Was I an a&e timewaster?? What should I have done??

[Applecrumblelipgloss]

if I am in the wrong for going to a&e then I’ll definitely accept it, I just need to know what to do in future if it happens again!

I was recently on holidays with my boyfriend and had a reaction to something. I’ve got no history of allergies and I’ve never had anything like this before. My entire face swelled up like a balloon. It started on the Thursday with my forehead going from normal to being extremely puffy over about an hour or so- I could press it with my finger and it left a big dent about an inch deep! I went to sleep and woke up on the Friday with my entire face massively puffed up and swollen. It was horrific looking. I was coming home the next day anyway (on the saturday) and I guessed it wasn’t urgent like anaphylaxis as it was swelling over hours rather than minutes and I otherwise felt fine, and I went to a pharmacy who gave me topical aloe Vera and some antihistamines.

I landed back home the next day and by now my face was even worse. It was so swollen that one of my eyes was pretty much closed over, with the other eye getting worse too. The gp was obviously closed and I was starting to worry as it wasn’t getting better and I didn’t want both my eyes to close over or my mouth or throat to swell as the swelling was spreading and worsening so we went to the pharmacy who said go to a&e and don’t wait for the GP to open

When I got to a&e and saw the doctor she was so dismissive and it was obvious she thought I was a time waster. She said there was nothing wrong with me and it swelled over days not hours so wasn’t an accident or emergency and it was a gp matter. She said keep taking antihistamines gave me some antibiotics and said it could be a bite or might have been a sunburn reaction as I was mildly sunburned. She said go home and it would just go down over the next week. She was clearly annoyed at me for going as it wasn’t an urgent thing and had happened over 1-3 days so not really an emergency which I understand but my eye was pretty much swollen over now and the other eye was going the same way. I was also worried about my throat swelling as rest of my face was still getting worse and was huge at this point and she said that won’t happen. She kept sighing at me and I overheard her saying I shouldn’t be there and I went home as soon as I got my prescription

Thankfully it did go down but my face took 7 days to return to normal again. Since then it happened again and I just ignored for a week or two until it went down as I’m not sure what to do and i didn’t want to go back unnecessarily and waste their time when I’m not actually unwell and it’s just swelling, but getting a GP appointment is impossible and I’m worried about the swelling being worse next time

Was I wasting A&e time for going for this? What should I do if it happens again? Has anyone else had this happen to them? I’m going on holidays with my boyfriend this summer and dreading incase this happens again or that its worse next time😩

If it happens again, book an appointment with your GP. Of course that’s not impossible.

Even if it’s gone by the time of the appointment you can still explain and show photos etc.

I don't think you were in the wrong as the pharmacist told you to go and you are obviously going to listen to the advice of a healthcare professional (and would have made it clear to the doc in A+E the pharmacist sent you).

I personally would have gone to the walk in centre instead of A+E as the one in my area is usually quicker and it wasn't life threatening, or rang 111 who can normally get you an appointment in urgent care at my nearest hospital which saves you waiting for ages, this obviously depends on how it works in your area though.

Ah OP - you lost me at the inch-deep dent in your forehead 😂
Come on now - it wasn’t really was it?

I don't think you were a time waster. But I wouldn't wait for it to happen again. I'd be asking the GP for allergy testing now. Do you use hair products/hair dyes?

The dr was really rude. You did the right thing. If you've got pictures do show them to your GP.

YANBU and definitely not a timewaster as you were advised to go to a&e by a pharmacist.

Almost the exact same thing happened to me about 30 years ago. I was on holiday on the Welsh border and overnight I started swelling up, literally all over. I have no idea what caused it, although I had been walking in long grass a bit, so I wondered if it was an insect bite. The next day I went to a&e - I think they gave me antihistamine. They certainly didn't treat me as if I was wasting their time.

