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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

I'm so that guy. Not for security clearance, but medical questionaires. I always fill them in with total honesty, listing the most minor and irrelevant details if they fit the question. My wife keeps telling me not to fill that stuff in, and she's quite the opposite, giving the preferred answer everywhere, even when I think: "but shouldn't you mention that thing?"

Of the two of us, she's the one who has tons of experience navigating and running bureaucracies, and does so quite well. I'm terrible at it.

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Sometimes you just can't win, though.

I used to work for a Swedish company making training simulations for surgeons. There are of course special rules regarding customs declarations of medical equipment.

Our salespeople often complained that when entering the U.S. it was basically a coin toss if the customs agent would be angry with them for declaring our simulator as "medical equipment" and wasting their time, or get angry at them for trying to sneak this medical equipment through customs without declaring it.

Yeah I think the lesson I took out of the story was DO put that you have been investigated by the FBI and let the guy you give the form to tell you to leave it off…

I had the same problem with something so much more benign than that.

I was a Green Card holder. Technically, you need your card and foreign passport to enter the country.

I got yelled at for giving them my passport once, with the guard claiming it’s useless and not needed. So then I started having it on hand but not providing it on the spot, at which point I’d get yelled at for not providing the needed passport upfront. It’s almost as if they like yelling more than consistently following rules.

My understanding is that the passport is not actually required at the CBP checkpoint if you present a valid unexpired green card. But yeah, there's no way different officers should be yelling contradictory things at you.

Side note: A passport may still be required to board an inbound international flight even if I'm right about it not needing to accompany a green card at the CBP checkpoint, depending on the rules of the airline and the departure country.

Is it? I've been yelled about doing or not doing it so much that I can't keep track anymore.

That part of my life is behind me so now I get the next fun challenge: Which passport to use when going up to Canada and back as a dual citizen.

That one is clearer, at least. TL;DR for the easiest experience - bring both passports, enter and leave each country on the respective passport, and if anyone is confused, show both passports and explain that you're a dual citizen.

To enter and leave the US, you're supposed to use a US passport and not a Canadian one. To enter Canada, it's smoothest and fastest to use your Canadian passport, but they do have an exception for US-Canadian dual citizens that allow you to use a US passport.

If you use a US passport and claim to be a Canadian citizen at a CBSA checkpoint, they might send you to immigration screening to verify your claim, especially if you don't also show some evidence of citizenship like your citizenship certificate. If you use a US passport and claim to be a Canadian citizen to a commercial transportation company like an airline on the way into Canada, they're advised to do "due diligence", but there is no specific set of documentation required. The citizenship certificate would probably satisfy them, and in practice many times maybe the US passport by itself too.

Last time I was at the doctor, I answered “not that I know of” when asked if I had any allergies.

Afterwards at the pharmacy, it turns out my prescription included a box of antihistamine.

I have a very obscure allergy to some specific compounds in some medication. It gives me a rash, nothing serious. I'm always very diligent in mentioning what little I still remember about that allergy.

It can be important.

Obscure allergic reaction and obscure disease often look the same. You treat them opposite. The former, you want to suppress the immune system, and the latter, you don't. In obscure circumstances (e.g. a doctor is debugging a serious rash after a surgery while you're unconscious and on an IV), those sorts of tidbits can be important.

I've spent thirty years telling doctors I'm allergic to amoxicillin; I'm not sure if I am, but that's how my parents started every doctor visit when I was small so I carry on the tradition. I think I might have thrown up after taking it as a small child, but I have no recollection myself.

it's common to have childhood allergies to penicillin-class drugs which go away in adulthood; i had to have major surgery (as an adult) but had a similar childhood reaction. I was advised to do an allergy 'challenge test'. It turned out the allergy was either never really there or had gone away, which gives doctors more options when antibiotics are needed. It might be worth looking into.

But only “look into it” in a carefully supervised medical center. Don’t go rolling the dice on a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic at home or outside of that supervision.

I have something similar with epinephrine. Every visit I'm asked "allergy to epinephrine?" and I have to, again, clarify "no, but I'm sensitive to it, and it makes me really jittery, so I prefer to not have it unless there's no choice". It makes me feel like I've had way too much caffeine and is just generally unpleasant.

Those conversations don't seem tomatter much, because when getting common small procedures done (such as mole removal) the doctor will use whatever they prefer. Epinephrine is a vascoconstrictor, so it helps with bleeding and keeps the anesthesia (eg: lidocaine) from wearing off as quickly. So, doctor's prefer it. So each time I have to ask the doctor if that's the variant they are using, and if they could do without. Sometimes they do, sometimes they explain why it's best not to and we go ahead with.

I know I could outright say allergy and they wouldn't use it, but I really don't want to cut off a useful tool for them, for no good reason other than I don't like a minor, short-lasting side effect.

That's kinda what epinephrine does..

I’m pretty sure it’s not actually possible to be allergic to epinephrine. After all, it is commonly known as adrenaline. You’d probably die if you were allergic to it.

Yeah, that's what's weird about it. It's very much NOT an allergy, but I don't like how it makes me feel. So, optionally, if it can be avoided I prefer to. But it seems to be listed as an allergy and is stuck in my medical records forever. :\

Many people get a rash when a viral illness (epstein barr comes to mind) is treated with amoxicillin. This is not an amoxcicillin allergy.

What a weird doctor you have.

You don't discuss about your actual medical condition and he doesn't tell you why he prescribe each drug and for which purpose?

Next time just ask for an allergy test. These days they just draw a bit of blood and send you the results in a few days. Then its on your records for good.

I'm not sure how to interpret this. Were the antihistamines in case you had a drug allergy? Or were they for the other kind of allergy (pollen, pet danger, dust, etc.)?

Antihistamines are for any kind of allergy. They don't care if it's from breathing in something, touching something, or eating something. Allergy is an allergy.

Right, but what was the doctor's intent?

Were they thinking, "The patient might find these handy if they have pollen allergies but never really thought to do anything about it"?

Or, were they thinking, "The patient doesn't seem to know if they're allergic to this prescription I'm giving them, so I'll give them an antihistamine to go along with it just in case."

> My wife keeps telling me not to fill that stuff in, and she's quite the opposite, giving the preferred answer everywhere

This might literally kill her.

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