Conflicting Decisions on Exclusions

<p>I am currently suffering from an inflamed disc in my spine which is touching my sciatic nerve and causing horrific pain in my entire right leg leaving me unable to walk or work. There is no relief from it. I have visited doctors who only mask the pain by injections for a few hours. I went to the hospital and Discovery refused to authorise my admittance for treatment of the pain and inflammation. Apparently the pain in my leg is caused by my "back" which they exclude back and neck from their plan. If I get stabbed in my back then what? If something get stuck in my ,throat which is part of my neck then, is that excluded as well? On the other other hand patients with arthritis which is inflammation of the joints are accepted. Bottom line is I have an inflammation, where the inflammation happened is beyond my control. All I did was cough whilst brushing my teeth and all this started. I try not to use to my medical aid as much as I can, when I do get the flu I walk into a chemist and ask for some medictaion and as the moment I have a nasty rash but I got treatment from a pharmacy. Only if I am in extreme pain or can not manage at all then do I go to hospital because I have medical aid. Yesterday I spent over R9000 in consults with orthpedics and getting MRIs done onlt to find out the diagnosis is you need hospital treatment to reduce the infammation of the herniated disc for which I was refused. I am very disappointed with Discovery and me worrying about not using it for trivial things but instead for emergencies has got me nowhere. I will become one of those people who abuse it every chance they get. I get an itch rather scratch it I will go see the GP. just becuase I have medical aid. So much for trying to alleviate the burden of Discovery , in the end all they showed me no sympathy when I needed them the most.</p>