Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

General health

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Should I be worried re DH with severe headache?

50 replies

winnybella · 18/12/2011 13:52

He slept for a long time, woke up with a horrid headache (he says all of his head hurts, like never before, so it's not localised as in sinus infection etc), went back to sleep, woke up for lunch, ate that, went back to bed. He says he can hardly move his head as it hurts so much. He has taken an aspirin in the morning and paracetamol later and it didn't help much.

He doesn't have fever. He says his neck feels a bit stiff, but he has some issues with neck.back muscles anyway and is generally speaking a bit stiff iyswim.

He's not confused or anything like that.

It's Sunday, the only thing would be to go to A&E which he says he would feel silly about.

He has never had migraines, btw. He's 42.

WWYD?

OP posts:

Original poster

winnybella · 18/12/2011 18:53

Jesus, don't scare me with meningitis. I presume she had the viral kind?

In the end we went to A&E (he insisted on walking). Left him there, he was seen by nurse pronto, blood pressure normal, had a skin prick (blood test I presume?) and is now waiting to see a doctor.

Shit, now I'm worried.

OP posts:

Original poster

winnybella · 18/12/2011 18:55

It does hurt him to move his head, but can bring chin down to chest, but when he does it he says it hurts on the sides of spine i.e. muscles iyswim.

OP posts:

ImperialBlether · 18/12/2011 19:22

I do hope he's alright, winnybella. Will you let us know?

Bunbaker · 18/12/2011 19:29

Yes do come back to us. Thinking of you.

maybenow · 18/12/2011 19:34

i'm sure it'll be ok, probably migraine, not having one before is no indication - they can come out of the blue...

DeWe · 18/12/2011 19:34

Yes, she had the viral one. I saw her at school pick up and she said "dreadful headache, can't move my neck. Wonder if it's meningitis." She saw the GP two hours later (which was how worried she was that she didn't go immediately)who promptly put her in his car and drove her to A&E because she was saying she wasn't that bad, and it was just a migraine and he thought if he didn't take her straight away she might faff about for a few hours before going She was in about 3 days and has no long lasting symptoms.

I think (very vague here) that blood pressure fine would be a good sign, I think there's low blood pressure with meningitis.

Let us know how he gets on. Hope all's clear including the headache shortly.

Original poster

winnybella · 18/12/2011 20:56

He has finally been seen and the doctor is going to run blood tests (but said that he/she doesn't think it's something serious). Okaaay...

OP posts:

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 18/12/2011 22:08

Have you heard anything back yet, Winny? I hope he's ok but he is in the right place and being checked over is the right thing.

mummytopebs · 18/12/2011 22:14

My dh has viral meningitis a few years ago and had a severe headache for 5 days before meningitis was diagnosed, so be persistent x

Original poster

winnybella · 18/12/2011 22:17

Thanks for asking. Last I heard he was actually having bloods taken and said they would be ready in one and a half hour...so still 45 minutes to go. They gave him pain meds.

Don't know...I guess they can check for meningitis through a blood test, but what about aunerysm? I'm sure they know their stuff but DP mentioned that there's police and ambulances bringing people in on gurneys non-stop, so they must be really busy and might not think DP's headache is a big deal iyswim.

Oh, I'm just being neurotic. And to think I was quasi-sure he had a man flu. He looked awful when I left him in the hospital.

OP posts:

Original poster

winnybella · 18/12/2011 22:19

mummytopebs- Damn, your poor DH.How did they diagnose him in the end? How bad do you need to get for them to consider it?

Oh, and I hope you don't think I'm a stalker but I remember reading threads on your DD a while ago. Is she better now? Did they figure out what was wrong?

OP posts:

Original poster

winnybella · 18/12/2011 23:49

He's back. They did blood tests and they came back fine (although it seems to me he has to many red cells ), they checked his neck etc, put him on the drip with pain meds.

His notes say 'probable migraine' and to take paracetamol and see his GP if it doesn't improve.

They also say 'marked improvement'-signed by the doc, when DP tells me that the drip did FA to help the pain and still looks horrible

OP posts:

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 19/12/2011 05:08

what was his red cell/ haemoglobin count, winny?

banana87 · 19/12/2011 10:04

Forget paracetemol it does nothing for migranes! 2 neurofen and 2 paracetemol might make a little difference. Stupid drs!!

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 19/12/2011 10:27

I agree actually about the paracetamol - doesn't touch migraines. Nurofen far more likely to work.

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 19/12/2011 10:30

Might be able to achieve better relief by having coffee (caffeinated) and nurofen - the caffeine is supposed to help enhance the effect.

noddyholder · 19/12/2011 10:34

I get headaches like that sometimes. Syndol and coca cola can shift it x

Original poster

winnybella · 19/12/2011 11:13

Thanks all, will tell him about nurofen/coffee. He woke up feeling more human today although it still hurts, but less than yesterday.

