Korean Job Discussion Forums

[winnie]

Well, I finally went to my doctor last week....for my flu turned cold....was given an injection, and a whack of pills.

I have taken them all, 15 a day...and guess what? I am still sick. I don't have a clue what I took, I think it was antibiotics and painkillers.

Has this been your experience?

I am in a small town, and the nearest well-equipped hospital is an hour away....so should I go back to that same doc and get a hundred more pills...or what??!??!?!

[Plume D'ella Plumeria]

What precisely, are your symptoms? No need to get overly graphic, mind you. Do you have the flu? If so, I think that is caused by a virus, so anti-biotics won't help there. Antibiotics are meant for bacterial infections. Even if you do have to travel an hour, it might be better to get to a well-equipped hospital. If Seoul is a manageable distance, there are some good facilities there.

[winnie]

Well, a few weeks ago, I got what I thought was the flu...chills, sweats, body aches, fever....bed ridden for 4 days.

Then it improved, and I felt 100%. But then the next day, I started coughing like mad....and it was accompanied with chest pain. And now it's evolved into hacking up some not so nice stuff.....

The doc here said he thought I had pneumonia, but he said he could not find any real symptoms of pneumonia.

Seoul is about a 6 hour ride from here, so I don't think it's really an option...unless of course this gets much much worse. I can still function, but I just can't stop coughing up stuff.

[eamo]

15 pills a day!!!

Try a different doctor. One that practices western medicine and not the hocus-pocus of Korean quacks.

[Plume D'ella Plumeria]

That does sound a bit like pneumonia...the coughing, fever and chest pains. I'm no expert, but I think I recall hearing that there are two (or more??) kinds of pneumonia - viral and bacterial. If the anitbiotics didn't help, then one might suppose it's the viral type. I think the only real cure for that is maybe some codeine tablets (to supress the cough), maybe something to bring down the fever, if you're still feverish and plenty of bed rest. Time, rest and eating healthily, really is what's going to get you better, if it turns out that that's what you have. Well, that's my non-medical opinion, anyway.

Since Seoul's not a real option, I think you ought to get yourself to the nearest large city and present yourself to a hospital there. Maybe a Korean friend could help you out with that.

[blunder1983]

I'm no doctor, but if its a virus then the antibiotics wont work and it may explain the period of good health too (viruses enter cells and then making loads more viruses, then rupture enter blood stream and repeat). I know this pattern is followed by malaria, u feel fine while the virus is incubating, but as soon as it re-enters the blood u feel like shit.

Don't worry about malaria tho as a. u cant get it here and b. the incubation period is only one day really (so one day crap, one day good). At least is was like that for my aunt.

Chris

[kermo]

Based on what I've been prescribed in the past, your pills were probably:

antibiotic
painkiller
anti-inflammatory/anti-histamine
digestive aid
and I have no idea what the fifth one would be.

I've had the symptoms you were talking about in Korea-- one day I had a scratchy throat, the next day I was sick as a dog, feverish, too tired to get out of bed, unable to breathe without pain. I was wiped out for three days, then I started to get better. I was still clearing out my lungs for a few weeks, but the scary part was over. The doctor glanced at me, told me I had a "common cold" and prescribed some pills. After reading what they were, I chucked them in the garbage, but felt better soon anyway.

It did feel quite a bit like pneumonia, which I've had before. Pneumonia isn't a very well-understood illness, so I'll explain a little. The label describes the symptoms, but not the cause. If you are told you have "pneumonia", all that tells you is that one or both lungs are horribly congested. An X-ray confirms it.

Sometimes pneumonia is caused by complications from a viral infection, like the common cold. This is usually gradual in onset.

Another form of pneumonia is bacterial, which is quite contagious, and hits you like a train. I was sneezed on by one of my clients, and was a dreadful mess ($600 in lost wages and expensive medication). I had chills, a fever, and shakes so bad I couldn't even lie still in bed. The only good that came of it was that I was able to catch most of the FIFA World Cup live, despite the time zones.

