What’s wrong with me, hospital clueless

[elm26]

Yesterday at 1pm, I put my 6 month old on the rug with his toys and went for a wee.

As I was walking back I had a sudden severe pain in my right side radiating into my lower back and up to my shoulder, I was in agony.

I called DH who was luckily only on a job 15 mins away, he came straight home and took one look at me and called ambulance, I was shouting out in pain they gave me gas and air and morphine.

I had an emergency CT when dye last night and also have a catheter as lost the ability to wee. Nothing showed on CT, they got me settled on morphine and today I’ve had a transvaginal scan which shows ovaries and womb look normal.

Gynae can’t find a reason so they’ve stopped painkillers and just giving me paracetamol but somethings wrong I feel like somebody’s twisting my insides. The gynae consultant was horrible and said the surgical team will come see me if they think it’s worth it?? So I’m waiting for that if they come.

I’m in so much pain and genuinely scared they’ll send me home not knowing what is wrong with me.

Has anyone has anything similar?

Thank you everyone I’m trying to keep up with all the comments, definitely not pregnancy of any sort. I am 6 months post partum, finished a very heavy period 5 days ago and they tested for pregnancy when I got here (I’ve also not had sex for 2 cycles) and I’m on the combined pill.

How do they end up finding this out? Everything just looks normal to them

General surgery team are coming to see me in the morning. I’m a mess tonight, in pain and missing my toddler and 6 month old a lot right now ☹️

Just to add also

I don’t have a temperature
My heart rate is between 60-64
They have scanned my bladder and confirmed I am now emptying it by myself
The pain is now dull and central but still radiating into back and shoulder
I did have a CT with dye (I’d had copious amounts of morphine via drip and gas and air by this point but remember the dye feeling hot and like I’d wet myself) DH told me CT lasted a few minutes at most

I’m beginning to think maybe it is something to do with my endo on my bladder or tubes or cysts etc but the only way they can see this is by opening me up (I’ve had 3 laparoscopies before) and I very much doubt they’ll suggest that tomorrow

I ended up in hospital like you in severe pain. Then the pain went off after about 6 hours.They couldn't find anything wrong on the scans either. I was fine for about 6 months then had exactly the same excruciating pain again. This time they scanned me my ovaries were massive and one of my fallopian tubes was twisted cutting off the blood supply.They said then that that was the pain before but as it had corrected itself it didn't show up.

Sending hugs 💐

I have endometriosis too, so I know all too well about gynaecology thinking the pain is “all my in head”.

I would request another transvaginal ultrasound. I had one last year after awful pain and they found a large complex ovarian cyst.

Hope they get you sorted soon. A few days in hospital can genuinely feel like months.

to me sounds like Gallstones

I would have agreed with you before experiencing endless dismissal of my own similar symptoms. “As bad as labour pain” = you must be very anxious as a first time mum. No actually, I’m in pain. 1-3 in 100 women need their gall bladders removed in the year post partum according to the literature, and not one medical professional considered it for me until I self diagnosed and found someone sympathetic enough to give me scan.

The medical profession dismissing women’s pain is also well documented.

If they're encouraging you to eat do try to eat something to see what that does to the symptoms.

Also try walking around the bay / ward - to see if you can / how much it hurts.

Try a shower if you can - warm water might help the pain, being less hot and sticky should feel good. If it doesn't help you have more info for the doctors.

Talk to the nursing staff about whether you need laxatives to go with your morphine - don't add constipation to the problem list.

Back and shoulder pain and low blood pressure? Have they checked you for pulmonary embolism or a blood clot?

I’m on laxido, codeine and oramorph. I’ve been walking, I went for a walk around the grounds with DH today to get some fresh air but it takes it out of me I feel exhausted and in pain and I’m a healthy 32 year old mum of 2 small children fgs how can a small walk make me feel like I’ve run a marathon. Also had a shower this morning made me feel better emotionally but not physically.

Not that I know of, should I ask? It never crossed my mind to be a blood clot

So, a couple of related possibilities.

How many periods have you had if you’re six months post-partum? Was this your first? I find it incredibly suspicious that you had a heavy period and then this happened. Right after your period would be when your uterus is at its thinnest, and I’m wondering if you have previous adhesions from either your endo or your laparoscopies themselves, and you essentially “ripped” one of their adhesions.

Unfortunately, and I’m sure you know this, it’s very common to not know the extent of endo until surgical exploration. But I would not be surprised to discover that you had/have something pressing on the “neck” of your bladder, which stopped you weeing - whatever it is has possibly shifted a bit to allow you to wee now, but you’re still not well enough to go home, and unfortunately, it means you could lose the ability to wee again. Have they palpitated around the (tiny) scars from your previous laparoscopies to see how that corresponds to the pain?

Please discuss the possibility of adhesions, from endo itself, pregnancy, or past surgeries with the surgical team tomorrow. I hope they would not send them to see you just to tell you, “Oh well, good luck.”

I'm sorry you're still none the wiser. I hope the surgical team can help tomorrow.

Have they mentioned if your blood infection markers are normal? Low stats can be an infection. Blood clots should show on a blood test, but I don’t know if it’s on the routine ones. But this all needs to be discussed because you can’t leave the hospital and care for the children, especially a baby and a toddler, until you have a solution for the pain. It sounds like it’s only manageable right now on Oramorph and codeine.

Thought the same!!

My money is on a kidney stone

blood clots are not diagnosed using blood tests. They can sometimes be excluded using a blood test, but that's probably not appropriate in this scenario. Fortunately the doctors looking after the OP will know that.

You might have passed a small stone but ureter can stay in a prolonged spasm. Another possibility intermittent ovarian torsion or nerve irritation.

Actually both are true. Shoulder tip pain is usually caused by irritation to the phrenic nerve, usually from blood (such as from a ruptured ectopic), or air (from some gynae procedures). It’s also common following caesareans where they don’t pump you full of air. 😊

Hunh? Maybe I’ve drastically misunderstood all the tests I’ve had? My understanding and Google seems to agree: A D-dimer blood test IS the test for diagnosing DVT and PE; high levels indicate a clot but not where it is.

Nope. A raised d dimer does not diagnose a clot. It can indicate there may be a clot but lots of other things can cause a high level, muscle strain, pregnancy.

a ctpa or a vq scan will diagnose a PE and a doppler scan will diagnose a dvt

But her pain hasn’t been dismissed. She’s had three scans (including of her gallbladder). Women are often dismissed but the OP has had a lot of imaging in a short amount of time which has not shown a cause for her pain, that is not the fault of the clinical team.

Anyway nothing that the OP has posted screams blood clot to me. No chest pain or breathlessness. No leg pain or swelling. Dd had a PE and the chest pain was severe. But she didn’t have back pain or shoulder pain. Nor could she not pass urine.