Korean Job Discussion Forums

[BigBlackEquus]

I am sick. Been sick all weekend. Happy Chuseok.

If you are sick, do you always go to the doctor? I have got a cold/flu thing. Koreans always tell me I need to go to the hospital, but I dont always go when I am sick. I think anti-biotics will not help someone who just has a cold or the flu, right?

[Ekuboko]

At home, for a cold I don't go to the doctor.
However, I go here in Korea because that's the only way to stop every Korean person bugging me any further about it.

[crazylemongirl]

flu - no

when I have trouble breathing - yes

[Demonicat]

Never. I just don't see the need in taking antibiotics for obvious viral infections- which is quite often the case here.

[jlb]

I quite rarely go, unless it lingers on more than 10 days or so and then I know it's something serious.

[mindmetoo]

Right. Colds and flus are caused by a virus. Antibiotics only work against germs/bacteria. Germs and bacteria are full fledged cells. A virus is a million times smaller, a bit of genetic material that invades cells. Sometimes for a sore throat a doctor will prescribe antibiotics, as it could be strep (which is caused by the streptococcus bacteria). Colds there is little you can do. It takes about 3-5 days to get over the worst of a cold with medication. Without any medication it takes about 3-5 days to get over the worst.

The only comfort I take in a cold is it's a work out for your immune system. My father, a professor of medicine, used to tell me this when I was little and wished there was a pill that would get rid of the common cold. Decades later there's evidence he was right. Kids raised in super clean environments end up having all kinds of health problems when they're older: asthma, allergies, etc. They didn't get exposed to bacteria and colds when they were little and their immune systems had no chance to get a work out. By contrast, kids raised on a farm, who spend most of their young life in mud and licking cows, tend to have far fewer allergies/asthma.

[Dan The Chainsawman]

Man the only thing you need is some Ballentines.

When I get sick at school I just say I am going to the doctor. When I stumble in the next day I shake a packet of pills I pick up at the pharmacy at my coworkers and wander off to class.

[pet lover]

Have another raging cold right now. Thought it was the flu last night due to the hot and cold flashes, the classes of students spinning around, and the repeated urge to puke all over my desk, but turns out it's just a nasty cold. I'm half hoping to get food poisoning now because every time I've gotten food poisoning and ended up at the hospital, whatever it is that they are pumping through those IVs and those shots in the butt kills my cold dead.

And here I thought it was my allergies raging out of control during Chusok--it was this horrid cold the whole time!

Since none of my kids have had a cold recently, I'm blaming this one on stress.

[tzechuk]

I don't go to the doc's if I just have a cold.

I don't take Letty to the doc's either if she has a cold - I read that the medicine could mask other problems and the cold could just be the beginning of something more serious, so I leave her be for a few days and if it doesn't get better, then I take her in. If the doc says it's just a cold, I don't get medicine for her.

My husband disagrees with me, being Korean and all but I've been brought up to just deal with a cold without seeking medical advice.

[Demonicat]

just a wonder: Is the Korean desire to medicate everything a possible reason behind the prevelnce of bad swine and avian flu outbreaksn Korea and china (don't know about chinese tendencies). The bodies lose the abillity to fight off disease, but the high rate of anti-biotic consumption leads to anti-biotic resistant "nasties". This is not a condemnation, just an honest wonder.

[Zyzyfer]

Why would anyone ever go to the doctor for a cold, unless they're either loaded or old?

[mindmetoo]

I wonder if this is a product of Korea's standard of living outstripping cultural advancement. It's kind of like cars and roads. Only now are Koreans just beginning to get it. Traffic laws. Cars go on the road, not the side walk, pedestrians have the right of way, not the biggest vehicle on the road. In a world were only 20 years ago medical care was for the rich, maybe Koreans view it as the thing to do.

[JongnoGuru]

And that big hypo has talismanic powers, it's the magic rattle of the white shaman. Whenever I go to hospital for any reason, and it's not often, my secretary always asks if the doctor stuck me in the donkey. And if he hasn't, she gets this sisterly look of concern and hunts around for another doctor I should try. Doesn't matter that I went in for -- a bad headache, a pain in my arm, the flu, whatever. Gotta get stuck in the donkey or you just won't get better.

[tardisrider]

[krats1976]

I've been to the doctor in Korea twice in two years:

Experience #1: I went in for a hypo-thyroid test. The $*&$% doctor couldn't find a vein big enough to draw blood from the normal spot, so they ended up taking it from the middle of my forearm. Do you have any idea how much that hurts? I swore I'd never go to the doctor here again unless I was on the verge of death. Which leads to...


Experience #2: Went to the emergency room a couple of weeks ago because of a really bad reaction to ginseng. OK, so I wasn't dying, but I was running the risk of scratching all of my skin off!! So, same thing.




But going for a cold or flu? No chance.