Adventurasia Community

However, by the middle of night, and especially the following day (Thursday), I felt quite sick. Every hour or so, I’d have to go to the washroom, I’d get these stomache cramps/aches etc… I more or less had to take most of the day off. That night, I went to sleep early, around 9:00 PM and woke up every hour or two to ‘relieve myself’.

On Friday, I was still having the same sorts of problems so my girlfriend took time off work to take me to the hospital. I didn’t really want to go at first as I’ve read about all these horror stories about how doctors there give you the wrong medicine/treatment; how many patients have been killed as a result; etc. Plus, I’ve never gone to a hospital before because I felt sick, usually a clinic’s visit would be okay — but I never felt like this before either.

My doctor can best be described as a quirky fellow. He asked me various questions — nationality, parent’s nationality, what i do in japan, how many brothers and sisters i have, etc. Some of the questions I couldn’t understand the relevance, but gave him an answer with a somewhat ‘evil eye’.

He then asked me what the problem was, and I said it might be due to something I ate at Matsuya. As I was fine before that - I ate a bowl of soba (noodles) with sauce.

He did a few quick tests - check my heartbeat, check my temperature (according to him, and a surprise to me, was that I was running a fever), checked my blood pressure. After that, he asked me if I wanted to do some other tests such as:

a.) drink barium and then have my stomach probed
b.) have an x-ray
c.) have a blood test
d.) have a urine test

At that point I said I’d rather not. Although my faithful companion suggested that I should go for at least b, c, and d. I then asked the doctor whether he thought that all of this was a result of something I ate at Matsuya - he said he wasn’t sure exactly. I then asked if he would know after going through the tests, and again he said he wouldn’t really know.

Anyways, I went ahead and completed b, c, and d. Everything tested normal. The X-Ray machine was rather interesting - I stood on a metal step, facing a photographic plate. The X-Ray unit was behind me. The doctor in charge pressed the button and in less than a second it was ready. I don’t think I’ve had a non-dental x-ray before, so perhaps this is normal. With the blood test, the doctors kept commenting that they couldn’t see my vein that easily (both left and right arm) and I was a bit worried. But in the end it turned out alright, and I didn’t feel any pain during or after the blood letting. A couple of years ago, when I had a blood test at a clinic in Ebisu, the nurse didn’t have the armrest on tight enough, and just after she put the needle in my arm, the armrest fell. So she had to readjust the armrest and reinsert a needle (new one I think).

All in all, I had more tests than I had imagined I would have to go through. I was shuffled back and forth between many different rooms, with different doctors/nurses performing different tasks on me.

At the end of it all, the doctor prescribed some medicine for me - a pill like medicine and then a ‘powdered’ type of medicine (which I believe comprises of 3-4 different medicines, but ground together). I was surprised to see the powdered medicine as I asked how I was to eat it — could I mix it with water? I later found out you can get things at the drugstore which is made of ricepaper or some other water solubale material that easily dissolves in your mouth, to hold the powder together. I learned the hard way about how quickly the paper dissolves. No sooner did I place it in my mouth, that the paper had dissolved and I was left with a mouthful of powder. Of course I wasn’t able to swallow it in time, and ended up choking on it.

For those of yous who are interested in how much this cost. The total bill including the various tests, and medicine (5 days worth, 3 times per day) came to 3300 Yen. I’m on Japanese National Health (which costs me an arm and a leg), and under this plan, I’m responsible for 30% of the cost. There are other plans that you can enrol in, which cost about $500 US a year or so, and would easily pay for itself after 1-2 months of National Health. However, the thing I’m not certain about is:
If you need to join National Health again, then do you need to repay past contributions missed as a result of being in another plan?
Current plans don’t cover things for which you had done with National Health. So if I had some dental work done with National Health, would that I mean I’m not covered for future dental work?
It’s no guarantee that I can get out of National Health so easily, although I spoke with someone at the ward office who said I could simply present my new health plan, and I’d have to pay a portion of outstanding contributions for the year.