It genuinely has been impossible for some people to get GP appointments especially with covid 😥 I’m lucky that my practice didn’t ever stop appointments but it’s a lottery if you can get through quick enough on the phone at 8am to get an appointment that day and sometimes you make it through at 8.02 and all appointments are gone. I work aswell and only have limited midweek days off and can’t keep taking days off just to call and try to get an appointment and not be able to. There isn’t any future appointments it’s just this system for same day (unless it’s changed since last time I contacted them) x

It would have been more help to you if the A&E doctor had referred you on to an allergy clinic, then you might find out what was causing the swelling and be able to prevent it recurring.
You say it has happened again, have you thought of anything that could link the two episodes?

Sounds like facial cellulitis... Very dangerous if not treated quickly. Can lead to serious complications. You did the right thing by going in to A&E. Two nurses at outpatients saw DH with it several years ago and they said to him get to A&E now, forget your routine ortho appointment!

Meant to add, GP had saw DH days earlier and said that it was just an allergy...he ended up hospitalised for four days!

The next appointment for my GP is in mid August. I personally wouldn't want to wait until then with something like this.

And ime the GP would just send you to A&E anyway because they can't do same day bloods.

If the pharmacist says A&E I would always listen. Ignore the grumpy doctor.

I’m a nurse, have worked in A&E and wouldn’t have minded seeing you at all! You can’t be too careful with head and neck swelling due to the risk of airway compromise. I hope you feel better soon

Interestingly we were in this position last week but it was a wasp sting on my husbands foot. After 5 days or so of antihistamines plus hydrocortisone cream the swelling had gone down a bit, but he also had that strange thing where you could push the swelling down and it left a big indentation for a while. He also had lots of nasty blisters which had started coming up a couple of days after the sting. He called 111 and was told to ring the pharmacist and ask for a consultation. He did that and was told to go to a&e. He didn't go to be honest, as we thought it would be a waste of time and we were quite pissed off that the pharmacy (it is literally 5 mins walk from our house) directed him there without asking any further questions or giving any indication as to why they were advising him to go. We think they just didn't have time to see him so moved the problem along. He clearly didn't have any anaphylaxis and it didn't seem infected, he literally only rang 111 in the first place because he thought the swelling was weird leaving those indentations in his foot.
So no, yanbu as they would have sent you there if you had called 111 anyway. I would have gone with it being facial too. It's ridiculous that the care service is signposting people to a&e and then the patient is being chastised for going imo.

Not a time waster, I would have done that. Worsening swelling around nose, tongue, airways can make it hard to breathe - so best to get it seen early.

I would not be going away on holiday until I had been reviewed by a doctor and advised what precautions to take if it happens again (ask dr specifically about holiday situation and mention you had a milder repeat epsiode recently). they may be able to give you a pack of anti-histamines and/or oral steroids in case. You may also need to be considered for an epi-pen and/or see an allergy specialist (ask dr about these things). full blown anaphylaxis can be life-threatening.

Yes it genuinely was, but thanks for your bitchy comment. My forehead was so swollen and squishy that I could press into it and it left a big dent which I could fit an entire pencil eraser inside. The eraser was 1inch. My face was massively swollen.

Glad it’s funny to you but unsurprisingly it wasn’t for me.

I'd have probably gone sooner than you did.

But seeing a pharmacist is often given as advice and then you followed the pharmacists advice to go to a&e so I wouldn't worry about it.

111 would have probably have sent an ambulance, so going to a+e was the right thing to do in my opinion. Did you keep taking the anti-histamines until the reaction had completely gone? And then for another day or two?

The only other thing you could have done differently was call 111 for a GP out of hours appointment, but as others have said, this would have in all likelihood ended up with you, at best, being sent to A&E anyway, or worse being inappropriately sent an ambulance. Well done for going to the pharmacy first though, so many people don't do this when they really should.

Just put it down to the doctor having a bad day due to being under too much pressure for too long and suffering from compassion fatigue, and shrug it off. Working in the NHS is shit at the moment.

Two things spring to mind here for me.

