AIBU to be PISSED OFFFFFF!! Headache after each and every shift -any suggestions?

[worriedsilly]

I'm a health professiona and work 12 hr shifts as that is how it is done whereI work.

Now, I only work 23 hrs a week, which is two shifts. But say this week, I have just done a night shift [slept 9 until 2.30] and then had to get up ans I am on tomorrow 8am until 8pm so I Have To Sleep Tonight.

So now I have an awful awful headache. And I will have tomorrow after the longday,a dn most of sunday.
Monday I'll be ok, but I'm back on 2 nights so back to where I started.

I think after nights I go into such a deep sleepmy neck sufers and it makes me feel sick and heady. I'm drinking like a fish to try rehydrate 9can't drink too much at work as there isn't time to wee when you need too!)

ANy shift worked have any ideas?

Am so fed up of my days off being spoiled. This shouldn't be in AIBU but I am fed up and want a moan.

If you wear glasses get pink tints, it stopped me getting headaches after 12 hours in artificial light

and exercise, sorry it's not a quick fix but its the only think that helps the aches for me, particularly body balance but any really.

When I was doing a lot of nights I'ld walk home (took an hour) and get a sports massage every 2 weeks.

Stay hydrated and away from refined sugar and caffine

its crap isn't it? but if you work at keeping yourself healthy outside work it reduces the effect that the shifts/work has on your body and the rest of your life

also avoid artificial sweetners cause they mess with your blood sugar by tricking your body with the sweet taste to release insulin, then you crave more sugar

So is this a good time to say I drink strong tea with 2 sugars? Eek!

Sadly only 37 so am years away from retiring, and in midwifery you stay on shifts until you drop don't you. No other alternative really, except one of the very few manager jobs which I'm simply not cut out for.

Hey ho. I've been at this since I started training at 18 and it's getting harder. Some of our shoft corodiantors are nearing 60 - I have no idea how they take the stress and exhaustion.

No glasses here, but I might look in to walking to work. I;ve always baulked at it incase I arrive tired and then face the shift from hell!

I am the sole earner so we rely on my wage and my enhanced hours. Poor children suffer though, I have practically withdrawn from parenting. They are swimming today with their gp's [I haven't taken them swimming etc for years] and at other gp's tomorrow and then we'll do nothing sunday or monday adn then I'm back on nights so I disapear.

Thank you very very much for the suggestions. I'll try rouse some motivation for them and make efforts to look after myself. Haven't the energy right now. Am I allowed a cry? It wasn't meant to be like this.

I was meant to have this lovely fulfilling career, be a lovely mum, be slim and pretty and happy.

I am in fact burnt out, get little satisfaction, feel shite all the time, have lost ability to sleep normally, sex drive and gained weight. I look old, baggy and grey around the gills.

Bah Humbug

walking does sound horrific on nights, but the fresh air and long strides (which you don't get at work even though you're on your feet) do make you sleep better and cope with stressful shifts better and gives you more energy and a less achey back. Plus in the summer you get some actual day light which helps too!

It is hard to get going with the walking, but once you do it makes the nights easier I promise! I even began to enjoy how by the time I'ld walked home I'ld strutted away the stress of the night which doesn't happen if you sit in a stuffy bus

Yes.......

but then being mentally and physically exhausted (or even burnt out), doing all the hours that god sends, dealing with all manner of difficult people managing relentless stress of all types, risking accident, injury, sometimes even assualts at work all for less than what a HGV driver earns (no offence to them) is the price we are expected to pay for our wonderful job 'security' and 'gold plated' pensions lol ......

Lol only 30 years to that gold plated pension!

No doubt by then it will be a paper maiche coated pension.

Walking. Right. Might start with parking down the road (got a dodgy hip thing)

Thnanks for that

och, bet you are secretly gorgeous!!

sorry you're done in, it sounds hellish

BUT thank god for you midwives, you're worth your weight in gold

Would your shift manager arrange the off duty so that you dont do a night and a day shift in the same week, and preferably had them following each other so you could get the full 5 days off to recuperate? Could the GPs have the kids for 1 day to allow you a full days sleep if its a night shift?

I think its not the length of shift so much as the change in nights and days upsetting your internal clock.

We used to do 10 hour night shifts for 7 continuous nights in A&E every 6-8 weeks which I coped with surprisingly well because I slept like a dog most of the days and did nothing but work and sleep!!

Could you keep a bottle of water in the delivery room? I second the dehydration and taking a painkiller before you go to sleep.

Slightly different tack, but it could be a mechanical cause. I get migraines triggered by tension/stress, and have been much much better after some chiropractic treatment. It's very common as you get older (esp if you pick up small children a lot and tend to stick your head forward) to lose the natural curve in your neck putting too much pressure on the bit where your skull meets the spine, causing ongoing problems with headaches. A physio friend suggested this to me, i only had chiro as had a groupon voucher for it, but you can get referred for physio treatment by GP if you say you think your headaches might be caused by neck/shoulder probs. Good luck.

