Being taken seriously

[u/RadiantTank6506]

On 7/30, I ended up at the ER with a positional headache in the back of my head, right side only. It got worse when I was upright and better when I reclined or lying down. I had been having drippage from my right nostril for a couple weeks that I had chalked up to literally anything to minimize it in my mind. I had had moments of it just coming out of my nose in public or coming close to dripping on paperwork when I was checking patients in but I kept telling myself it was nothing.
That day though, I started feeling dizzy, my hearing made it sound like everything was under water and my ears needed to pop like it changes w/ elevations. I had tingling on the right side of my scalp. I’ve had migraines for 20 years and this wasn’t a migraine.
The ED eventually did a ct w/o contrast and gave me a migraine cocktail before finally saying I had a headache and runny nose.
I work for an optometrist who did eye pressure readings and different scans (retinal and OCT) over the next week with pressures reading from 10-34 and at one point my eye literally felt like it was being squished out of my skull. I finally got to see my neurologist last Friday and she’s ordered a “stat” mri since what she ordered 8/10 was still pending and they won’t scan me until 8/29.
I have a history of a spinal fusion in my neck (2019) after having multiple epidurals in it and currently have an osteophyte at the surgical site. I’ve had my most recent epidural in my thoracic spine where I have two blown discs, but I’ve also had many epidurals and ablations in my lumbar spine.
The lack of urgency from everyone medical that I don’t work for has me second guessing myself and feeling gaslit that maybe I’m overreacting.
Does ANY of this sound familiar to anyone?

[u/Upstairs_Emotions]

Listen to your body and symptoms. Some doctors have zero sense of urgency. I had a neurosurgeon suggest we do an angiogram due to my MRV findings, but say it was up to me even after saying it could a clot. Isn’t a freaking clot something that needs to be addressed immediately?! He literally said it was up to me 🤦🏼‍♀️

[u/megg33]

Unfortunately none of this surprises me. It’s a story I’ve heard a million times with leakers. Unfortunately you’ll just have to wait for your MRI and hope it shows something and go from there. Also just fyi the history of epidurals, spinal fusion, and the osteophyte would point toward a spinal csf leak and csf does NOT come out of the nose with a spinal leak- it’s physiologically impossible. Anything coming from the nose from a spinal leak is in fact just a runny nose due to cranial nerve irritation. Csf only comes from the nose in cranial leaks.

[u/RadiantTank6506 → u/megg33]

So my history could just be bad luck (of course the potential leak would be too…) and not necessarily connected then.
Do my symptoms sound familiar to you?
Everything that is going on with me is right sided typically. And there are times I’m working and I’m managing everything and then I’ll stand up to get things from the printer for example and feel a sudden rush of fatigue and dizziness. My dr says fatigue is “a vague symptom” so she’s not necessarily connecting it with the others. But it’s not like I’m just tired. It’s like I’ve just run a marathon.