The doctor he has says that it will likely be quite a while before the photphobia fades. Also, she doesn’t want him napping so he is still behind sleep.
The day before yesterday, after a bit of improvement on the caffeine pills, his headache got abruptly worse. He said he was fine in the morning and abuot 10:00 am the headache got much worse and did not respond to caffeine. He began to stumble and seemed a bit disoriented. He was no more photophobic than before. The pain was mostly in his temples and his neck. He also was nauseaqted. He had no muscle tension, his shoulder were relaxed. He took one of the headache pills that he had been given previously, but it had no effect. The pain was worst when he was sitting or standing and eased slightly when he lay on his side with his head supported. We called the doctors and one said he needed an MRI, but he could not order one and suggested going to the ER. Yesterday the nausea turned into vomiting. After going through the office manager because the nurse thought that a headache with vomiting in a patient with no history of migraines was no big deal, we got an appointment with his family doctor. That doctor found that he had tenderness in several places long his spine. He told him to go to the ER. We went to the ER. After hours waiting to see a doctor, he was briefly examined and set to get a CAT scan. During the CAT scan, he started getting odd muscle spasms in his neck. They cause an involontary and brief violent nodding, It looked as if he quite agreed with something. They gave him a shot for the pain, which made the spasms ease off, eased but did not remove the neck pain.They admitted him for observation.
The ER doc said that the next step was usual lumbar punture, but that with his history the neurologist thought that might be a bad idea. The med student and the resident that checked him over after admission said that it looked like atypical migraines to them, no big deal. So far no word on the CAT scan, no word if they are going to do an MRI or a contrast CT.
Ack, I’m sorry to hear about the apparent turn for the worse. Hopefully they’ll find some way to help.
Thank you,
I can’t adequately express the fear and anger that filled me when I heard them try to dismiss this as atypical migraine and that spasms like that are typical any time you have bad pain.
The chief nurse noted the drunken walking on his chart and a radiologist noted a shadow on the film. Finally the resident stopped with the migraine talk and they ordered him to stay in bed, not even to get up to use the toilet. The current speculation is arthritis of his neck vertebrae that may be causing pressure on his spine and even cerebellum, but the resident is admitting that they don’t know and until the neurologist speaks, this is to be taken seriously and no getting up and moving around.
I got the distinct impression in the ER that they thought he was a big baby and this was just a migraine. He sat for hours all the time symptoms getting worse; begging to lie down got no where. Last night it seemed like the resident concurred with the ER.