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I Was Just Told “You would not have made it through the weekend”
- miles_matthias 15y agoI'd be interested to know if the OP has a significant other. I know that there are challenges to being an entrepreneur with a SO, but I think one of the big benefits of having an SO is that they look after your health. I know if I were in this situation my fiancee would have kicked my butt and dragged me to the dentist's office. Have there been any essays out there comparing being an entrepreneur with and without a SO? I'd love to read them.
- rubyrescue 15y agoAs an entrepreneur still trying to make it I don’t the extra cash for insurance right now so I just pushed it off thinking it would take care of itself. - ...and that's why i can't support candidates who want to repeal universal healthcare in the US, most of whom are Republicans, and ironically, in their opposition to reasonable universal healthcare are adopting a policy that is incredibly anti-small-business.
- jfruh 15y agoI don't disagree with you, but I wonder if this situation would be covered by the law as AFAIK dental coverage isn't part of the plan. It boggles my mind that medical conditions that arise your teeth and gums (which, as this anecdote illustrates, are fully capable of killing you) are treated as an entirely different thing as diseases that happen elsewhere in the body.
- kennu 15y agoThat sounds just silly. Here in Finland, we can actually choose to either use free public dental care, or go to a more expensive private doctor and pay the difference. Dental care is essential. Even if you don't have pain, constant inflammation can cause you all sorts of problems.
- _delirium 15y agoOddly enough, here in Denmark, which otherwise has very strong social services, dentists for adults aren't covered, though their cost is partly subsidized (dental care for children is covered).
- mwilcox 15y agoSame in New Zealand. Free for under 18, but after that you have to pay. However, if you have an accident and need medical care, it's covered under the government. If it's due to negligence, then, well, you're responsible. When I was a child (8 or 9, can't remember) I chipped my front tooth on a trampoline. All my checkups, x-rays, caps, etc., and eventually a root canal and crown were covered, even 10 years afterwards.
- megablast 15y agoDentists are not covered in Australia, but are in the UK. I had to go to a free Dental Hospital, which does emergency work for free.
- justincormack 15y agoAgain not all dental work is free in the uk either.
- bobwebb 15y agoI think it depends. There are NHS dentists and private dentists. I think the private ones' main advantage is that they have shorter waiting lists.
- DanBC 15y agoPeople pay for treatment under the NHS. The cost is very much less than private dentists. Some people (limited income) get free treatment. Children get free treatment. Finding an NHS dentist can be tricky.
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- click170 15y ago"dental coverage isn't part of the plan" Healthcare, at least where I'm from, doesn't cover preventative dentistry, but it does include anything life threatening which includes the situation from the article. I would sincerely hope the US system would behave similarly.
- bdonlan 15y agoThe problem is, the average person can't tell whether a toothache is a minor, non-covered issue, or a life-threatening problem that would be eligible for coverage - without going to see a dentist out-of-pocket, that is.
- dedward 15y agomost people with impacted, rotting, painful wisdom teeth know damn well they need to have it taken out. some just decide not to because nobody likes the dentist and they think it will just go away.
- hobin 15y agoTruth be told, in most cases, it will 'just go away'. (Read: said tooth will fall out, and it will HURT.) Though it's better not to take these kind of chances.
- hobin 15y agoThat's not too hard. Having a minor or even a somewhat annoying toothache for a day won't kill you. As can be seen in the article, such infections don't develop overnight. Just wait a few days, and if you still need to use ibuprofen or what have you to make it go away, then you can be sure you need to go visit a dentist. Making it a habit to use painkillers to deal with toothache = bad.
- _delirium 15y agoUS health insurance tends to distinguish based on the location whether it's "dental" or "medical": if an infection sends you to the hospital, then it's medical, but if you go to the dentist to get it fixed, then it's dental. Typically the latter wouldn't get covered by health insurance regardless of severity. There are some miscellaneous oddities; for example, if you visit a dentist and have antibiotics prescribed, typically the visit won't be covered (it's a dentist so counts as dental), but the antibiotics will be covered (they're a medical prescription).
- mahyarm 15y agoIn BC, Canada at least, dental services are not covered. But it might be if it's something life threatening as this. And doctor's visits for non-residents are about $40 in Ontario.
