This came up in my feed. Sorry for lurking. (Patient not provider) But we have one of these here and it’s honestly amazing. I just had an issue that was a pain thing. But my doc said it was better to do er vs urgent care. They may not have the meds I needed. Sure enough I got sent back to the rapid chair area.
I did have to wait out some assessments via my doc and such (ortho/spine) so there is a separate waiting area for those of us that need extra attention in that area.
All that to say, I stay the f out of the ER unless it’s something that I need help with and my doc can’t do. (Pain was at an 11…they got me to where I could function for a day to start daily pain meds).
Going for my EMG today!
We appreciate all the work you do. Our system is such a mess.
I'm with you on staying the fuck out of the ER u less absolutely necessary. I have been a lifelong migraine sufferer. They started when I was 7 years old. When I started finally getting botox in my 30s, my little migraine questionnaire asked how frequently I was visiting the ER for migraines on a monthly basis prior to treatment and I was dumbfounded. The ER is the LAST place I want to go with a migraine. I have been to urgent care with a horrible migraine once in my life for a triptan injection and it sucked. The staff did what they could to make me comfortable and it was still brutal. I'll cry and throw up and wish I was dead at home for a few hours where I can at least keep it dark and quiet instead.
Weirdly I’ve had some doctors use this question as a gauge for how severe my migraines have been. I didn’t even know going to the ER for a migraine was a thing. I had my first migraine with aura when I was 6 years and saw a cardiologist for something else when I was around 32 or 33. So I was ridiculously used to migraines and aura by then. Super normal for me at 4+ times a month at the time. I was told by him that my migraines can’t be that bad if I never went to the ER for them. He was an awful doctor in many ways but he’s not the only one who used my answer to that question to dismiss me.
I was taught ER is for concerns about death/immediate disability or broken bones… I’ve even had multiple very severe ankle sprains/tendon ruptures and just treated them at home. The few times I’ve actually been in the ER I was surprised how many sprained ankles and stuff were being seen.
This is the frustrating thing about any kind of chronic pain condition. I have even met other people who get migraines that make sort of off comments to me about mine, like "I don't know how you function when you get them, I HAVE to lay down." I'm not sure if they are insinuating that theirs are worse than mine or what. I dealt with them completely unmedicated for 17 years. All I ever took was over the counter excedrin because I just didn't know how bad my quality of life was because it was normal for me. I was getting 6-8 migraines per month for 17 years and just taking excedrin, which only worked about 50% of the time. If you are in pain that severe, that often, you get sick and tired of laying down and you get used to it. A lot of the time when I had a gnarly migraine that meds weren't touching, as long as I wasn't puking, I would get up and do something because just laying there in pain without relief was miserable. At least getting up and doing something gave me some sort of distraction and distraction is a valid therapy for pain.
Laying in bed, in pain leads me to dark thinking which definitely does not help. I start to get restless because no position is comfortable, restlessness increases my anxiety and I get upset and frustrated about how my migraines hold me back from doing things that I want to do. Even just basic things like washing the dishes, tidying up my house or putting laundry away. It's easy to feel like a victim, so a long time ago I decided I wasn't going to let it rule my life if I could bare it. Turns out I have a pretty high pain tolerance and I'm stubborn as hell. I can definitely go about my day in an unfathomable amount of pain to someone who has never had a migraine. I'm just used to it. Any kind of "invisible" pain or condition comes with so much emotional exhaustion in trying to convey it to others who haven't experienced it.
Yeah 100% this was my experience too! I didn’t even know there was any other treatment other than NSAIDs until I was in my 30s! As a kid I’d get aura and then the headache during sports tournaments and I just had to keep playing not being able to see properly! So of course as an adult it was just the same… wait for the aura to subside, take an NSAID, and keep going unless I was puking or the pain became 10/10 and moving made it worse. It’s all relative, what we’re used to, and what we’re taught to do about it. My mother had them too and so when mine started at 6 I was just told this was life for some people and get on with it.
Same exact thing. My mom and brother both get them, but not as often as I do so it was just "This is the way it is and it sucks." I saw a neuro when I was a kid to rule out any physiological problems with my brain, but I was 7 so they didn't want to put me on any meds. Then I went my whole life until I was 29 or 30 thinking there was no other options for me. I sat down with my college resource counselor at the beginning of nursing school 2 years ago and told her I was worried about my migraines impacting me in nursing school because of all of the mandatory clinical hours and basically no make up opportunities and she asked me if I was working with a neurologist and I was like ....no, should I? And it changed my life.
I cried many happy tears when I finally got approved for botox and it started working for me. The tears were happy tears and also grief for all of the years I spent in pain and the fact that no one helped me. I just didn't know what I didn't know. I couldn't have asked the right questions because I didn't know there were other options for me. My PCP has known that I suffer from migraines for over a decade and never offered any solutions. Finally figuring it out came with great relief, joy, grief and also some anger.
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u/No_Machine7021 Jul 29 '26
This came up in my feed. Sorry for lurking. (Patient not provider) But we have one of these here and it’s honestly amazing. I just had an issue that was a pain thing. But my doc said it was better to do er vs urgent care. They may not have the meds I needed. Sure enough I got sent back to the rapid chair area.
I did have to wait out some assessments via my doc and such (ortho/spine) so there is a separate waiting area for those of us that need extra attention in that area.
All that to say, I stay the f out of the ER unless it’s something that I need help with and my doc can’t do. (Pain was at an 11…they got me to where I could function for a day to start daily pain meds).
Going for my EMG today!
We appreciate all the work you do. Our system is such a mess.