This post is going viral because it's a visceral, first-person account of how repeated medical misdiagnoses nearly cost a young man his life โ resonating deeply in Korea where overworked clinic doctors and long wait times are a constant frustration. The detail about being called a hypochondriac right before nearly dying from a heart attack struck a nerve across Korean online communities.
A post from a Korean delivery rider community forum is going viral after a man shared his harrowing months-long ordeal of being misdiagnosed, dismissed, and even called a hypochondriac by multiple doctors โ before finally being rushed into emergency heart surgery for a condition that had quietly been killing him since last summer.
The writer moved to Daejeon in July of last year and almost immediately started experiencing severe chest pain so bad he couldn't walk or breathe properly. He went to the nearest clinic, where the doctor โ without even using a stethoscope โ told him it was costochondritis (rib inflammation) from working out too much and sent him home with anti-inflammatory meds. The pain came back every four months or so, and each time he was shuffled between clinics and handed prescriptions for gastritis or esophagitis. He figured the stress of moving had wrecked his stomach. He kept going to work. He kept lifting weights. He kept doing manual labor gigs.
Things got dramatically worse in mid-April. The chest pain started radiating from his right chest all the way down his arm โ a classic warning sign โ and he could only do cardio for about 13 minutes before hitting what he described as the absolute maximum pain he'd ever felt. He went to another clinic on April 27th, where a doctor was rude, spoke down to him, asked bizarrely irrelevant questions about his childhood sports and why he moved to Daejeon, and then โ incredibly โ told him he was faking it. 'In my opinion, you're malingering. You're pretending to be sick.' The doctor offered to write a referral letter to another hospital, and when the writer said he didn't trust the diagnosis, the doctor just told him to leave.
After being turned away from two more clinics due to long wait times, he finally found a small internal medicine clinic that was still open before lunch. This doctor actually listened. He asked a crucial question no one else had thought to ask: was the writer in pain *during* the ECG tests, or had the pain subsided by then? When the writer said the pain had always calmed down before the tests, the doctor immediately sent him to run up and down the building's stairs until the pain came back โ then did the ECG on the spot. The ECG still came back normal, but the doctor said he was almost certain this was angina (ํ์ฌ์ฆ, a condition where the heart doesn't get enough blood) and prescribed five tiny nitroglycerin tablets. The instructions: if chest pain hits, don't swallow โ dissolve one under your tongue. If the pain disappears within 3โ5 minutes, it's a heart problem. Go to the ER immediately.
On the way home, the pain came back. He put a tablet under his tongue. The pain vanished in minutes. His exact words: 'Oh f**k. This isn't gastritis. It's my heart.'
He Googled angina, saw that surgery usually takes under an hour with same-day discharge, threw a portable charger in a bag like he was heading to a convenience store, and casually walked to the university hospital ER. He almost turned around at the door when he heard the non-covered fees. He tried the regular outpatient desk instead โ they gave him an appointment two weeks out. His mom called. She told him to just go to the ER. He did.
Blood tests revealed a cardiac enzyme level more than ten times the normal range. He was taken in immediately. Surgery was scheduled for first light the next morning. He had no guardian โ he kept insisting he didn't want to bother anyone โ until a staff member claimed his father was already on the way (he wasn't), which sent him into a rage and he unleashed a string of profanity at the ER staff. The head nurse came to calm him down and begged him to call someone. He called his mom. She took a taxi, the first KTX train, and another taxi to get there in the middle of the night.
The diagnosis in surgery: not angina. Acute myocardial infarction โ a heart attack. Two of his three coronary arteries were blocked. One had been blocked so long it was beyond saving (likely since that first episode back in July). The other was cleared and fitted with two stents. Surgery took two hours and twenty minutes under local anesthesia, meaning he was fully awake the entire time, eyes wandering around the operating room, noticing a group of cardiology students standing near the entrance with their hands folded watching like NPCs.
After three days in the ICU and a move to a general ward โ where he couldn't sleep because of a screaming elderly patient next door โ he was discharged. He also agreed to participate in a clinical trial where he was given two mystery syringes (contents unknown even to the doctor โ either a blood-clot-dissolving agent or saline solution) to stab into his own stomach samurai-style if future chest pain doesn't respond to his spray medication. He gets 70,000 won (about $50) for that.
The silver lining: he had a second-generation Korean health insurance supplemental plan (์ค๋น๋ณดํ, a private top-up insurance that covers what national health insurance doesn't) that pays out up to 30 million won (about $22,000) for a first-time acute myocardial infarction. After his own out-of-pocket costs, he estimates he can give his mom around 2.3 million won toward her apartment purchase and cover two to three months of his own living expenses.
He now has to take medication for the rest of his life, visit the hospital twice a month, and recalibrate goals he'd set for himself. He ended the post with a message that hit hard across Korean internet: 'Don't let your illness get worse. Go to the hospital the moment something feels off. And get supplemental insurance as early as you can. I pay 130,000 won a month and thought it was a waste of money โ until now.'