“It’s Just a Bad Migraine” #wait

While most headaches are harmless and can be managed with rest or over-the-counter pain relief, certain red flags indicate that a headache may be a sign of a more serious condition requiring urgent medical attention. These red flags include:

Sudden, Severe Headache: Often described as the "worst headache of your life," a sudden and intense headache could signal a brain aneurysm or other critical issues.
Headache with Neurological Symptoms: If a headache is accompanied by confusion, difficulty speaking, vision changes, weakness or numbness on one side of the body, or difficulty walking, it could indicate a stroke or a brain tumor.
Headache After Head Injury: A headache following a blow to the head, even if the injury seemed minor, could suggest a concussion, internal bleeding, or other serious complications.
Headache with Fever, Stiff Neck, or Rash: These symptoms could be signs of meningitis, a potentially life-threatening infection of the brain and spinal cord.
Persistent or Worsening Headache: If a headache gradually gets worse over days or weeks, it might indicate a serious underlying condition, such as increased intracranial pressure.

#headache #hormone #women #fertility

[amandah]

How about doctors stop dismissing long lasting migraines? She didn't ignore her symptoms, the doctors did.

[yulika.w]

Maturing is realising most people's "didnt think too much about the symptoms and was sent home" actually means "got gaslit and dismissed by the doctors" 🙃

[maszlagma]

How about instead of telling patients "to not ignore symptoms" how about telling your collegues to stop dismissing and gaslighting these patients?

[Orinatl]

1 in 1000 is actually pretty high when you think of the shear amount of women on birth control.

[ChelissaMoon]

Not scanning immediately is borderline malpractice.

[sylverwicca]

Only 1 in 1000…. Only? There is no only with that statement!

[polydactylblackcat]

Ah yes, it's NORMAL to have a headache for FIVE DAYS!!! So us medical professionals are going to downplay the severity and send you home like it's no big deal!! GOD I hate the healthcare system sometimes.

[NinnersNanners]

So from age 11 until 27, I had such bad headaches that I'd "phase out", pass out, vomit, slur, have horrendous head rushes, my whole left side going numb for hours and hours, you name it. My mother never ever got me medical help because she claimed I was a hypochondriac (she was a bullying narcissist cretin who really thought getting me medical help and an actual diagnosis would in fact take attention away from her!!!). So age 27, I was so unwell I couldn't get out of bed for days. The headache was getting worse and worse, and my husband rang for an ambulance. They rushed out thinking I either had meningitis (already had meningococcal septicaemia as a child and it didn't feel like that, plus zero rash) or a bleed on the brain. I was rushed in for an emergency brain scan where I was diagnosed with Chiari-Arnold Syndrome! The "phasing out" was actually absent seizures and other symptoms were due to having an enlarged brain sitting in a skull with an enlarged foramen magnum, so my brain is escaping into my neck cavity! My mother came up to the hospital and told the specialist "She's an attention seeker, she clearly told you to say it!". He chewed her a whole new arsehole, as did my husband who went batshit at her because I am most certainly never have and never will be an attention seeker! My daughter showed signs for years and years and years, and I argued with the GP to be seen-in the end we won the battle, she was scanned and diagnosed with the same condition. After all the stress, I cut my mother off and have had zero contact for 6 years and God bless the NHS❤

[chemistrysufferer]

1 in 1000 is a high number considering the amount of women who are put on birth control for any issues regarding their reproductive health. PCOS is so common among women yet no cure and the only solutions doctors provide is birth control!!!!

[laratheplanespotter]

It’s all very well telling us not to ignore the symptoms, it’s your colleagues that need to hear that message louder. I doubt that would have been the for a man. We get told our symptoms are nothing serious so much that we believe it ourselves.

[jelatinosa]

Um, she didn't ignore the symptoms. The health "professionals" were the ones who ignored and dismissed her symptoms. What is one supposed to do in that situation, when the ones who would on one hand tell you "don't ingnore these symptoms" later when you come to get help with the symptoms, tell you it's nothing and send you home?