- andrewpi 15y agoHealth insurance doesn't normally cover dental work. Dental plans are generally a separate offering, and typically aren't a good deal for younger people who take decent care of their teeth. Even Medicare doesn't pay for dental work.
- jrockway 15y agoIndeed. I avoided dental work a while back when I didn't have dental insurance. Instead of getting a cavity filled for $150, I ended up needing a $1000 root canal. But even then, not that expensive. Dental procedures are generally simpler than medical procedures, and cost less as a result. (Getting three wisdom teeth removed did not appear to cost that much either, but my insurance paid for that.)
- pasbesoin 15y agoWhat bothers me is that many of the so-called dental "insurance" plans I've seen in the U.S. have quite low caps. Essentially, they work out more as a kind of "payment plan" against average expenses when measured over multiple years. I'd rather pay for those, myself, but have "real" dental insurance for the quite expensive, unexpected stuff. Infections. Complications from non-routine extractions (particularly notable with some wisdom tooth extractions). Etc. Things where a $1000 or $2500 cap may hardly make a dent in the final expense.
- jrockway 15y agoWhen I was looking at individual dental plans (actually, "group plans" from the ACM or IEEE), it seemed to me that it was basically the cost of two dental visits amortized out over 12 months, with a small discount on other procedures. With a "real" group plan, the only things I've had to pay was a $300 deductible on the wisdom teeth removal and $25 for a flouride treatment that insurance doesn't cover. (Presumably because most adults don't have braces.)
- aiscott 15y agoHealthcare is a scarce resource. You can hardly legislate it into existence. All "universal" healthcare does is trade price for waiting in line.
- yequalsx 15y agoHealthcare is a scarce resource but what you say isn't all that universal healthcare provides. All healthcare systems must ration care. The goal is to ration care in the most ethical/moral way. The present system in the U.S. rationalizes care in a more unethical way that Finland and other similar healthcare systems.
- wisty 15y agoIf healthcare is an inelastic resource, the private sector won't make any more if you throw more money at it, and will just re-allocate it to those who can pay the most.
- rayiner 15y agoThis sort of hyper-simplistic modeling of real world problems is a pretty common trait among real academics, not just HN posters. In my own field of interest (spectrum management) the papers written by ostensibly reputable people are shockingly bad in their reductionist thinking and plain glossing-over of important caveats and assumptions in the applied theories.
- asmithmd1 15y ago
- protomyth 15y agoCertain segments of the USA have universal health care. As part of the treaties one of these groups is Native Americans through IHS. Google "don't get sick after June" for how the USA approaches universal health care. I support any candidate that would repeal what was passed and try to come up with something different. If they cannot get it right for 7 million then they won't for the rest. A story that ties both together. My dad was visiting me. He was going to go golfing with my brother, but had too painful of a headache and was just going to lay down then drive the 7 hours home. It was so painful that we convinced him to go to a hospital. I just happened to pick one that had a neurologist in emergency. He was bleeding from the brain because of poorly prescribed blood pressure meds. The doctor in the ER was not happy. He was in surgery that day and took a week in the hospital. Don't ignore the unusual pains.
- rayiner 15y ago> If they cannot get it right for 7 million then they won't for the rest. That's a pretty bullshit example. Native American services are an entirely different planet within the government.* The lost billions of dollars in indian trust funds, etc. Pretty much every service for native Americans is monumentally dysfunctional, yet the equivalent services for non-Indians often work quite adequately. *) This state of affairs is the product of a lack of political will to do better (who cares about the poorest constituency in the country?) and certain Constitutional insulation from the rest of the government.
- protomyth 15y agoI don't think it is a "bullshit" example. Past performance of an entity tends to predicate future performance. The equivalent service is also provided to our veterans. The VA is also a failure. Just because white people will be serviced doesn't mean it will be any better. The legislation sets up the same pattern of control. The currently passed bill fits all of the fiscal and regulatory issues of IHS.
- zopa 15y agoActually, the VA is one of the best providers in the country on most standard-of-care measures. Used to suck, doesn't suck any more.
