Complaint Review: Lea Regional Medical Center

I had not had a bad migraine since the above mentioned incident with Dr.Castillo. I got one today, it was so horrible I thought my right eye would pop out of it's socket. I was taken by my fiancee to a hospital near my Dr.s Office, due to the fact my doctor could not see me today at all.

I was treated very well and I was given some medication like Imetrex, which Imetrex I can't take due to severe reaction. This DR. said he wanted to try this medication that is fairly new, because HE TOO suffers from this attacks and knows how it feels. A doctor that has walked a mile in my shoes( though his feet are remarkably larger, ha ha) and knows the agony.

He explained that the narrowing of the arteries to your brain cause the headaches, and severe attacks can lead to blood clots and there fore annurisms. The medication he gave me did not work, it made it worse and made me very antsy. So in the same heplock, he started administering demorol something he uses when all else has failed as well.

I was given that through the IV and a shot of vistaril in the rump. 15 min later he asked if it had calm down, I replied yes about 5-6 on pain scale, he said not good enough and had the nurse give more through the IV. I was again checked and I told them it was to a 3-4 on pain scale and the nurse was going to give more and I said no, this is enough I will be OK.

Let me tell you that medication through an IV is ugly, I felt really ansy, even though the pain was gone, I didn't like the way it felt. So as to those of you who think I was there for drugs the first time, you can have them. I will take medicine when needed but I do not enjoy it one bit. I was given some Forva samples to try on next one and I am all for anything that does not give me that feeling of not being in control of my self. And To Nancy, and others TY for believing in me.......

Nancy,

As it turns out, my wife did have the barium gulp, and the tests turned up negative for Crohn's. She says she told me when she got the test results, but there were alot of results from different tests she told me about that day. I didn't specifically recall her telling me about this test, and again she accused me of having "selective hearing" (LOL).

But since there is a history of it in her family, we will keep monitoring for symptoms. Thanks for all your insight.

I will email ED and ask for your addy. I will point him to this post. Take care, and I'll see you in the reports!

*I* have Crohn's and Pat's wife possibly has Crohn's. I used it as an example of the horrendous medical help I've gotten over the years to show some of us DO get treated this badly in the ER's around the country. I've lived in 6 states and been in at least one ER or G.I.'s office once a year since I was a baby and did NOT get any help until I moved to Phoenix in 1998. I did NOT have the same doctor, I kept trying till I found one who would believe I hurt. Then it took taking my husband in with me and letting the docs know he was a former nurse and retired police officer before they listened.

If you have a doctor who doesn't give opiates for pain, then you need to find a new one, providing you are one of the people with Crohn's who has chronic pain as I do. I pass out from the pain, you think taking 2 Tylenol will really help me? I was on 400 mg of morphine and 1 Vicodin ES every 4 hours and it didn't get all the pain! Any pain patient knows that they are constipating, that's why they make stool softeners. Problem solved.

Yes, opiates are also addicting .. actually the politically correct termonolgy is after about 2-4 weeks of daily use, a patient will become 'dependant' on opiates. I'm rarely PC. I was on them daily for 5 years, I was addicted as they come, but not by my own choice. After my last surgery last year I did a taper down to 60 mg on the morph and then cold turkey'd the rest of the way. Basically you lay down, get sicker than a dog for 2 weeks and it's over with, unless you were abusing the meds, then you will probably end up with a craving problem after the detox. How do I know? I run a forum for people trying to get off addictive drugs of all types and learn from their experiences along with my own.

Now, you touched on bowel obstructions. I had one, looked 8 months pregnant, got the pic if you care to see it. LOL. Docs told me to give myself an enema. After a month I finally talked them into admitting me, they did, but left no instructions for the hospital docs and they had no idea what to do with me. (This was after my Crohn's surgery when I was telling them there were still Crohn's related problems that needed fixed and they were back to telling me I was a drug seeker and crazy.) The pain meds I was on had NOTHING to do with the obstruction!

Took another 4 years and 6 OB-GYN docs before I found one who knew her stuff and she had me in surgery in 2 weeks time to fix a bad rectocele and remove my uterus .. which was tilted into my colon, thus causing me to obstruct. (Which of course I had been telling them was the problem all along, but they wouldn't listen.) This was all Crohn's related.

The only relationship between Olympia and myself is we both have gotten rude and uncalled for attitudes from doctors who we went to trying to get help for a pain problem. I've been thru what she described so many times I've lost count. When I see an injustice I speak up.

(There are a few of us Crohnies posting on a few of the latest medical reports Mark, feel free to look us up and share some of your wisdom and experiences with the Disease.)

Talk about irony. I have had Crohn's since 1983. I have had two bowel resections. I have been hospitalized over 2 dozen times. I am currently undergoing Remicade therapy.

