Need a virtual hand hold , husband vomiting blood

[Justmeeeindie]

Still frazzled so sorry if this is all over the place husband has been constipated for around 10 days doing usual things laxative tons of water lots of fibre , he went to a&e at my insistence on Tuesday early hours as he was awake all night crying in pain, I’ve never seen him in as much pain and vomiting profusely
he went to a&e waited 4 hours to be basically fobbed off , they felt his stomach said it was just constipation told him to continue laxatives at home .

today he woke up around 11 in agony he vomited it was dark like coffee which in retrospect should have been warning sign anyways he tried to get back to sleep then shouted me not much later from bathroom , he was vomiting loads of bright red blood (no exaggeration there was a lot) and passing in and out of consciousness eyes rolling the lot , he passed out atleast 8 times whilst I was on phone to the ambulance , he peed himself at one point .

I was terrified I’m still shaking ambulance came pretty fast(20mins ) but he’s been waiting in ambulances at a&e for over 2 hours now .

I'm stuck at home with the kids , there off school (hand foot and mouth ) thanks to the two year old .
I don’t know what to do right now , I genuinely though he was dying , he kept saying he was and I had to calm him down telling him he will be fine all the while thinking he was actually dying .

no idea yet what’s actually wrong but I’m thinking bowel blockage (which I suspected on Tuesday hence making him go to a&e) or ulcer .

don’t know purpose of this post just need to let it out , the waiting on update is torture .

Hi, I’m a student nurse in UK and I work as a nursing assistant in a+e. I’ve also just done a placement in a surgical assessment ward where people are sent from the GP or from a+e, this type of thing would be taken very seriously and patients would usually be sent for an emergency Abdo-pelvic CT scan with contrast, especially if an endoscopy wasn’t suitable (on the same day), can you advocate and push for this OP. Sorry about what you and your husband are going through, it can be very scary.

I’m really fed up with the state of our A&Es/NHS.

Someone like this should immediately be given a bed and given tests and treatment until they are better and then sent home.

He isn’t being discharged because he’s better, they are just delaying things.

Fobbing people off isn’t solving the problem.
Its worsening the situation, costing the NHS more money and putting an extra strain on services.

Last time I rang 111 (because I couldn’t get a gp appointment) it took 26 hours for a doctor to call me back (I had rang 3x because it was getting worse) and by then I was admitted to hospital with sepsis.
All I needed was a few antibiotics.

If they do send him home.
Get him to ring the gp for an appointment today.
If no luck, go to the walk in clinic (although they don’t usually have doctors).
If no luck there, then go straight back to A&E and keep going back.

Tell him to take time off work and keep going until he has a scan and possibly an enema - this may also be worth looking into privately but I don’t know anything about them myself.
I was once going to get one but they said it’s not recommended if you have piles and I did at the time but I’m sure lots of people on here have had them and can advise you better.

Also tell him he needs to be honest - no stuff upper lip.

Get a big tub of Vaseline and tell DH to keep using it on his anus.

Someone told me this trick when I got a tear and it was so painful.

I assume if he does manage to pass his poo naturally then it might be quite painful and so Vaseline will help things slide out easier and tear less.

Please push for a CT scan. It could be a bowel obstruction

It is also caused by people going who have no common sense and would be better of taking 2 paracetomol!

Have I sat in A&E recently, as a patient no, as a nurse working there yes!

Calling an ambulance for a sore vagina after having exuberant sex is not called for! Neither is asking for a CT scan for period pains.

Pray tell where this bed is that he should be given??

Get off that horse @Horserider5678 . I was a senior nurse in A&E for many years so have seen many many gastric bleeds. I wasn’t commenting on anything other than the fact that coffee grounds vomit is digested blood. And it is, no matter what you think you know.

But that’s my point - he wasn’t given a bed because there aren’t any.

Which is shocking but also making the situation worse.

Instead of treating and discharging, people get sent home, only for them to get worse and need to use more time and resources coming back in a worse state.

What are the readmission statistics?

We are sending people home from ICU as there are no beds on the wards due to social issue and an aging population

What is A+E Triage for? Is it useless, do 999 call handlers triage and direct ambulances to the most critical cases?

Nothing's going to stop idiots from clogging up the waiting areas in A+E, but if they have to wait for two days for their sore vag or hangover head, they might just go home or something.

