Follow up to ERs from hell

As I followed ERnursey's blog after my last post, I came to like the lady. She took time to answer a couple of comments to her blog and explain the difference between her saying 'migraine' and migraine.

All in all, what she has to say is very similar to what genuine Migraineurs say. Here's a quote from one of her entries:

People with migraines are on preventative, anti-nausea and abortive meds. They come to the ER as a last resort when their usual medications have been tried and failed.

People with 'migraines' are not on any migraine management meds and will often state allergies to them. In fact they are usually allergic to everything but Demerol or Dilaudid.

It's rather sad that what could have been a productive discussion soured very quickly, especially when an ER doctor decided to continue it on his blog and deliberately "baited" the Migraineurs who were trying, for the most part, to participate in a civil, adult conversation. Then there was another ER nurse who has decided to be a total cretin, making comments such as "migraine is the new fibromyalgia.

It's clear that most of these people either have never been ill or they've been very fortunate that the medical professionals who treated them were their ultimate superiors in professionalism, compassion, and plain old human decency.

Still, good doctors and nurses are some of the most underrated people on the face of the earth. Everybody wants to fuss at them if there's the slightest problem; few people think to thank them.

IMO, patients and those doctors and nurses have more in common than the docs and nurses think. Bad experiences with people with 'migraines' have left some of them highly suspicious of everyone who even says the word Migraine. On the flip side, patients who have had the horror of a doctor who was an ass or incompetent (and, yes, as with any profession, there are good doctors and bad) often don't give other doctors a fair shake.

I can't help but be sad about some of the callous and unnecessary comments I read on those blogs over the weekend. Ah, well. A few of the people posting comments mentioned Karma, something I believe is very real. That gives me comfort and yes, brings a bit of a grin to my face.

Namaste,
Abi