Headaches caused by Crohn's medications are far from life threatening. As a matter of fact, the only life threatening complication of Crohn's is a bowel obstruction. No emergency room in the USA would turn you away if you were showing symptoms of a blockage. Normally, they will immediately admit you.

There is a lot of terrific information regarding Crohn's out on the web. The only test that can prove out a diagnosis of Crohn's is a biopsy. I assume that is the test Olympia had.

Also, any good pain killer is normally a member of the opium family (Demerol, percecet, etc.) are constipating, normally ER doctors will not prescribe these to treat Crohn's since this could complicate any blockage that may be the driver of severe pain. I also assume you are now being treated by a Gastroenterologist. Talk to he/she regarding pain management. It can be done with out using addictive drugs.

I don't see any relationship between Olympia's situation and that of Nancy. Olympia is a faker looking to score some free dope. Don't put yourself in that bucket.

One more caution, 40 years without a diagnosis is way to long. People need to fire their doctors much quicker it they are not getting any results.

The EDitor can give you my info if you send him an email. Refer him to this thread and he will see I am OK with him giving you my email address.

I own an IRC network and quite a few of the guys who work for me in there are Crohnies too. We sit in my private channel on the network and the potty jokes fly when there aren't non-crohnies around to offend with them. LOL.

I've been told many times 'there isn't anything I can think of to mention that you haven't been thru in your lifetime'. That's not true, I haven't had a heart attack yet, but I still have two teenagers left so I may get that soon! :)

Your wife will be in my prayers. Tell her doc to put her in for a barium gulp, iodine push CT Scan. That is the ONLY test that found my Crohn's. After they locate where the disease is active in the digestive system, then they can run more localized tests to check it further. The most common site for it to 'attack' is where the small and large bowels join together.

If your wife is getting severe gut pain about a half hour to an hour after eating, I'd say Crohn's, that's exactly what I went thru. That's about how long it takes the food to get thru a slower than normal, active Crohn's at the end of the small gut, obstruction/stricture. When I saw mine during a small bowel series I was in awe. A 10 minute test took 6 hours and when we finally got the barium to where it needed to be, I watched the filled area of the bowel go from the size of a silver dollar down to a squiggly trickle the diameter of a cigarette.

Drop me a line and we can talk more via email, Yahoo IM or in IRC if you know how to do it...your choice. Keep in mind I will be gone from 8/26 till 8/30, so if you don't email me before I leave, I'll get you on the rebound when I'm home again.

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For those still doubting Olympia, I get migraines myself and take the pill version of Imitrex. They also give shots of Imitrex, but can also give out scripts for that, so the patient can administer their dose at home. I have a friend who uses that method.

I know that some people require a shot of Demerol to get rid of the pain and that takes going to the ER usually. The only drawback to using opiates for migraines is rebound headaches once the medicine wears off, as I said before.

Fioricet works very well, either alone or mixed with Codeine, but it is sooooo addictive and dangerous, I don't advise it to anyone unless there is nothing left to try.

I own a drug forum online that helps people get off addictive drug, or maintain on them, in the case of a pain patient, so abuse doesn't become an issue. Many of the posters on my forum suffer from headaches, backaches, Crohn's, basically we see it all. From that I hear about the drugs that work well, the ones that don't and the ones, like Ultram, which start out as 'safe', then later get changed to addictive.

I totally believe she was treated badly in the ER and was correct in filing her report to call them out!

Thank you Nancy for countering the naysayers above. They did the same thing that the ER doctor did, pre-judged based on a simple statement.

Instead of attacking the poster, the simple question of "Why did you happen to have a tape recorder?" would have been appropriate.

I'm glad she posted again with the explanation.

Nancy, after reading more of your battle with Crohns, I'm beginning to wonder if my wife might have it. She has periods when she has severe intestinal pains, usually associated with certain foods. I think she has done a barium gulp recently, but am not sure. She's out at a Pampered Chef meeting right now, so I'll be sure to ask when she gets home.

Thanks for all the insight into your world.

I honestly believe that Doctors need to re-evaluate the reason they decided to become doctors. I am being punished for something my daughter has done. They seem to say if the daughter is that way so is the mother. I don't sell medication or give it away, I need it for my treatment. Besides, how do you sell an injection? I had my recorder with me due to returning from a graduation, so I pressed play when he came in and am glad I did.

Mark, I am not a doctor, what I say below is only my opinions gained from my own personal experience and those of others I know.

If what Olympia posted is true about her having migraines quite often, she is what is known as a pain patient. I have been a pain patient in the past and could be again in the future, since I have a disease they have no cure for yet and I know EXACTLY the kind of treatment she is referring to.

