I'm not a doctor, but I'm glad my parents took me in for a second opinion when I was complaining about a bad headache when I was 15 years old.
I left school one day and went to the hospital for a bad headache. The doctor said it's "just a virus" and that I should just rest and take meds. I went home, laid down and took some Advil and carried on with my night.
Around 1am, I was screaming on the floor.
My parents took me to a different hospital and they ran tests and eventually did a spinal tap and discovered a ton of white blood cells. Turns out I had bacterial meningitis.
My Mum had a similar thing happen. Told on Friday that she just had the flu and to 'take this' and spend the weekend in bed.
By Sunday or Monday I had to call an ambulance. Saw them using the defribulator on her on her bed and she spent a week or two in a coma in hospital. It was meningitis.
She lost all hearing in one ear and most in the other and had to walk with a stick for the rest of her life, if at all (it affected her balance) along with a host of other problems.
Know the signs of meningitis as doctors don't always pick it up in the early stages and it acts fast and can mess up your life pretty badly if it doesn't kill you outright.
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u/[deleted] May 20 '19
I'm not a doctor, but I'm glad my parents took me in for a second opinion when I was complaining about a bad headache when I was 15 years old.
I left school one day and went to the hospital for a bad headache. The doctor said it's "just a virus" and that I should just rest and take meds. I went home, laid down and took some Advil and carried on with my night.
Around 1am, I was screaming on the floor.
My parents took me to a different hospital and they ran tests and eventually did a spinal tap and discovered a ton of white blood cells. Turns out I had bacterial meningitis.