- rkischuk 15y agoIndividual dental plans typically aren't available. Even with insurance, the co-pay on wisdom tooth extraction is typically 50%, because such procedures are typically (not always) preventable by proper dental care. So even with insurance, he'd be paying 50% (and probably could negotiate 20% off with a cash payment without insurance, so insurance only costs 30% less). Did he have 50%, or would he still have put it off due to the expense. Is asking him to pay for it a "failing" of society? If so, consider the cost of dental insurance that provides 100% coverage for procedures that are generally preventable. Insurance is about math. Because truly catastrophic dental care is rare, dental self-insurance is generally a matter of cash management, and you usually can come out ahead, even with an issue like this during a year. Context: I am an entrepreneur "still trying to make it". I have a wife and 2 kids. We don't have some magic source of easy income. Planning for the cost of insurance was part of planning to start a company. So was planning to self-insure dental. It is possible. I don't understand why any of this planning should be anyone's responsibility other than my own. I don't believe I should be asking someone else to pay for my insurance as some sort of societal debt, and I wish the feds would quit adding mandatory coverages and regulatory overhead that makes buying insurance more expensive. If either party REALLY cared about small business, they would have taken the simple, obvious step of making individually purchased health insurance tax-deductible long ago. But that didn't fit their agenda.
- sliverstorm 15y agoAmen! The concept that your own health is somebody else's job to take care of & protect has always seemed strange to me.
- tptacek 15y agoThis is probably true for dental, for a lot of reasons, including the routinization of dental care, the degree to which dental expenses are preventable, the fact that fewer people have dental insurance than health insurance (and so the market for dental care is less distorted), and the extent to which dental care can be cosmetic. The same isn't true of health care. The health care market is totally distorted by insurers, who collude with providers to set prices. Services fall into two buckets: routine "checkup" type stuff that costs so little it's not worth arguing about, and hospital/specialist services for which there is no pricing transparency and which, purchased by anyone other than an insurance company, is catastrophically expensive. It is perfectly reasonable to advocate for single-payer health care even if one believes firmly in moral hazard. There are other interventions one could advocate for instead. But any way you slice it, the "market" we currently have is busted.
- lutorm 15y ago... candidates who want to repeal universal healthcare in the US Wait! The US has universal healthcare?
- jdminhbg 15y agoExactly. Nothing about Obamacare absolves him of his responsibility to purchase health insurance; it only adds a penalty if he doesn't (and tries to make it cheaper/easier to do so if he does). You still have the responsibility to purchase/maintain it.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- bremac 15y agoAs someone who has had an infection requiring dental care: dental surgery is covered by the Canadian provinces if it is medically necessary. On the other hand, preventative care and cosmetic surgeries are not covered.
- loopdoend 15y agoThey have dental setups in the hospitals here for emergencies but generally it's not taken seriously enough. Poor dental care can have a tremendous impact on a persons physical and mental health.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- VMG 15y agoHow much exactly does health insurance cost now in the US? In Germany, I have to pay 65 Euros (87 Dollars) for health insurance as a university student if I earn more than ~400 Euros a month. It's not free here either, it's just mandatory.
- DougWebb 15y agoI pay $370/month to cover my wife and I, and that's on a company-subsidized plan. The actual cost is at least twice that much on a group plan. If you try to buy insurance as an individual, the cost is even higher. And my plan requires me to spend $10-$75 for prescription medicine, and doesn't cover more than basic care from eye doctors or dentists.
- travisp 15y agoI am 27, so my case might not apply to older people. However, for me in the US, I pay approximately $85/month for a high deductible plan as an individual. I am stuck with the first $5,000/year of medical expenses, of which in most years I only spend around $100-$200 for a checkup and labs, but I am covered 100% after that. However, I can put $3,100/year into a HSA account. I immediately get to deduct the amount I put in from my taxes (which for someone with an income just about pays for the insurance), and I can grow it in the HSA and not pay any taxes on withdrawal if I use it for medical expenses (works kind of like a super IRA).
- Jacquass12321 15y agoIs your employer covering part of the cost? My insurance for just myself is 70-80 a month, while my employer covers another 250 a month. If I had a full family plan it would be 250 a month for me and 750 for the company. This is for a relatively standard 2000(individual)/4000(family) high deductible plan. I wouldn't think our different deductibles would save you that much money, but perhaps.
- travisp 15y agoNo, I don't have an employer covering my cost. The full cost for my $5000 high deductible individual plan is $85/month. Perhaps the difference is that my plan was purchased in Illinois (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois). I know state mandates can significantly change the cost of insurance.
