20% if I paid on the spot, which I did.)

The insurance did cough up about $4700 for the whole thing, though. So the hospital did fine.

Since I won about $1400 playing online poker while being monitored, this actually left me $1100 ahead for the whole thing.




If I get hospitalized from the coronavirus, I hope to do even better. I'll be sure to bring my laptop in next time.

[tgull]

It almost sounds like you are rooting to get the virus so you can see what type of discount you can get on your medical care.

[Texter]

It almost sounds like you are rooting to get the virus so you can see what type of discount you can get on your medical care.