Bad headache

[taylor2233]

Today I’ve got such a painful headache that I can’t get rid of with paracetamol. It’s been there pretty much all day, making me feel sick along with some vision disturbances - kind of dizziness/blurry vision at times. I’m 21+5 with my first pregnancy.

I am high risk for preeclampsia because my mum had it with me and subsequently had me early. However, my blood pressure is fine, I’ve checked it a few times throughout the day. No other symptoms really apart from just feeling absolute rubbish!

I really don’t want to waste the midwives time at triage. It’s probably just hormonal, but I wonder if it’s possible to have the start of preeclampsia without swelling/high blood pressure?

I don’t know. Are you on asprin?

In my last pregnancy I developed preeclampsia at 30 weeks through high bp, then protein in urine. By 33 weeks my bloodwork was going downhill for the doctors to worry, and swelling of feet. I didn’t have the headaches but of course everyone is different.

My friends mum had PE, so when my friend was pregnant she took low dose asprin through out and never developed it. She reached 41 weeks before being induced just due to going over.

It’s worth telling your midwife, but they may not go further without the bp/urine symptoms? It’s worth them checking though. You could call your maternity assessment centre to enquire?

I had really bad headaches with visual disturbances at 5-6 weeks of this pregnancy I put it down to the hormone shift. I’m currently 26 weeks pregnant.

please contact the midwives. it’s not wasting their time and that’s what they are there for. Especially if you have family history better to be checked

Thank you both, I actually did just call triage as no signs of the headache going and I did my bp again and it was 136/110 with a 120 pulse. They weren’t concerned as they said preeclampsia doesn’t usually begin until the third trimester? Just said if it gets worse to see GP/A&E as it’s not really maternity related. I’ll see how it goes I guess 😥

Talk to your midwife. At best she’ll reassure you, at worst you’ll catch something early. I was the same. Had a strange feeling one night, it was a high blood pressure incident. You’re not being paranoid, or a nuisance. Let us know how you get on.

target bp is below 140/90?
they may need to start you on bp training
i would recheck and then contact them again x

Hi OP, I'm also suffering from awful headaches this pregnancy (currently 29+5 but been getting them regularly for about 3 months now)

I had PE with DD1 and the headache with that was one of the last symptoms. I had weeks of high BP, swelling and protein in my urine before I was diagnosed and the headache involved distinctive visual disturbances so was different to a normal headache.

I'm high risk this pregnancy too so keeping an eye on everything but I think this is just normal headaches which unfortunately are a fairly common symptom in pregnancy.

I just keep on top of the paracetamol, drink plenty water, turn off lights etc and try to rest when I can