Shell shocked after a and e visit

[Onethreefiveseven]

I am looking for advice on what to do next as I feel like I'm not coping

I started developing very severe neck pain yesterday. I am not inexperienced with pain, I've been through significant, life-threatening medical events. This was far worse pain than breaking a bone, for example, or an infected surgical wound. I've also had migraines and this was much worse. The closest comparison was when I went into hyperstimulation during a pregnancy induction and felt like my abdomen was in a vice. This time I felt like my skull was about to crack. It was so extremely painful and very frightening, I also had blurred vision on my left side. The pain was so intense I can't describe it.

I was sent to a and e by 111, got there at 8, told 3-4 hours wait. I sat in waiting room on a hard chair groaning and crying. By the time I was triaged the wait had become 5-6 hours and then by 11pm 8-9 hours. I spoke to a receptionist who made it clear that I wouldn't be seeing anyone until the morning. No pain relief until then. So I asked my partner to pick me up and we called 111 again desperately trying to get pain meds. Spent the night waiting for callbacks and begging for help down the phone. Sobbing and at times screaming from the pain. I finally got some codeine this morning, after 14 hours of indescribable pain.

This morning the pain is more under control and I thought I would feel relieved but instead I feel odd, psychologically, in a bad way. Kind of dead eyed and like I want to cry but can't. Hopeless. The fact that I interacted with so many people and no one helped. No one even really seemed to believe me how bad the pain was. I'm not writing this to blame them. Maybe they were doing what was necessary, prioritising other patients. It was still horrific though.

I will make a drs appointment for my physical health but I want to know what to do, today, to try to minimise the psychological effects. I've barely slept and I can't figure out what to do. Has anyone else been through a prolonged period of very intense pain and/or been denied pain relief, and found a way to cope with the emotional aftermath. Maybe just writing this down will help, I don't know.

I know what I expect in a supposedly rich country.

People with serious possibly life threading conditions to be seen and treated quickly.

For people in horrendous pain to be taken seriously and given pain relief quickly.

For people who are seriously ill to not have to wait hour and hours on a chair.

For elderly people not to have to piss in full view of everyone as they only have a trolley in the corridor.

For people not waiting days - yes days - to be admitted to a ward.

Newsflash: severe pain akin to her head being squeezed in a vice, with accompanying blurred vision, is a medical emergency, and she should have been trialed immediately and sent for a CT scan.

If 111 works so badly the Tories could have brought in a new system. They have had plenty of time to do that.

Suing it is the answer.

It forces trusts to improve because it introduces the concept of accountability.

@Onethreefiveseven - I used to be a nurse, and I think you were very badly treated by A&E - symptoms like that sound clearly neurological, even to me (and I trained and worked in the last century 😉).

I hope that you get proper help from your GP - in your place I would want a proper neuro exam, as well as suitable pain relief.

My dad had trigeminal neuralgia (sorry not sure of spelling). He was generally a very stoic person and often poo-pooed pain killers used to have fillings with no injections etc. But when he started having these headaches at night, they were awful. Mum found him sobbing on the bedroom floor clutching his head.

Your pain sounds similarly unbearable, OP. If you have another episode, you do need to get it checked out.

I agree there needs to be accountability, but suing literally takes funds from a system struggling with underfunding

OP, I am so sorry about your horrific experience. It is no surprise that you are feeling traumatised. You may need to consider counselling. My sister-in-law was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of the way she was treated in hospital.

I'm in the US with a family member who is a doctor. Emergency room care in private hospitals including private not for profit hospitals is provided by (1) doctors who are not direct employees of the hospital but are members of a group of specialists in emergency medicine, and (2) nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants who are direct employees of the hospital.

In addition, you might find yourself receiving care from a resident in Emergency Medicine, someone who is studying the specialty under the direction and guidance of a fully qualified and senior emergency med doctor. This applies to teaching hospitals. The residents are employees of the teaching hospitals and spend three years learning their art before they can hang up their shingle. They receive ever increasing levels of responsibility over the course of the three years. They do not send bills to patients or to Medicaid or Medicare. Their services are included in the hospital bill.

You get two bills after your visit, one from the ER doctor and one from the hospital. If you are admitted and see other specialists, who are also independent contractors within the hospital, you will also get bills from them.

For public/ county hospitals, doctors and all other HCPs are direct employees of the hospital.

This - best post of the thread .

@Onethreefiveseven

How are you now, OP?