From memory she waited 12 hours to tell us her vag was sore!

My DF was vomiting up what looked like coffee grounds. Paramedics thought it could be blood from a possible ruptured ulcer. The doctor in A+E thought the same thing. He had a camera inserted almost immediately and possible surgery being arranged. Turned out it wasn’t blood at all. He had a blocked bowel so it was actually fecal matter back flowing from the point of his blockage. He had a naso-gastric tube inserted which continued to drain his stomach over a few days.

Calling an ambulance for a sore vagina after having exuberant sex is not called for!

I can beat that - my DH (when SHO years ago) had a patient who was blue lighted in after giving someone a blowjob. She had since found out the recipient of her affections was on chemo and was having the screaming abdabs about her hair falling out.

However, the fact that some people are terminally stupid pondlife does not excuse the state of the NHS for the rest of us. The fact that there is no bed for the OP's DH is not her problem to solve and certainly does not excuse discharging anyone without proper investigations, never mind treatment. Isn't this why so-called bed managers are needed?

Incidentally, I went to my local Spire hospital yesterday and it was packed to the rafters - so either the NHS is sorting its shit out by subcontracting to the private sector, or people are voting with their feet. Either makes me uncomfortable - if the realpolitik is that we need insurance in order to receive proper healthcare in the UK, then let's regulate the shit out of the insurance companies and their policies to ensure people can get adequate cover and are treated fairly, without profiteering. We are heading for the worst of all worlds at the moment - terrible socialised care that actively harms people by rationing (like communist Russia) or self-pay/insurance (like the US) BUT with the added disadvantage of a private sector that prefers ingrown toenails to cardiac care, and can self-select its patients.

had a patient who was blue lighted in after giving someone a blowjob. She had since found out the recipient of her affections was on chemo and was having the screaming abdabs about her hair falling out.

So who thought that she needed an ambulance & why?

That’s so terrible 😟

I have no idea @diddl - perhaps she told them she had suspected cytotoxic poisoning? He also recalls someone with a blocked nose (i.e. a cold) being brought in as "struggling to breathe" and a rather chubby, post-prandial bloke, belching like Henry VIII at a feast, chomping Rennies, who'd reported "chest pain". One woman whose acrylic nail had bent in half, causing a bleeding nail bed, was happy to wait 12 hours or so for a Band Aid. People are stark raving bollocking mad.

There needs to be more, and better, triage imo. Those who actually need primary care should be redirected by the ambulance service, or when they get to A&E. At the same time, we somehow need to make the GP service less shite.

Actually my ‘period pain’ was a ruptured ovarian cyst which required emergency surgery hours at arriving at A&E.

Maybe burst stomach ulcers. My mum started to vomit blood out of the blue.

Hope he at least got a scan since he had obviously deteriorated between first and second visits. If not ask if they are one of the places trialling Martha's Rule https://www.england.nhs.uk/patient-safety/marthas-rule/ and ask for a second opinion.

Hello OP , this is very serious indeed and I cannot believe how he’s been treated .
Coffee ground vomit usually means there is a bleed somewhere in the upper gastrointestinal tract .
He ought to be given an endoscopy, proton pump inhibitors drugs by IV .

Havent rtft but insist on a scan to check for a bowel blockage or twist

The nhs has gone to shit

I'd drive him to another A&E urgently, even if it is out of the area. They should not be dismissing this; he needs full investigations. This is highly abnormal.

A relative had similar - but nowhere near as dramatic in terms of vomiting blood - just vomiting with some brownish material. He waited for 2 hours in A&E, was given a CT scan and was admitted with fluids and nasal tube to empty fluid from stomach - was a bowel obstruction caused by a hernia, in for five days and operated on on the sixth day, home on the seventh. Another relative who has had bowel cancer but was 8 months post-completed successful treatment was up all night with stomach ache which got so bad that he was in total agony by about 4am, went to a&e and once history of cancer established he was whisked straight in and twist in bowel sorted out in 3-4 days. I don't understand where these things are happening - both of the above instances happend in the last year, in very different parts of the country - care was excellent in both cases.

Choosing to ignore all the medical experts and nhs bashers above and just posting to say hope you and your husband are both ok OP x

Hope you and your family are ok. Bless you it must be very upsetting. Virtual hug.