- YuriNiyazov 15y agoSorry to be so blunt, but you are not a very good founder/entrepreneur. One of your major responsibilities is to your cofounders; it has been said many times that starting a start-up is like being married to your cofounders. We wouldn't hesitate to condemn a husband who was so negligent towards his own health that he left a widow with unpaid bills behind; under that same logic, no one who makes an idol out of, as you call it, "the all out pursuit for your dream" and is negligent towards their health can be considered a responsible teammate/businessman.
- westbywest 15y agoBlame for the inability to afford any viable healthcare coverage can't be pinned exclusively on the individual.
- ctdonath 15y agoIf you can't afford viable healthcare, get a job where you can. "Viable" isn't that expensive for anyone smart enough to frequent HN.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- functionform 15y agoI agree. While other hn readers might rationalize by blaming the government, it is gross negligence to consider working without health insurance. You are exactly one misfortune away from tragedy and this event should have been a warning. Suffice to say I would never work for anyone so willfully irrational.
- AznHisoka 15y agoI've been working on a startup and on a day job for the past 8 months. In the past month or 2, I've experienced a couple of fevers, and beginning to get anxiety/panic attacks, and feeling sore all over from sitting all day at work + home. A few months ago, I had a severe panic attack on the train, where it felt like my brain cells were fighting each other. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I think I'm very close to reaching a breaking point, and am not sure how long this can last. But the thing is.. I know I will feel miserable if I have to work at a day job for the rest of my life, so that makes me want to work even HARDER at my own gig so that that never happens. It's a truly vicious cycle.. I work harder, get less sleep, become more grouchy/irritated at work, which makes me motivated work even HARDER when I get home.. which makes more sleepy at work, more irritated.. repeat...
- rhizome 15y agoYou're already past your breaking point, what do you think those symptoms are for? If it's a typical startup, you're going to get screwed in any event, so you might as well start looking to get a better job now.
- vellum 15y agoYou should go to the gym a few times a week. A couple of months ago, I went back to the gym for the first time in six months. The next morning, a lot of my background stress disappeared.
- rst 15y agoRescue workers have a rule that their own safety comes first --- because if they don't act that way, they risk becoming yet another victim that their colleagues have to go in and save. Similar logic applies here. One of the risk factors for your startup is you falling apart. Neglecting that risk doesn't serve you or the business well.
- 3pt14159 15y agoChange something right now. You need energy to make something good. And you need something good to sell.
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- vm 15y agoFocusing on my health has been my best productivity boost. For a few months, I didn't exercise and ate lots of cheap, unhealthy food, thinking that I was too busy and could work more with that stuff. The result? Great progress with work and horribly diminishing productivity. My overall output increased but I got far less done every hour. And I felt like shit all the time. So last week I started to eat healthy foods and exercise. Nothing fancy - I just stick to simple meals that I know are good for me, so it doesn't consume extra time. And I keep workouts to 20 minutes every other day (not much at all). It's worked wonders. I have far more energy now and have been getting 20-30% more done per day, probably at higher quality.
- stretchwithme 15y agoTaking time for yourself also gives your brain a break. How often does a solution to a problem or a new idea present itself when you simply take a break?
- bryne 15y agoThis exact scenario happened to me a few years back. I had just jumped onto a team in the middle of an enormous shift in product and put the nagging, on-and-off pain on the back burner with some aspirin and made a dentist's appointment a few days out. After I woke up on Wednesday with the worst headache of my life looking just like that first photo, I went to my oral surgeon, who sent me in for emergency surgery immediately. I spent a night in the ICU and three days recovering. He explained that I had developed a serious abscess that had spilled into my palate and threatened to close my windpipe completely, and that if I hadn't come in I probably wouldn't have made it to the weekend. It was an extremely sobering look at my priorities and good luck. I was young, and health insurance hadn't been a priority - had I been bootstrapping or freelancing instead of a part of a team with the good sense to get a group health insurance policy, I might have dug myself into about $40,000 in debt, or worse - hesitated to go to the doctor's for even longer. Don't fuck around with your health. I dodged a bullet. It's tempting to push these responsibilities off like any other, but like other commentors said, it runs directly contrary to your duty to be healthy and present for your team. Dead entrepreneurs make no products.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoNot to derail this thread, but out of curiosity why did you choose to take aspirin for the pain? Given that there are more effective OTC pain medications out there.