Many years ago, I had some dental treatment. Soon after, my lips started to swell. Over the course of several hours, they blew up massively. I honestly looked like a charicature. The following day, I went to a pharmacy who took one look at me and called an ambulance. Long story short, I was diagnosed with DELAYED anaphylaxis due to something the dentist had used. I was treated and have never had a reaction like it since. Any dramatic swelling of the face warrants a trip to A&E. Especially in the circumstances you describe.

Second thing which springs to mind was me attending A&E in February this year. I was feeling extremely unwell. Many negative covid tests. I woke up at 4am with severe pain in my face and couldn't take it any longer. In the last 10 days, I'd seen or spoken to my GP on four occasions. They couldn't find anything wrong but every day I was feeling more and more unwell.

The A&E doctor said she had "skimmed my notes" and concluded instantly that my symptoms were psychological. In the last three and a half years I've suffered a lot of intense stress (stillborn twins followed by the death of my son some months later and many other things besides). I told her I didn't believe it was psychological but she said "anyone who has been through what you've been through would feel unwell". I told her I was there for feeling physically unwell, not mentally, and asked her to check my CRP (infection/inflammation markers) from the bloods I'd had a few hours earlier. She told me she would have a look and come back to me, and asked me to return to the waiting area but after that I would be free to leave. I did as I was told. A few minutes later, the same doctor walked past me, made brief eye contact and disappeared through a door onto another ward without saying a word. A minute or so later, a porter came with a wheelchair and told me he was taking me to a day unit. I asked why and explained I was just waiting to be told my told blood results. He didn't know so I let him do his job and off we went to the day unit. Around 9 hours later, after seeing several nurses and a different doctor at least three times, they told me I was pretty unwell. My CRP was sky high, indicating I had a raging infection. I was badly dehydrated and hadn't eaten for 24 hours despite being pregnant. They never fully found the cause of the infection but assumed from the pain in my face that it was a nasty sinus infection. I also had a throat infection and my tonsils were covered in pus. The doctor on the day unit asked me what physical checks the A&E doctor had done. The truthful answer was none. Nothing. I was on antibiotics for several weeks after that and it took me nearly 3 months to recover.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that whilst the vast majority of A&E staff will have your best interests at heart and will do what they can to help you, sadly its not always the case. Many people blame the fact that A&E departments are extremely oversubscribed and the staff have a far bigger workload and pressures than they are designed to cope with, and I'm not disagreeing with that. However, not every A&E staff member gets things right all the time (for many reasons - some excusable, some not) and you have every right to request a second opinion or to ask questions without feeling fobbed off.

You had EVERY reason and right to attend A&E, especially since a qualified professional had advised you to go. You should not have been made to feel like you were wasting time or resources and really I'm not shocked nor surprised people are being treated this way. It's obvious not everyone who comes through the doors at A&E is critically ill BUT some illnesses and injuries can escalate to the point of being extremely dangerous. Any suspicion of serious allergy and anaphylaxis needs treating with the utmost seriousness EVEN IF IT TURNS OUT NOT TO BE.

Don't let this experience put you off returning to A&E if you need it in the future. You absolutely did nothing wrong.

I would say you should have rung 111 then you’d likely be given an appointment to see a GP at a walk in centre. The doctor was right in so far as you hadn’t had an accident and didn’t have an emergency so A&E was not the right place for you. Likewise GP’s don’t deal with emergencies or work outside of certain hours so if you feel you can’t wait fora routine appointment then 111 and a walk in centre or the out of hours GP are your answer.
To be fair to you I don’t think this message has been adequately delivered.

this did make me giggle. An ambulance? An actual AMBULANCE!!

😂

You won't find it so fucking funny when it happens to you, which it probably won't because most people are lucky enough not to react to things.

Do you also laugh at people in wheelchairs?

You did the right thing, OP, Dr was out of order.

You really need an allergy clinic. It could be anything from the sunscreen to something you ate or drank. Get tested