Thanks folks, and please feel free to join in for a bollovks to the new year moan

I have seen a chiro for a dodgy neck, hip and general body thing. Am saving for another treatment, it really does help clear the congested head feeling. Makes horrible allariming cracks as my neck is manipulated though.

My manager would either a) laugh or b) swear or c) both if I made such a request. We are all in the same boat, no special treatment at work. Not that I've asked, but I can't see why I'd be any more entitles than anyone else you know?

Thanks ssd, but tbh I don't hink we are actually worth our weight in gold. All I read about is gross dissatisfaction in the service, money saving, pension bashing and general misery. We often say at work that youd never think it was a happy ward full of new babies. Everyone looks so pissed off adn miserable and ready for the next great failing! I'm sure most NHS is like this now!

Totally agree with you OP that HCPs shouldn't have to do shift work for their entire careers - or at least not the full-on shift rotas. Obviously there have to be some senior staff on duty at night, but unsociable shifts should get less frequent as you get older.

Shift work damages your health - I didn't realise how tired I was till I stopped having to do nights (still do shifts but not nights). There is a lot of media fuss about poor nursing care etc but one of the reasons is that the only way to escape constant crappy shifts is to become a manager or leave hospital work, so lots of good HCPs are lost from clincial work and the ones that are left are overstretched & knackered.

I used to do 2 weeks of 12 hour nights in 5. It was really difficult.

What helped me was to get a massage every other week. Yes, I know it's expensive, but found that my muscles around my shoulders and neck were so painful, the only thing that helped was chiropractic and deep tissue massage.

I have worked night shifts before too (NHS) we'd do 4 night shifts in a row working 7pm-7am. I did it for 18 mths and had to leave. I was a miserable, shattered, grumpy, argumentative bitch after 4 nights! :)

I found the only way I could cope was by my dd staying with her grandparents for the 4 nights. By the time I got home it'd be 8:30am, breakfast, shower and in bed for 9:30, sleep til 4:30 back up and ready to leave at 6pm again. I was not able to cope with housework etc towards the end of the 4 nights so I would make sure all
ironing, shopping and other housework pretty much done before a run of nights.

I used to avoid a full days sleep after the last night, helps to get you back into a "day waking" mode again. If have a 2-3 hr sleep and set
an alarm, wake up shower and have lunch then a lazyish day. Then an early night around 8pm ish.

Avoid lots of coffee and sweets on a night shift. Drinks lots of water and regular breaks to relax (if you can). Wear sun glasses when you travel home in the morning to trick your body into not "seeing" the bright sun, always used to help me sleep better. Make sure your bedroom is as dark as possible- invest in a good blackout blind, nice warm and dark bedroom is much easier for daytime
sleeping.

Good luck! :)

i used to work in the health sector and would work days and nights. I did a rota of nights every other month - a rota being 8 nights on and then 6 nights off...by the time i got to night six i would be on my knees....not good when managing a busy unit! blood sugar would plummet. i would drive home with window open singing my loudest to the radio to keep me awake.

in the very very bad old days it was not unknown to finish a night shift at 8am and be expected back the same day at 3.30pm to do a "late half". these were the days when we wore the lovely hats and gave enemas with orange rubber tubing......oh what fun we had

i think worriedsilly might be me posting under another name while i am off thinking i'm doing something else

this week i've done 2 nights, then back to days, then day of, then back to nights next week. it really hurts.

i'm planning a detox/health/shite-free january so maybe that will help. but i doubt it very much. my body just does not like being made to work at weird hours of the day and/or night.

I've done the night and then an evening too. Og good grief. How anyone got out of that labour ward alive I have no clue!

I think my problem is the days and nights in the same week most weeks. Recently I've been doing one of each. It's a killer!

I'm lucky work is near so no dangerous commute involved.

ooooh CarolCervix - if you are me does that mean you are doing my long day tomorrow?? Result!

grapes when driving home. window down. slap the cheeks.

i am nOT doing your long day tomorrow. I have some holiday i am using up here and there so a weekend off! Hurrah!

anyway. maybe it would be better to do just nights OR days. but i doubt it.

and I abso-fucking-lutely HATE and MASSIVELY resent the fact that I work for 11 hours at night but only get paid for 9.5

Jesus why????????????????????

why don't you just book some annual leave, take a day and exercise, get fresh air, maybe swim, so you come back refreshed OP.... Oh wait, cause you'll be given your AL day the morning you come off a night

because there is never ever any possibility of having a break at all. ever - so thats 1 hour of not being paid, then the half hour of finishing up and handover which isn't paid either.

every fucking shift.
i'd really like to see what would happen to the NHS if every HCA insisted on taking a break or insisted on being paid for it.

KABOOOOM.

Be so cool to work to rule wouldn't it. Imagine.

I'd like to see what happens if I brought a drink in a labour room. Some sort of clinical incident?

i take a bottle of water in with me - otherwise i'd keel over and drown in the pool.

No drinks allowed in our trust after a lady complained

I mean really.