HSE and NHS compared, from someone who has used both

Started 16 March 2024 · 17 replies · 211 hearts · read 3.8k times

DelythBala, UK · 16 March 2024

2.3 years ago

HSE and NHS compared, from someone who has used both — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Regional question, because I have read a great deal of advice that turns out to be true in one country only.

I am aware some of this may be nothing. I would still like to know whether other people have had it, because I have spent a fortnight assuming I am the only one.

Here is where I am. The medication side has been more or less as described, and the part nobody prepared me for is everything around it: what to say to people, how to plan a week, and how to tell the difference between a thing to endure and a thing to raise.

Sorry for the length. If anyone has been here, I would very much like to hear it.

OrphBath, UK

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

HollisBath, UK

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

Two things, both boring. First, none of us can tell you what to take. Second, the conversation you want to have is with your prescriber, and we can help you write it down.

PersisBristol, UK

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

SaffHastings, UK

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

SephNorwich, UK

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

8me too 9

TorKeswick, UK

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

AmbroseYork, UK

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

LilPreston, UK

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

11me too 7

BessLouth, UK

#10

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

GavinDundee, UK

#11

For what it is worth, the trial data on this is thinner than the confidence of the internet would suggest. Worth knowing when you read the posts.

12me too 2

BrennaEnniskillen, NI

#12

It got worse before it got better for me, which I wish someone had said. About ten days of worse.

NerysRhyl, UK

#13

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

PamSouthport, UK

#14

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

BryonyMalvern, UK

#15

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#16

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I want to slow this down a little. There are four different answers flying about and they are all somebody's real experience, which makes them true and not necessarily relevant to the person who asked.

16me too 7

SolomonManchester, UK

#17

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.