- gacba 15y agoI'll add one more similar story to this. My friend, who is a serial entrepreneur/CTO/founder, was on his first big company back in the late 90s. He was brought in by a friend/consulting partner and was very jazzed to be working on an exciting predictive analytics application to detect churn in mobile subscribers. So much so, that he lived the company. He ate poorly, didn't exercise, was grossly overweight, drank excessively and worked obsessively. His gallbladder couldn't take it and nearly burst. It was so swollen by the time he went to the doctor, they were scared it would go any minute. He had emergency surgery and could have easily died. That was as big as wakeup call as they get. He got the message loud and clear, lost weight, started exercising, ate better. Got much healthier and recovered shortly thereafter. Living for the startup is stupid. As byrne said, "Dead entrepreneurs make no products".
- davyjones 15y agoI cannot stress this enough: do not indulge in self medication. I am talking about ingesting pills. Pain is a warning sign that something is wrong. Even something dull that lasts a long time is not good. Get it checked by a doctor.
- ctdonath 15y agoBump that. Pain is a message. A serious message. Don't make it go away, FIX THE PROBLEM. Only take painkillers when you KNOW what the problem is AND ARE FIXING IT. After gallbladder removal, they gave me a big bottle of Vicodin and sent me home. Figuring that much of that strong stuff meant I should expect pain, I took it. Other indicators later I went back to the ER, realizing the pain was telling me something was very wrong. They didn't let me eat for two weeks waiting for the problem to heal.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- uurayan 15y agoWe bootstrapped our company as well and did not get (couldn't afford) health insurance for the founders until about 1.5 years in. By that time I was too embarrassed to go to the dentist and put it off for another 2 years. Worst decision ever. By the time I did go last year, it had been over 5 years since my last dental visit. I needed a root canal and I'm still getting my cavities I piled up in that time period filled (though I'm almost done). Our insurance plan is not cheap, (we live in Hawaii and pay about $500/month each) but its essential. You worry about so many things when choosing the startup life, your health shouldn't be another thing on your mind.
- goo 15y agoAfter almost dying in Thailand to an infected scrape, I recommend keeping a round of standard antibiotics accessible. I never expecting that the bumps near the scrape would progress to intense pain, waves of nausea, and blackness underneath the skin, or that those symptoms left me maybe a day to live had I not taken antibiotics supplied by a fellow traveller. A year later, I got an infected gum/tooth situation and the dentist was closed for the weekend. Although I could have freaked out and figured out an emergency situation and a different dentist (that I may not have been covered for), I just looked up the reasonable dosage for a tooth infection and treated myself accordingly. It went away overnight, and I followed up with my dentist that week. Note that I do not recommend self medication for anything out of the ordinary or with possible interaction effects. But for infected flesh, which is a common and dangerous medical issue, I think knowledgable self-administered use of antibiotics can be as valuable as a similar use of bandages or CPR.
- foobarbazetc 15y agoOr, you go to the hospital. That's not "freaking out", that's common sense. Self-administration is dangerous.
- epochwolf 15y agoWhen I went to Mexico almost a decade ago to do some missionary work, my doctor gave my dad and I each a full round of antibiotics with instructions to start taking them immediately if we started feeling sick.
- nopassrecover 15y agoWhich is a reckless attitude for a doctor that leads to treatment resistant tuberculosis.
- dedward 15y agoyeH, better to let peopledoing missionary work, far from any reasonable healthcare just die, is that it? Overuse of antibiotics is a global problem, for sure, but once you get into thelower latitudes of the planet, infections get a hell of a lot more dangerous. more bacteria, more types, and they move fast. Most people spending significant time in thetropics learneventually that small infections or even just cuts you would ignoreup north require mich more caution, attention, and respect if you want to stay out of the hospital, or, you know, just not die.
- JuanCBenavides 15y agoNeglect your health and your start-up company will outlive you! If your body gives you any type of warning sign, it's imperative that you take care of it! For your company to remain healthy, you need to be healthy. Eat well, exercise, and do your physical exams annually. Your start-up company will thank you for it.