[alwaysnunya]

When I worked in health care, I argued SO HARD to have the literature we gave to patients changed to say “blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks” were COMPLICATIONS/ADVERSE EFFECTS and NOT side effects. They refused to change it and as time goes on I’m starting to see why. Wake up, ladies. The writing is on the wall. Get properly informed.

[varietyvibes]

It just sucks because unfortunately not a lot of hospitals are ER take it seriously I have been to multiple hospitals and ERs for a lot of the same problems for years and they never take it seriously

[lucindasavona]

That is what happens when intern are left unsupervised.
Local hospital said that mine was just a migraine.
They gave me 2 Paracetamol tablets & sent me home.
I'd had a stroke!!
The same hospital sent a teenage boy home with 2 Paracetamol tablets & said it was just a migraine caused by exam stress.
He died a few days later from a brain tumour!!

[jellatok]

1 in 1000 😮. That’s crazy numbers dude

[MsMirthling]

last week I had to go to the ER for a MILD headache
I'm a chronic migraine sufferer (for nearly 40 years, they started young)
but this was different and different is scary.
Weird sound/feeling and a rush over my head. Vision streaked out of focus and it lasted for less than a minute and then one side of my face went numb. New is bad. FAST is exactly what I did just in case. New Migraine Features unlocked. BUT my ER doc absolutely did a CT to make sure it wasn't something else. Thank you ER docs for being on top of it.

[chronicallyfabulous]

Yep, I ended up with 2 clots in the left side of my brain in my early 20s. I kept going to my GP about it (I have EDS & a bunch of comorbidities, so I had a good patient relationship with him) and he kept telling me it was just a "bad migraine". On day 16 it finally started to ease, but a bunch of symptoms never went away, including right-sided palsy. He STILL said it was just a migraine and things would improve with time.

After a few other issues with that GP (including him refusing to follow my specialists' instructions for my chronic illness management because I was "too young" to have those particular problems 🙄), I switched GPs. My new GP was a woman, who was horrified to discover that a chronic migraine sufferer had been prescribed a combined contraceptive pill for so many years. She basically wouldn't let me leave without an alternative and switched me to a progesterone only pill, which I'm still on now in my mid-30s with no issues.

She also sent me for scans of my brain, which showed those 2 blood clots, explaining a whole hell of a lot. I still have some right-sided palsy nearly a decade later, though it has improved a bit. It's horrifying to think how much worse it could've been, given the obvious incompetence of that previous GP. I mean, a 16 day migraine?? Seriously dude?? 😤

[mandeehusky]

Got a pulmonary embolism from estrogen patches when I was 44.

[rachellarrabee]

It took me YEARS to get a doctor to agree to order an MRI and CTA for my migraines. I’d been in the ER 10+ times over 2-3 years (it’s been 5+ since I remember the migraines started), and they refused every time; gave me no meds, gave me Tylenol, gave me toradol injections, gave me Valium, and nothing worked. I finally started to see a neurologist, and after working with her for a year, finally got those scans done just to find out there’s nothing anatomically wrong 🙃 Almost six years in now and I’m back to square one with only Botox injections trying to hold me over. I’m glad this woman was able to get a diagnosis and treatment quickly for the clot, but I’m right there with you for having dicots wave it off as just a bad migraine. Headaches lasting 72+ hours are a cause for concern. Run some tests, don’t just give us meds and send us home without even a CBC

[lequoiscontreonu]

Pill (and hormonal conctraceptives) elevate the risk of blood clots 3 to 4 times but there are other risk factors and it can add up. Those factors include autoinflammatory diseases (lupus, IBD) obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, liver damage, dehydration, genetic predispositions, journeys with over 3 hours of sitting still (plane, bus). Also COVID-19 is known to increase risk of blood clots up to 1 year after infection