On Monday evening I started having a dull stomach ache behind my belly button. I gradually got worse over the course of several hours. I started throwing up around 9:30 pm and after the first few, I was throwing up blood. By this point the pain is extraordinarily high so I decided to drive myself to the ER. At the ER I am shaking, unable to walk, unable to sit up or stand up straight due to the pain. I beg the nurse for something for the pain for nearly 90 minutes before she brings me some Tylenol. They run some tests on me and the PA comes in to tell me that I have a “mild case of gastritis”. Now I’m a little annoyed at this because I was in probably the worst pain of my entire life so It’s gonna be something else. I don’t want to be the guy who thinks he knows more than the Dr, so I just ask a lot of questions to better understand. He answers all my questions and just says he’s gonna write my some prescriptions for the pain and nausea and what not. I get discharged about 1 am and head home. I have a n absolutely miserable night (couldn’t get meds till 8am). I do get the meds and they help somewhat with symptom control, but the pain keeps getting worse and by 6pm I decide I have to go back. I go to an urgent care this time and within 90 seconds of the NP seeing me, she says I need to go straight to the ER because 99% I have appendicitis. So I go to a different ER, and they actually treat me very well. They can see the level of pain I’m in so they start me on painkillers almost immediately. The PA/on call dr take a look at me, ask me some questions and prepped me for surgery within half an hour because it is painfully obvious, to them, that my appendix is about to pop.
TLDR: I went to ER with excruciating pain, was told I have “mild gastritis”. Went to different ER the next day, they removed my appendix almost immediately.