Until you experience total chronic pain to the point it causes you to pass out, don't judge the person harshly. Are you aware that the laws these days say that a doctor can be sued for undertreating pain just as easily as they can for giving a patient too many pain meds? THAT is how bad it's gotten in this country due to doctors not giving people the medicines they need to stop their pain.

I remember when I was found passed out from my pain on the floor and taken to the ER. I told the ER docs I thought I had either Colitis or Crohn's Disease, since I had been dealing with this chronic pain on and off all my life, but as always, they wouldn't listen to me. This one just patted me on my little head, wrote in my ER chart that I was a drug seeker and sent me home with a bottle of Vicodin ES, a bottle of Donnatal, and a referral to a G.I. doc. As I was leaving he informed me he didn't believe a word I said and was putting in my chart that I was NOT to be treated there again for this problem.

At that point I was at my normal weight of around 90 to 95 pounds. The specialist the ER referred me to ignored me, after I waited a month to get in to see him and told me he knew a good shrink I could go see. I fired him and went to the hospital's clinic and saw one of their resident docs and he did listen to me, ran the needed tests and keep me on pain meds, so I could somewhat function normally. I had dropped to 72 pounds and was forced to use a wheelchair due to being so weak. Later I was told I was about 2 weeks away from dying at that point.

After 40+ years of this pattern and being to the point of almost doubting myself .. the tests came back and vindicated me. I have Crohn's. Soon I was in the hospital and the surgeon was slicing and dicing out over a foot of my small bowel. I was taking 400 mg. of morphine and 4 Vicodin ES a day to control the pain before surgery .. yet that ER doc and the specialist who first saw me, said it was all in my head or I was a drug seeker. Of COURSE I was asking for pain meds .. I HURT!

Thru my merry travels over many years and thru many ER's, I have learned that the majority of doctors do NOT like it when you can tell them which pain med works best for you. If you do that, they automatically assume you know this because you are a drug abuser, not that you know from experience due to your pain. If you have any idea of what is causing your pain, they get offended that you are telling them how to do their job, cop an attitude and don't do anything further to help you.

I'd like to know why this ER doc that was supposed to treat Olympia didn't give her a drug made for migraines, such as Imitrex, or if that didn't work, then Fioricet (which is VERY addictive and should be used as a last resort in my opinion). Opiates will relieve migraines, but they can cause many to have rebound headaches, which leaves you in the same place you started.

I'm betting Olympia has been to that ER many times for her migraines and hasn't established herself with a regular doctor. Each time she has gone to the ER she has dealt with different doctors, all who have written something in her chart. I would bet hers says exactly what mine does .. this person is a drug seeker. Now when she goes in there for help, the doctor who gets her chart sees what is written in it and pre-judges her, due to a previous doctor's incompetence.

While I agree with you that a migarine isn't life threatening, it sure can feel like it when one hits you. I do like the idea of taking a tape recorder with you to the ER and getting the condesending remarks the doctors say to you on tape. Wish I would have thought of that!

Not everyone who is sick looks sick. You can't *see* a migraine, you couldn't *see* that my guts were 90% obstructed with scar tissue from all the years of Crohn's flares .. this is why so many pain patients suffer and why they try to reach out and get people to understand and help them.

Olympia, if you have insurance, find yourself a good pain doctor and get established with him. They can really help if you find a good one, not all are. If you don't have insurance, see if you qualify for state aid. An ER isn't the place you want to go on any regular basis for medical care, they can't, or won't, give you what you need.

What kind of narcotics were you trying to score? For personal use or street value?

Have you been a long-time tape-recorder-toting customer?

I'm afraid I've got to agree with Mark. I have suffered from migraines for years. The LAST thing I would think about (if you have these types of headaches you would realize you can't think) would be taking a tape recorder along to the hospital with me. If the original poster suffers from these attacks, a visit to the doctor's office for prescription medications in case of a severe migraine would be in order.

I'm afraid I've got to agree with Mark. I have suffered from migraines for years. The LAST thing I would think about (if you have these types of headaches you would realize you can't think) would be taking a tape recorder along to the hospital with me. If the original poster suffers from these attacks, a visit to the doctor's office for prescription medications in case of a severe migraine would be in order.

I'm afraid I've got to agree with Mark. I have suffered from migraines for years. The LAST thing I would think about (if you have these types of headaches you would realize you can't think) would be taking a tape recorder along to the hospital with me. If the original poster suffers from these attacks, a visit to the doctor's office for prescription medications in case of a severe migraine would be in order.

Boy, I'd love to hear the whole story. Do you always bring a tape recorded to the emergency room? How is a migraine life threatening? How often do you stop by for relief?

Get a life.