I suspect you'll be okay, just as I was. Take care of yourself, and check the prescription next time!

[winnie]

[kermo]

[deessell]

Dr Dee recommend GINGER....It is a natural anti inflammatory. Get some fresh ginger root, grate up about 1tbls and pour hot water over it and let it steep. Add some sugar if you are a bit of a sook(or even better wiskey) and take asprin as needed.

It will have you sorted out in a few days.

WARNING: IT WILL LIFT THE LUNG BUTTER OFF YOUR CHEST, but in this case it is a good thing.

[mullethunter]

i got a cold one winter here, and went to a hospital, (in apgujeong, so i thought i'd be safe there) because i still had to go to work and just wanted something to get me through my shifts. anyway, the doctor, (who of course spoke marginal english) prescribed me a whole schwack of pills, probably about the same number as you winnie. trouble was, whenever i would take the pills, about 1/2 an hour later i would feel soooo much worse; i'd start sweating buckets, and practically pass out everytime i stood up. needless to say, this scared the crap out of me so i went to the intl. clinic in itaewon and the doctor there explained the problem.
he said that it was common practise for koreans to take really high doses of medications for a shorter period of time, and that they have developed a high tolerance for that, but that westerners do not in general take such high doses. so, what happens is that when we are given these high doses, our bodies can't handle it, and instead of helping, the meds actually cause the virus to mutate, which is exactly what happened to me. so, i went from having a fairly regular, (although nasty) cold to a raging sinus infection and bronchitus, bordering on pneumonia. the doctor ordered me to never again take those pills that i had received from the korean hospital, and gave me a prescription for a weeks worth of (western dosage) antibiotics, and after a few days i felt MUCH better.
whew... long winded, but i felt i should write it as a warning to the foreigners here, be really careful about what you take when you're sick.
ps. hope you feel better soon winnie. i don't actually know you, but i know what it's like to get sick in korea, and it's a pretty crappy experience, even more than getting sick in your home country

[Wrench]

I have been sick for over 3 1/2 months now. I have serverly infected vocal chords, due to my tonsils. I am aiming at geting them removed next month.

[Mr. Literal]

Go see Dr. John Linton at Yonsei��s Severance Hospital. I was once in the same situation as you: Sick as a dog and getting progressively worse by the day, despite repeated trips to a local doctor and ingesting the bags of pills he prescribed.

1 Z-Pac (Zithromax) and several blasts of Flonase later, I was cleared up.

The trip to the hospital took me over an hour, but it was worth it.

[plattwaz]

Does sound like pneumonia to me, too, although I by no means claim to have any sort of medical knowledge above and beyond the normal person.

I had pneumonia for 5 months in my first year here.

The best advice I can give you is to NOT tell your mother or other close family member living on the other side of the world.....

My doc did xrays (5 xrays cost me about 15,000 won...so it's incredibly cheap), and it was right in his office. Used to the Cdn medical system I expected to have to wait 3 hours for them to be developed, then sit in a waiting room while someone looked at them, thought about it, passed it on to someone else, and then tell me to call my GP the next day. NOPE! X-rays taken, and I waited for about 5 minutes while he looked at them and sat me back in his office.

He did keep giving me meds (same concocation as kermo said...antibiotic, painkiller, anti inflammatory and digestive aid - ironiclaly this is the exact same concoction of pills you get for EVERY illness in korea...), but I was not very repsonsible with taking them. I also got codeine (known as Co-day-na here) to control the cough.

Just cough it all out, every bit that you can......

[AdamH]

Does anyone know what this stuff is?

It's a small orange and white box that says "gelfos M" in English, and has 4x20g sachets with some as-yet-undetermined substance in them.

The main ingredient (61.9%) is "�λ�˷�̴���".

I've been feeling lightheaded, dizzy and nauseous all week (no I haven't been smoking or drinking), have a cold, and trouble getting to sleep, and the wonjangnim is doing his best to cajole me into working a morning split shift for the next week or so by buying me a couple of boxes of this mysterious stuff.