And just to make it clear, emergency medicine specialists cover everything in their training. They diagnose and treat every kind of emergency that walks or gets wheeled through the ER doors, from childbirth to drug overdoses to gunshot wounds to car crashes to heart attacks, strokes, broken legs, psychotic breaks, and on and on and on. On-call specialists can be called in to operate or treat at the point where a patient is admitted - neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, ICU specialists, psychiatrists, obstetricians, etc. But the ER doctor is trained to handle everything at point of contact.

Years ago when I was pregnant I suffered from the most incredible pain. They kept telling me I was a first time mum and just anxious but I couldn’t move. That was at 26 weeks onwards. About 4 days after giving birth I experienced to this day the most incredible pain. I screamed for 24 hours solid it was horrific. I have never before or since felt this type of pain I actually passed out from the oain

it turns out I was having organs clot and die. That pain during pregnancy was the first blood clots in my stomach. The screaming agonising pain was blood clots in my spleen and then my spleen dying. I went on to have a stroke and massive bilateral PE I had clots in my srm

it ended up being a catastrophic event and I spent over a year in hospital almost dying.

I ended up with a huge bleed on the brain and parts of my pituitary and brain tissue also clotted and died.

I suffered with intense birth trauma and my children were born weighing 2lbs and 3lbs and no one listened to me….

pain that bad is never usually for no reason. I ended up in intensive care for 4 months because people thought I was just anxious whilst pregnant.

don’t stand for it and follow your gut.

This is awful. Really hope you are ok xxx

I am not a medical expert in any way but pain at the back of your neck can be a sign of a brain bleed or burst aneurysm. In my mother sudden pain at the back of her neck was only one major symptom for quite some time( at least 10 hours). See subarachnoid hemorrhage.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/brain-aneurysm/symptoms/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/subarachnoid-haemorrhage/

There is a huge spike in Meningitis cases https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/28721544/foreign-office-warning-travellers-uk-fatal-meningococcal-disease/amp/

@mathanxiety we have emergency specialists as well. My neighbour is one. But if you are in A and E and it is working well, they can also call on specialists who work in the hospital. This matters if you have an unusual or complex condition.

To the OP, being so abandoned by the very people who are supposed to help when we are in extreme pain can absolutely lead to a trauma response

@Devonbabs I believe that to be true. Even though in my case it was quite minor - a foot fracture - no-one gave a damn and it took 3 days back and forth between a ridiculous number of people and places too. It was so so stressful. You get the impression that treating you is putting them out; I think some people give up. Cue: more serious issues down the line as the original issue not treated correctly, if at all.

I'd be worried about a stroke too or haemorrhage. My brother had that pain and had a stroke. I'm glad you've gone back to the GP. The NHS is not the NHS I trained in anymore. It disgusts me how people are treated now.

@FishingFar I am so sorry to hear that. I broke my foot under Labour. I thought it was just a bad sprain. I went to A and E two days later and I was in and out with a boot within 2.5 hours.

I am suspicious and also suspect they manipulate the “4 hours” supposed cut off system. I sat in A&E and it always hovered around 4 hours regardless.mnof how long I sat there. It was ridiculously slow. Hardly anyone was being seen.

So sorry OP. I once spent a week with a headache way worse than unmedicated labour because I was sent home directly after a lumbar puncture.

For me, allowing myself to be angry was important for recovery. Not necessarily at individuals, but at the system that has failed you. It's horrible to be shrugged off when you're in agony, by people who could do something about it.

I hope you have a safe space to deal with the range of emotions. Don't bottle up, it will catch up with you anyway.

OP, I am glad to hear you are going back to seek more medical attention.

This experience will have been traumatic. Being in the one place you can seek help and relief, and not receiving it, nor receiving understanding from anyone. It is very much a worst nightmare scenario, like running around in a dream trying to get help, and everyone being indifferent. I hope you can access some counselling for this <3

My stepson has a ruptured disc that requires surgery and was told that the wait on the NHS would be at least a year. He's a tree surgeon, so unable to work and losing shedloads of money, so he decided to use his savings and spend £10k on having the operation privately.

He's also a T1 diabetic. When they did the pre-op checks, they discovered that his blood sugars are all over the place and decided that he was too high risk to have spinal surgery in the private hospital. They passed him back to the NHS, and he's back at the bottom of the waiting list. He's blown over a grand in fees and is no further forward than he was 6 months ago.

@LakieLady I am so sorry to hear that.