- ZephyrP 15y agoDoesn't this strike anyone as, I don't know, maybe a little bit melodramatic? Not trying to discount or in any way disrespect the author or the people that read him, but I think these kind of posts, as much of a guilty pleasure as it may be to waste the little bits you have of your life begging the question on various sophomoric questions, are indicative of the declining quality of HN as the most social or active people fail to upvote genuinely compelling technical news and insights and instead let demagogic writings slide that range from The Enquirer to Readers Digest for smart people (or at least for people that like to pretend to be smart people, as the case may be).
- carbocation 15y agoLudwig's angina is life-threatening (not that one can reliably diagnose it from a scant blog post). Whether or not it had progressed that far, tooth abscesses are serious business because their sequelae are nasty. The connection between the illness and the post's overall message is perhaps strained, and I could see not wanting to see the message on HN.
- icehawk 15y agoNo, he was lucky, this sort of thing is definitely life-threatening: http://www.wlwt.com/r/29044524/detail.html http://www.wlwt.com/r/29044524/detail.html
- ilaksh 15y agoSounded like a real serious health issue to me actually, and it was 100% relevant to me since my life pretty much revolves around technology projects and trying to deal with my health issue without insurance.
- windexh8er 15y agoHaving a significant other who happens to be a dentist this is more commonplace than most probably think. When pain in your mouth is approaching the 6-10 range you're playing with borrowed time at that point. It's far cheaper, pain-free and healthier to: * Invest in a great tooth brush. * See your dentist at least once a year - and there are a lot of bad dentists (just as there are bad doctors) out there, so do some homework and avoid the "chop shops" of the dental world. * Eat healthy. We juice every day (once or twice) and greens like parsley, kale and spinach do a fantastic job of promoting a healthy mouth - the parsley does a great job of controlling bad-breath-bacteria as well. * Avoid amalgam - ask your dentist to do composites. The amalgam filings require much more tooth structure to be removed compared to the same filing using composite. Plus, no mercury (amalgams have been banned all over the world already, but for some reason the ADA still has their head shoved in ass state side). * Floss and scrape your tongue. Pain free. :)
- loopdoend 15y agoAnd chew xylitol gum. It kills bacteria. But it won't cure an impacted wisdom tooth. There are places that will put you out to remove them so stop putting it off.
- kijin 15y agoAvoid amalgam - ask your dentist to do composites. I had a fairly large composite filling in one of my molars, and it would never last more than a year because of the extreme pressures that molars are routinely subjected to. Composites are getting better, but they're still weaker than amalgam. Also, when a composite filling fails, a microscopic gap emerges between the filling and the tooth, letting bacteria seep in and cause cavities deep inside the tooth that goes undetected for a long time. A while ago, the dentist asked me whether I'd like to try amalgam, so I said yes after doing a bit of research myself. I haven't had it long enough to see if it actually lasts longer, but the doc tells me a well-placed amalgam filling can last a lifetime.
- windexh8er 15y agoWhile that was generally true it's generally not the case anymore. This isn't a knock on older dentists but the fact is - you're good at what you practice. Younger dentists (and better/more progressive dentists) do composites without the downside you're sharing. If a composite is structured correctly it should last over 10 years I've been told. Sure, an amalgam may last your lifetime, but I for one will never allow mercury to be in my mouth long term. Mercury changes significantly to insignificant amounts of heat (i.e. thermometer) - and while the ADA will tell you it's "sealed" it's considered a toxic substance, which has been disputed by many researchers. This is why amalgam is banned in most developed countries. I asked about the failing of a composite as you've described and was told that what you stated is not true. Any filing can fail and leak as described, this is generally a result of bad dentistry or trauma to the filing that impacted it's seating and is why you have annual X-rays done. ANY filing can fail regardless of compound leading to shadowing as described. So you have a choice. Mercury or safer materials that, when used properly, are a safer / healthier alternative. In closing - keep in mind one thing: not every doctor is as skilled or cognizant as the next. They're humans as well and there are fantastic doctors and there are greedy and poor skilled doctors. The fact is you should understand your doctor's core competency and skills as best you can. Unfortunately most doctors know who the bad doctors are in regions, but the status quo is to not throw any other doctor under the bus. The consumer loses because it's hard to get at that information. If in doubt, get a second opinion - if there's a big derivation in prognosis, get a third. It's your health at stake.