Thumbwitch- it's actually the white blood cells that there are too many: he's got 12.56 while the normal range is 4-10. Also high for one kind of Leukocytes (P.Neutro): 9.67, while should be 1.50-7. Isn't it a marker for infection, raised white blood cells?

OP posts:

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 19/12/2011 11:19

yes - raised neutrophils could indicate infection, but they're not too high just yet. Did they ask for repeat blood tests at any point?

Original poster

winnybella · 19/12/2011 11:24

No, they let him go after they got the results. OTOH DD has been bringing minor bugs from nursery so it could be just that, maybe he had a little infection lately?

Since he seems to feel a bit better, I suppose it's not viral meningitis? Or aunerysm?

OP posts:

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 19/12/2011 11:32

Raised neutrophils can occur in inflammation as well though, so may not be evidence of an infection - do you know if they did something called an ESR, or CRP? these both show evidence of inflammation.

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 19/12/2011 11:50

An aneurysm is a possibility - and while I would say you should trust the medics to have done the relevant tests for it, it does say in the page I am looking at that the medic needs to have a high degree of suspicion that it may be the case. They can be associated with high BP, but your DH's BP was normal; but there are other potential causes, including infection. If they suspected a leaking aneurysm or a subarachnoid haemorrhage, they should have done a CT scan and/or a lumbar puncture.

It sounds as though they have written it off as a migraine; it's up to you whether or not you want to pursue the other possibilities. A lumbar puncture would pick up meningitis as well, as the cerebrospinal fluid is used to test for that - so I would have thought that they should have done a lumbar puncture to at least exclude both possibilities (subarachnoid haemorrhage and meningitis).

See how your DH goes - it is a bit of a worry that he had the cracking headache with no real improvement from pain meds, and that he had the stiff neck - and to be frank, he needs to stop being apologetic about it and glossing over how he is feeling because that is utterly misleading to the docs (why else would they have written that he had significant improvement on the drip unless he said so?)

I am not a doctor and I do not wish to be overdramatic or scaremongering - but your DH does need to be aware that there is a possibility that it could be something serious, even still - perhaps get him to read this page - or even just this little bit:
"The history of the headache, an acute onset of the worst headache of the patient's life, associated with a stiff neck and an ill-appearing patient on physical examination, typically lead the health care practitioner to order a CT (computerized tomography) scan of the head. This will show a subarachnoid hemorrhage in more than 90% of cases of ruptured aneurysm. In the few cases that are not recognized by CT, the health care practitioner may consider performing a lumbar puncture (LP, or spinal tap) to identify blood in the cerebrospinal fluid that runs in the subarachnoid space. "

So - while succumbing to Dr. Google is generally considered a Bad Idea, in that it scares people and puts all sorts of ideas into their heads, it is also potentially a life-saver, if the docs have missed something. And they do sometimes - my niece's brain tumour was missed by GPs and hospital doctors for around 10 weeks before someone eventually recognised the need for an MRI scan - she had it removed successfully (she was 21mo at the time) and is now a thriving 7yo - but this has coloured my attitudes towards brain things and head pain.

wfrances · 19/12/2011 12:00

sounds like a migraine to me,im a migraine sufferer
medication i take is migralieve pink (2 tabs)
if this doesnt touch it i do have melt on the tongue tablet from gps (cant remember the name but ive only taken this once as it dilates the vessels in you head and is serious stuff )
so basicaly if the migralieve doest work - i go to bed for a few days and ride it out.
i get a stiff neck,vomitting,dribbling,slurred speech,cant swallow,my sight has gone and ive lost feeling in my arms- all migraine nothing sinister but i still see gp to make that diagonisis as i think im having a mini stroke.
oh and the headpain is like nothing else,even after a week my head feels bruised as if someone has hit me with a hammer.
if the syptoms get worse id take him back, doctors arent gods and can make mistakes.
best advice for your hubbie is keep hydrated,dark cool room, try to sleep it off ,try some proper meds paracetemol is a joke.
my mum works in cdu and they have migraine patients admitted for morphine/ect because the pain is so severe.

Original poster

winnybella · 19/12/2011 12:29

Hmm.

Thumbwitch- thanks for all the info. They did all the physical test for meningitis (neck, limbs, spine, Barre test etc). In his noted it says that the neck is souple, even though he could hardly move his head .

He told me that he could feel a bit of headache coming on yesterday so I guess it wasn't a sudden onset (well, it was for him in that he woke up with a horrendous headache, but ykwim).

They did CRP-normal.

Oh well, we'll just wait and see, I guess.

OP posts:

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 19/12/2011 12:39

Winny, yes - and hope he continues to improve and it turns out it was "just" a migraine.

Flip

1 2