Well this is a fine way to start Christmas Day...

I'm sorry you and your friend have had such a worrying time, vampirequeen.

But could I just say many, many congratulations on your brilliant news re the two new GC!

Thank you Maggiemaybe. I have to admit I'm excited lol.

Anyone heard any more from Vampire?

Our friend is back in a and e. My DH is with her because we don 't like to leave her there on her own and as you know I'm not much use in strange places.

If they try to discharge her DH is going to stress that she lives alone and refuse to take her home.

If the worst comes to the worst and they insist then she'll have to come here because she can't look after herself.

What has taken her back to A&E? - more pain/further bleed? Poor lady - I do hope that she gets some consistent care now and that they are able to help her.

Do you feel well enough vq to be coping with her at your place?

She went back to a and e because the pain became unbearable. She's been there 6 hours and has just seen a triage nurse. She is now waiting to see a consultant but they're still talking about sending her home.

They keep saying it's not her heart so don't worry.

This morning her GP told her that it's probably not a dissected aorta.....just an inflamed one. I looked that up and it seems highly dangerous too.

The only test she's had done is an xray on Christmas Day. From that they deduced it was a dissecting aorta. The GP didn't even listen to her chest before he pronounced it to be an inflamed aorta.

I'm totally at a loss at what to do. If they discharge her DH is going to bring her back here. We will keep bouncing her back to a and e until they get fed up of us.

" She's been there 6 hours and has just seen a triage nurse" - what can you say?

The British Heart Foundation produce loads of leaflets about everything but the Aorta, which happens to be the most important blood vessel in the body.
Your husband should not agree to take her home without a CT scan with contrast to find out if it is an aortic dissection. Anyone in that much pain should not be sent home anyway.

"Sadly (!!) Aortic Dissection is one of the most under-reported, underrated and less understood medical emergencies in the world.. and the UK especially. Shocked - absolutely shocked that a nurse did not know what it was however I know that up until a few years ago medical school in the UK only gave this cursory coverage in the entire doctors years of training.. it is often called the 'great pretender' as it mimics a whole range of conditions and is one of the hardest conditions to diagnose unless the attending doctor knows exactly what to look for. And yes your right... their is very little follow up literature on AD in the UK once you have left the hospital. This site was founded hopefully to help overcome this. Have a good rattle around the site..there is a lot of info and links on it added over the years that can help you. As for what causes it.. take your pick/// high blood pressure is however one of the main culprits..."

This is from the www.aorticdissection.co.uk website written by someone who has just celebrated his tenth post AD anniversary.

Tell her to ask to be transferred ASAP to James Cook if that's her nearest.

Yes, I cannot find any nearer, Stansgran. I thought Leeds might but all they are interested in is the genetics of it.

You need to ask them if they would send home someone in the final stages of labour, because that's how bad the pain is, except in your back, between the shoulder blades.

DH is trying to push them to keep her in but they have a bed shortage.

Tell her to refuse to be discharged
You can't diagnose an aortic aneurysm by listening to the chest anyway. If it's an abdominal aortic aneurysm you diagnose it by palpitation. You can only tell if it's dissecting by the symptoms or by dangerous contrast CAT.
the problem is that injecting the dye could worsen the dissection I would have thought.
Surely this should only be done in a specialist hospital.
If it is a dissecting aneurysm I'm surprised she's still alive!

There is something to be said for refusing to care for her at your home vq and insisting that the responsibility lies with the hospital. I am sure you would care for her if she was booted out, but they need not know that.

If there is a bed shortage then they have to find her a bed elsewhere - by the sound of things she would be better off elsewhere!

I do not know how tough or insistent you OH feels he can be (mine would not!) but he does need to put his foot down and make sure she finishes up somewhere where they can give her proper investigations and treatment.

Do not know about that Galen. I had all three and they still misdiagnosed.
There must be somebody in the hospital who has seen a dissection before and knows where to send her.
They only realised mine was a dissection because they sent copies of my scans to the Freeman Hospital who told them to get me there quickly. But if she hasn't had any scans, they cannot do that. The Freeman has a specialist department because it takes ADs from the whole of the North.
I think if I'd still been living in Hull or York I could have died. At least Durham did not send me home without further investigation.

Is there anyone else on here who has had a dissection?

She's finally seen someone with common sense. He examined her carefully, looked at the xrays and blood tests that were taken the other day and told her to totally ignore everything the other doctors had said. He said it was a load of rubbish. She doesn't have a dissecting aorta or an ulcer. In fact if she had then by now she'd be dead because they'd sent her home. And there was no way the GP could diagnose an inflamed aorta. He doesn't understand how they managed to discover an ulcer that doesn't exist.

Finally after he'd checked and doubled checked he told her she has costochondritis which is an inflammation of the cartilage of the rib cage. As she hasn't done any heavy or awkward lifting he thinks it's the result of a viral infection.

He's told her to take tramodol plus ibroprofen and to go back if it gets worse or doesn't start to ease over the next few days.

A letter of complaint will be going in. She's spent 5 days worrying that she could die at any moment and it turns out they didn't know what they were talking about. And if they had been right then by sending her home they were more or less condemning her to death.

Thank heavens for that, vampire, and for a sensible consultant. There needs to be an enquiry at the hospital to find out who said what and why. Some serious retraining is necessary, at the least.

I am, needless to say, extremely pleased for your friend, and for you and your husband, vampire. Some well needed rest all round.
Don't they know what stress can do to blood pressure?

Phew - a reprieve. It is unacceptable that it took so long to get a proper diagnosis.

Thank goodness vampire, you and she must be so relieved.

I said it was unlikely to be a dissecting aortic aneurysm!

Well the missive is written and sent. Our friend is dyslexic as well as exhausted so I did the actual writing for her because we wanted the complaint to go in sooner rather than later.

Just imagine if their initial diagnosis had been right. We wouldn't have been writing a complaint letter. We'd have been writing on obituary.

It is a quite extraordinary saga. Firstly they make a major misdiagnosis, then they make the wrong decisions about what to do (assuming that they believed their own diagnosis!). Quite unbelievable.

When you've all calmed down a bit, vampire, it also needs to go on the NHS choices website.
They ask for feedback, so you should give it to them.

I'm glad she's got a proper diagnosis at last vampire it doesn't give one any confidence in hospitals though does it?

Glad you've all been reassured now, what a worrying few days. Didnt realise costochondritis could cause bleeding though...