- mgkimsal 15y agoSimilarly, I had a cracked tooth in Jan 2011 (or maybe a bit earlier) that started to hurt in jan/feb. i put off dealing with - just taking aspirin and such. it got worse. i finally got to a dentist and they said I needed a root canal procedure and a cap. The nerve was exposed and that's what was hurting so much. Cost? $2400. I paid for their x-rays, said 'thanks', then got a second price from someone down the road. That was ~$1400 (plus the $100+ for the initial x-rays) so that was about $1500. Not pocket change for me, but still saved $1k with a couple phone calls. I wanted to be knocked out for the whole thing, but I had no one to drive me home at the time, so they wouldn't let me be knocked out - I had to be awake. In lieu of being sedated, I amused myself with some pics and videos: https://picasaweb.google.com/mgkimsal/RootCanalVisit1?authuser=0&feat=directlink https://picasaweb.google.com/mgkimsal/RootCanalVisit1?authus...
- zeroboy 15y agoWhat's tragic is that there are some folks who can't afford to have badly needed dental work done. Hard to believe, because the pain of my recent toothache hit these incredible high notes that literally buckled my knees. Great post. Thanks for reminding me of such a serious(ly overlooked) issue.
- prawn 15y ago@jnickhughes, dud link to Seconds in the article. Business idea looks good though - I think you're onto something.
- aneth 15y agoIf anything ever reaches "11 out of 10 on the pain scale," your body is probably telling you something. For those of you in San Francisco or New York, I highly recommend One Medical - you can make same day appointments and they are super efficient and timely. It's a beacon of sanity in the absurdity of American medicine.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- neilk 15y agoBefore the paranoia starts - I just deleted a comment that I made about a current YC startup where I know of a founder who's ignoring some health issues. I think it's better if I reach YC people privately about it.
- steve8918 15y agoThroughout my life, my parents have drilled into me: If you lose your money, you lose a little. If you lose your friends, you lose a lot. If you lose your health, you lose everything. No one is going to write you a beautiful eulogy if you collapse at work because you were so loyal to your paymasters. If you're feeling sick, then you need to take a break and get it looked at, end of story.
- RatOrigami 15y agoIf you have the funds for that... for the rest of us,... not many options.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- mindcrime 15y agoAside from a few swash buckling libertarians, There might be 5 or 10 of us... Never mind that conflating "health care" with "health insurance" is silly in the first place; or that we could focus on lowering the cost of health-care, enabling people to afford health-care without having to resort to the corrupt, ridiculous system we have today. But never mind the libertarians... just keep telling yourself that if we just pass enough laws and regulations and implement enough subsidies, kickbacks, programs, and create enough forms and bureaucracy that everything will be OK. I mean, that's worked so well up to this point, why not pile on more of it. These knobs go to 11, right?
- Wazza 15y agoI had open heart surgery just over 4 years ago, from a bacteria infection that is typically caused 50% of the time by bad teeth. This bacteria, literally ate my hart valve (they have no blood so cannot defend themselves). As a consequence I now have a titanium prosthetic Aortic heart valve. In a very quiet room, if you stand beside me, you can hear it click every time my heart beats. I had a fever for 4 weeks lost 25 pounds of weight. Serious stuff. Teeth infections can cause Endocarditis (heat valve deterioration)or in some cases meningitis. When you get told by the heart surgeon that there's a % chance you can die in surgery, you start to evaluate differently. Whether you believe vin things beyond death, or not, I believe we are here to learn, develop, experience and make a contribution to humanity. Ultimately the way we treat ourselves is tied with how we treat others. respect yourself, respect others...
- lukeholder 15y agowell said.
- kpennell 15y agoReally nice last couple of sentences there, thanks.
- knewter 15y agoYeah, scary stuff. Last year I had constant, nagging pain in my stomach muscles (always felt like I'd worked out my abs hard the night before) for a few months. I finally started having pain so severe that I could not just take painkillers and suffer through. I go see a doctor, and they diagnose me with pancreatitis and place me in the hospital immediately. Apparently my pancreas had not been particularly useful for a few months, as they thought I had diabetes (untrue) based on my A1C. Ended up spending 7 of the following 8 weeks either hospitalized or in my bed with a feeding tube in. Fun stuff (note: sarcasm). Anyway, I waited so long to see a doctor because running a business takes all of your time. If I'd been an employee, wouldn't have even questioned taking a day off to go see one. So meh, have to learn to do better / realize I'm still a person.
