Be sure to get a colonoscopy when your primary health care provider recommends it. Don’t forget and don’t pass on it.
The procedure prep and technology has improved over the years. I just had #4 (on the 7 year plan) with an endoscopy at the same time. What fun! Results were a complete surprise for the top end and more testing procedures are now ordered. 
Hospital stays now are nothing like what I experienced when having children 34 years ago. Staffing shortages have led to vast communication failures and possible dangerous situations. Be your own advocate for care, the squeaky wheel, because the hospital staff are so understaffed and over worked and are making needless mistakes in coding and care. My care team tried their best. I expected better.
I would not have understood what you were saying there until 2 years ago when my Mother was getting cursory care and it took my Sister to set the doctor straight. She did it by finding another doctor who was willing to fight my Mothers primary care doctor on medications and dosage. Doctors are not always right, they all have their own ideas of how things will work and sometimes they are grievously wrong.
Yes, and with big pharma and corporation ownership of physician groups…
The majority of the mistakes I found last week were due to the team not reading history and notes. They must have been too tired from over work, illiterate or just didn’t give a s#*t.
If I hadn’t had mentioned the severe allergy I have to a chemical, and protested the test they insisted I needed, I wouldn’t be writing this today. Unfathomable!
I hope things get better and I hope the healthcare workers you get moving forward are on the ball.
Almost everyone is doing their best, but sadly, healthcare and bedside care have suffered over the last 5-10 years, and especially over the past 3 years and 8 months.
It can be tricky to advocate with some gatekeeper personality types who work in healthcare, at least that’s how it feels in Canada. I still try to advocate for myself and my family.
beats head against a wall. They’re Everywhere . And my PCP wants to know why my blood pressure is always elevated when I’m in his office. Hint … because I’d like to strangle everyone I have just dealt with.
DW has “white lab coat syndrome” - her BP goes from 140 (okay… not good) to 180 as soon as the medicos arrive . . .
to prior comments . . . my mother was in hospice care - I accompanied her to every doctor visit, demanded to sit in with every consult . . . and was absolute livid at the ‘errors / omissions / lack of reading-the-history’
fwiw - hospice care is generally emplaced for patients not expected to live more than a year. my mother was alert, active, quite ‘alive’ for five years - up to four days before she died. massive stroke was the apparent cause.
so, if you’re family and you care - attend to the details - because the medical community does not.
My husband is seeing two different neurologists in the same small wing. They just can’t seem to coordinate. He left a message the other day “You all are right across the hall from each other. Why can’t you just walk over there and talk to each other and get this straight instead of emailing back and forth.” Too funny.
Same with hypertension. My BP is always normal when I check it at home even if I’ve been off my low dose lisinopril yet at one time when I was much heavier I had higher blood pressure. In the charters I’m still considered hypertensive
One thing that is inexcusable/incompetent (and I’ve seen this more than once) is if you have a chronic sickness simultaneously with another, the chronic sickness is blamed for both, so the other goes undiagnosed. Sign of a lazy doctor who won’t take the time to do a proper exam.
Classic “cover your ass” by putting it into writing.
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Same here… My blood pressure jumps up about 10 points at the Doctor’s office.
My doctor had me keep track of it at home.
Put a shot of whiskey in it! A lemonade toddy! Makes a stuffy head feel better … or at least you think it feels better.
A daughter is experiencing brief, sudden onset headaches, about 5 per hour and 2-4 episodes per day for the last 2 weeks. Some googling landed me on “icepick headaches” info from Harvard health and the Cleveland Clinic, but these seem a bit different.
Hers last a few minutes whereas the icepick guys supposedly are roughly 30 seconds, seldom longer than a minute.
Anyone ever heard of headaches like this?
I’m trying to get her to go in and see a Neuro.
Could be post Covid headache. Maybe see about a Long Covid clinic, too.
Allergies? Changes in routines, foods, substances, pets, environment? Best not to get too excited about stuff on the internet. How about urgent care clinic?
A friend of mine gets headaches somewhat similar to what you are talking about. He breathes oxygen (from a can) and that seems to help.
