She is 57 and her first symptom she went to the ER about a about a month ago. The docs just gave her some morphin and sent her on her way. Few days ago she went to the ER again and same thing, gave her morphine and sent her away. She came by my house yesterday and had a long talk. I asked her what her symptoms were specifically and tell me in detail.
She said she has some kind of pain in the stomach and the pain would go to her shoulders and to her head. She mentioned dizziness and asked her do you feel? like your spinning, or the world is spinning? She said herself feels like is spinning. I asked her how is your balance? And concluded that she has imbalance where she can”t walk straight.
Next thing i asked her is how is your diet. I asked her do you drink coffee and some of the stuff is in the migraine trigger list. She verified that after drinking coffee and few hours later all the symptoms will come back. She said she had some honey and lemon(lemon or citrus fruit is on the migraine trigger list) and she said few hours later it would bring all the symptoms.
Her anxiety is off the roof and i told her thats normal with this conditiin. I also asked her how is the ear. Again, verified that it feels full and it rings. Sounds like what lot of people here are going through on this forum. I printed the migraine diet and give it to her to try out. All the symptoms are there for mav related. What do you guys think?
If her abdominal pain is just below the sternum and her pain is going to her left shoulder and jaw, she may be having angina (heart). If she has high cholesterol, diabetes or high B/P she may have angina and they need to do an ECG and some blood work to rule out heart problem first. Many docs ignore female patients when they show up with angina in ER. So, please be careful. If she has any close family member with heart attack, she is much more prone to heart problem. Ask her to consult her family doc and may be a cardiologist first before even doing anything else. Please don’ t scare her. Suggest it to her. It is better to be safe than sorry.
Thank you for the info. She did mention that her blood pressure rises during night time. I will suggest this to her. I feel so bad for her. After my initial post, she went to the ER 2 more times I believe. I believe her current diagnosis is lack of potassium but I call bs on that. I don’t know how the levels work but she mentioned she was at 3 where normal range is 9 for potassium levels.
3,5 to 4.5 (5) is the normal Canadian number. It is dangerous to have low potassium levels. If she is drinking more than 2.5 to 3 litters of water she can lower her potassium. If she cut it down too much can ruin the kidneys. Patients could die if it is greater than 6 (Canadian number). Banana and potatoes are high in potassium. She can consult a dietitian.
That would explain it. Shes drinking a lot of water in 3.8 liter jugs so in total shes drinking about 8 liter of water a day. But she started doing this after all of this hit her. I need to tell her to stop drinking so much.
Oh my, that is very dangerous. Did she tell that to the doc. They may have given her potassium supplements. if so, she really needs to monitor her potassium closely if she reduces the water
These symptoms could all be migraine related but they also need to be checked out for anything structural first. Sounds like the ER have done some of that.
If you strongly suspect MAV or something similar, get her to a neuro otologist (not just a general ENT, although some of these can be good).
I am pretty sure the ER did the standard test. I just heard that she went to the ER again on christmas day sigh. I am trying to have her see my doc(neurotologist) but i think she is hesitant.
I guess whatever her symptoms are, when it hits she panics and goes to the ER. She doesn’t have insurance so my question is how is she going to afford all that bill? I need to really sit her down and talk to her.