
Originally Posted by
Almond
I know it was a mad suggestion, but from the way the guy was talking it seemed like he'd lose everything if he tested positive (lose a scholarship or whatever).
I went into A&E one time, but I actually wasn't faking it, there was genuinely something wrong with me. My heart rate was through the roof, my eyes were sensitive to bright light, and I had a slight temperature. When the doctors heard that, they didn't just tell me to go home and rest, they brought me in for blood tests and so forth.
All you need to do is present the doctors with enough symptoms to warrant blood tests, and wahey you've got to spend 5 hours in the hospital!
I wasn't suggesting to put yourself in danger by keeping your heart rate ridiculously high for 5 hours, but it would be easy to take a pill that would bring it up for just a while, long enough for the doctors to take your pulse rate and see that something's up. If you tell them that bright light is hurting your eyes then they'll definitely bring you in because they'll think it could be meningitis, and meningitis can be fatal. The last thing they want is to be the doctor who sent someone home with meningitis symptoms and later have that person die.
I know it's a terrible abuse of the medical system, but if it the consequences of failing that test are catastrophic, then you might think it's worth it.
And by the way... just a few hours of high pulse rate is not going to have any lasting effect on you. Just look at marathon runners who keep their heart rate high for extended periods of time. Your pulse rate and blood pressure has to be high for days, weeks, months before anything serious happens.