I know this sounds strange, but he picks up this product called “Boost Oxygen” in a can at the local sporting goods store. It is a little pricey at about $20/can. (I don’t know how long a can lasts him). He claims it takes away his headaches.
For the record, I tried this “Boost Oxygen” for my migraines and it didn’t work. My migraines are very infrequent (every 3-5 years) so I just hole up in a dark room until they pass.
I am sorry this is happening to your daughter.
Oh, I am sorry to hear that your daughter is experiencing those headaches. As a person who gets migraines, headaches have been a topic of conversation with my doctors over the years. The advice I have received is that if I were to have a type of headache that is new to me, that’s when I ought to consult with a doctor.
Glad that your daughter has a caring dad looking out for her well-being.
Getting her in to a Neuro is a good choice. They can ask the questions to help narrow it down. While she is waiting for the appointment, perhaps (when feeling up to it) she can journal about any circumstances that precede the onset (and any other salient info) to help the doctor:
- location and duration of the pain (sounds like you’ve chronicled the duration part)?
- any foods eaten?
- activities undertaken?
- any recent falls?
- how was the previous night’s sleep? Any changes to sleeping habits?
- any changes to her diet?
- is dehydration a possibility?
- medications or recent changes to medications?
- any related symptoms (light sensitivity or nausea, for example)?
- does it respond to OTC medication or other remedies (hot/cold packs, dark room, etc.)?
- previous headache history (migraines, clusters, allergy related, etc.)
and so forth.
There’s any number of things that could be triggering it. For my mom, it turned out to be related to a fall and involved nerve damage, but this is why we have doctors! Urgent care may be able to help, but may also also just give Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen and suggest seeing your primary care physician. They often act conservatively out of due diligence in order to mitigate the behaviors of those who are just looking for pain meds, sadly.
Thanks Dan. I did see the O2 therapy on Cleveland Clinic for cluster migraines (as long as I was there, I figured why not read about all the different types of headaches and remedies etc. I guess I’m a bit compulsive…).
Myself, the only times I’ve had migraines has been post-concussion, so only twice. So I don’t have a lot of experience with headaches generally. The only other time I get headaches is the first couple of days after I decide to quit caffeine for a while after being a heavy user. NBD.
@tomatotomato, thanks much. appreciated.
Also @Amanda (@Amandarama), thanks too; great list for consideration. I’ve spent some time explaining to her what it means to a doctor for a patient to be a “good historian”, and got across the notion that vague descriptions are not helpful for the doc. So she’s gone back (by memory) to write down most of her recollections and going forward will document much more precisely.
On your list, nothing stands out. No life changes, she’s really well hydrated (Dad Training), etc. No prior Hx of migraines or any headache activity for her. The only new thing in her life is her first post-graduation job as an engineer since June. They make laminated materials and I’m wondering if there’s a lot of epoxy resins in the air. She says there’s no noticeably bad smells in the factory, though. And the headaches just started hitting her 2 weeks ago, so I’m doubtful about the job-relation anyway.
OTC meds are not helpful because the stabbing headache goes away so fast, before she can get to the bathroom (if at home) or her locker if at work and swallow a pill - they only last a couple of minutes duration. One thing I’ve thought of, but am hesitant to suggest, is prophylaxis - i.e. that she could dose TID with 400mg Ibu (or up to 800 TID) to see if this precludes onset. But I’d rather she see a doc first.
@Phoenikia - interesting thought, but her last bout of Covid was May 2022 (when most of us got it - her big sister’s wedding!), and she had no lingering Sx after 4 days of that. So I’m doubtful of long covid.
@mts - it could be allergies. This is a new place for her (first job out of college), much more rural and in a mountain community. But the presentation is odd, not like what is typical for allergy-related issues. E.g., sometimes she gets frontal sinus pain, but more often it’s temporal or occipital, which wouldn’t indicate allergies or sinus cavities. Weird stuff how it travels all over her head (and I’m sorry, I know I didn’t mention this aspect in the first post about it). But yeah, sinus/frontal was the first thing I thought of but she said no, it’s happening all over.
Y’all are really great peeps. Many thanks for offering thoughts and suggestions. Great food for thought.
