Number 4 on The Top 10 Ways to Avoid the ER

Drugs like methamphetamines, heroine, and cocaine are the scourge of every emergency department I have worked in. Meth is the biggest problem now. If these drugs did not exist, I have no doubt that health care costs would be much lower, people would be much happier, and my job would be way easier.

Here are the problems you can anticipate if you are using these drugs:

Strokes

Heart attacks

Infections in the skin, heart and blood

Psychotic behavior (sometimes shrieking profanities at your ER doctor)

Rotting teeth

Heart failure

Liver damage

Kidney disease

Brain damage

It’s always amazing when I see patients who have been using meth for days, and they come into the ER complaining of “Not feeling good.” Shocker! I usually ask why they expect to feel good after using these destructive chemicals for days on end. Then I explain that we are going to get to know each other very well, because they are going to come back repeatedly into the ER until their body is a complete toxic waste dump–unless of course, they quit. Sometimes this works.