- mhartl 15y agoCOUNT RUGEN Ah. Are you coming down into the pit? Westley's got his strength back. I'm starting him on the machine tonight. PRINCE HUMPERDINCK (sincerely) Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped! COUNT RUGEN Get some rest. If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything.
- mhartl 15y agoI've never been more surprised by downvotes on HN. This is a quote from a beloved movie that expresses (in a lighthearted way) the exact point made in the OP. I'm very disappointed by the result.
- jlangenauer 15y agoI think there's a broader point to be made here: don't deal with issues by ignoring them. This is just as true for technological, social or finanical issues as it is with your health. Grab the bull by the horns, deal with it, and you'll almost always come out better.
- DanielBMarkham 15y agoYou don't want to screw around with infected/impacted teeth. One of the leading causes of death up until recently was tooth-related. You'd get a toothache, a few days later you'd be dead. There's a reason why in all those old westerns people submitted to having their teeth pulled out with pliers without any anesthesia. It was a hundred times better to lose a tooth than die. You get a toothache -- even out on the prairie where the only "doctor" is your friend Gus who dropped out of second grade, and Gus is going to be yanking out your teeth. It was just common sense. As a side note, this will probably sound amazing to many readers, but working both for myself and my startup my family went for over a decade without health insurance. Didn't seem like that big of a deal. Of course we had one rule: if you're really sick, you go to the doctor, no questions asked. In the states they had to see you, and you generally got great service driving up somewhere, even if you didn't have money. The trick was finding out where to go. Over those years, we ran up medical debt at times, yes, but nowhere near the amount we would have paid in health insurance premiums. (Which really shouldn't be a surprise. Basic math, there. We were in a low-risk group.) We had several kids, dental operations, gall bladders removed, vaccinations, ENT surgery -- all kinds of things. And everybody got all the medical attention they needed. It was simply risk management. Yes, things could have turned out differently and we could have ended up hundreds of thousands in debt. But the numbers were on our side. We made the decision just like the insurance companies do -- based on demographic risk. And if you're not making much money you can really only owe so much anyway. After 20 thousand or so, it might as well be 20 million -- you're never going to be able to pay it back. And if you owed 20 million, you'd still be alive and kicking and able to do all the things you love. That beats the alternative. Our downside was limited by the practicalities of medical debt collection. It was a good decision, and I'd make it again. Sorry for the digression. The point in telling the story was that even if you don't have insurance, working in a startup, slaving over the product 80 hours a week, fresh on a team, meeting with VCs -- none of that matters. All those other stresses in your life are silly by comparison. Learn to recognize when you're really sick and then immediately get help.
- davidw 15y agoSo basically you planned to spread the costs of any really big debts to society at large...
- realschool 15y agoSimilar thing happened to me, I was out of the country and was having serious tooth pains, before I returned I made an appointment and went the first day I was back. The dentist said 'Your lucky you came, this infection is pretty bad and almost spread to your brain'... scary shit, especially seeing as I was in another country for the previous 4 month and wouldn't have been able to get dental work done there.
- agentgt 15y agoHe must really like himself to put two portrait pictures of himself in a single blog post. I'm not saying its bad taste. I would do it too if I was better looking :)
- jyothi 15y agoI think moments like this define what should take priority. It is a wake up call but we all push it anyway don't we. I think this case is the most extreme where it is directly about one's health and is very critical. You have to be alive and kicking to do what you want. However what about the more grey areas like a loved one being sick, not getting time to see your child grow up, or even pushing the possibility of having a child or marriage - these are as irreversible. Just that these are a sacrifice of a feeling vs sacrifice of self. But you never know if the feelings are bigger than self.
- ctdonath 15y agoDue to life being overwhelming for a while (moved twice, two new jobs, new baby, etc.) I missed a cardiology appointment. At the next one, the new doctor checked me out, he got oddly quiet and asked in a restrained tone "are you sure you don't have any other symptoms?" Two major urgent surgeries later, he admitted that question really meant "why are you still alive?" Health first, guys.
- ansible 15y agoOK, this apparently needs to be spelled out clearly to all you hipster founder hacker types out there: Pain is bad. Yes, that is right, your body is trying to tell you that something is wrong. Taking pain meds does not fix anything. Ignore it at your own peril, because it is hard to found the next social media empire when you are dead.