Hey
I need some input for a paper I am writing about pain control in the emergency room. Any experiences good, bad or ugly would be appreciated. This is the last thing I will have to do before I graduate. Help a girl out.....please???

 

Well, about a month ago I went to the Rhode Island Hospital. I was basically the only one in the waiting room after having been logged into the system with what I would consider 'level 10' pain. This was about 11:30 in the morning. I sat around with my room-mate, writhing in pain for hours, while walk-ins behind me were admitted first. Apparently pain itself is not a life threatening condition, so I was pushed off. Eventually I was given a room in the ER. This was 4:00 PM. Four and a half hours of pain, I almost passed out twice. They took some blood and urine and ran some tests, and diagnosed me with kidney stones, immediately realizing they should give me some damned medication, another hour and a half later I got morphine in my IV. I was released at 6pm with a presciption for vicodin, without having any real tests done on me. Whatever. By the time I was released, my mother and grandmother had already driven from southwestern CT to bring me home... My mother has had similar problems with doctors not giving her pain medication, so now before she goes to the ER she takes medication (vicodin or percoset).
My roomate and I joked in the waiting room when I was not in pain( half hour of relief) that we should have gone to another hospital (roger williams) or driven back to danbury CT. I would have been given medication sooner, and have been thuroughly examined.
All of this was on a fricken wednesday.
If anyone doesn't know, kidney stones are often regarded as being the most painful thing, ever. I wanted to jump out of the windows in the waiting room, no lie.
So, for the love of god, and all that is holy. Medicate medicate medicate.

 

standards of care state that pain is itself a detrement to health, unfortunately ER's attribute any pain not associated with trauma to drug seeking and that's what I am addressing in this paper

I appreciate you sharing your story, it will be very helpful. Hope you've gotten some definitive treatment. Good luck.

 

Indeed, I have to keep my fluids up (85+ ounces of water a day) for... the rest of my life basically. Apparently its the best prevention for kidney stones =D
That and I always carry vicodin or perc on me now, so if any pain were to occur, I can go to happy town instead.

 

i had my splein(sp?) removed when i was 7years old. if it busted i was dead, if it busted when it was being taken out i was dead.

edit** i guess that doesnt help your paper out any. lol. if it was crying in the room then it would. lol

 

I take any help i can get. thanks

 

Do you need the names of the drugs that were given or what we think we should have gotten? Were they given in timely manner? Reactions? or all of the above.

 

Truly good advice. Keeping the fluids moving keeps the sediment from settling out and forming stones, much easier than any other method of removal. Happy town is one of my favorite places

 

Ok i got one for ya, not sure if its what you need. It involves a cracked open head. Ok, i attend West Virginia University, and it is true, we do like to party here and we like to party hard...sometimes a little too hard...(leading to story) I ran into one of my buddies whos at the gym he said later that night he was having a party at his appartment. Him being one of the football players i knew it was gona be one kick *** party. So me and my roomate went to the party. His appartment is on the 2nd floor. (let me give you a view of the surroundings) the parking lot then the 4 foot cement/stone wall separating parking lot to grass hill. grass hill= steep incline, to the wooden stairs. So it was now about 1AM. im not drunk just a good buzz. I decided i needed to feel alive again and do something i wouldnt normally do. With the alchohol...I DID IT!. I jumped off the balconly of the 2nd floor. i did it with the one hand on the rail and swing the legs over, i ended up going down backwards and landing on my shoulder/neck on the wet grass( forgot to mention the drizzle) and rolled down backwards 20 yards. i somehow flipped up(i guess momentum) and my head made contact with the corner of the cement/stone wall, i flipped over that and landed in the parking lot. I stood right up like i was fine. Everyone was like holy **** man you ok? then came the blood.. it came flowing out of my head so fast, my face, shirt pants, even the sidewalk was covered in blood. i was drivin to the hospital where i was then told to sit in the waiting room, i was told it was a cut a little more than 1/4 and inch deep and 2 inches long. right on the top of my head. i sat there bleeding in the room for 3 hours. then moved to an actual room where i sat for another 3 hours. i passed out from blood loss i assume around 5 am. i was woke up at 8 am to find the doctor looking at me. He put 13 staples in my head and told me to go home. so i did. just like that. My head was throbbing with pain the whole time in the waiting room and i could feel every pulse to my head. well, that weekend sucked. but all is good now, staples are out, this event happened about 4 weeks ago. sorry for the long story.

 

Great story. The times are really what I am after, how long you waited and how you felt about the treatment you received. Very useful stuff.



I gotta know though....did you say "Hey watch this" prior to this magnificent leap? lol

 

Guess I should have been more specific, but I didn't want to be leading. I am really interested in how much pain you were in, how long it took to receive treatment, and how satisfied you were with the treatment you received. And if you felt you suffered any ill effects from the lack of or poor treatment. I would also like to hear good stories about treatment.

The paper is a project to improve the quality of pain management in emergency departments.

 

Yea i did say that, almost exact. but the waiting sucked, i remember there was a guy with a black eye from a bar fight who got in before i did, he couldnt have been there long. A lot of people came and went while i was in the waiting room, and i was sitting there bleeding, i thought they might have forgotten about me. I waited a total of 7 hours. The treatment was quick and could have been done in 10 minutes. after the treatment it felt good, the wound felt tight. When he put the staples in it was very quick and painless. minus the part where it was being numbed those shots always suck. The pain was painful but then again i dont really mind pain. i would rate it at 7 probably. nothing to intense but not very comfortable.

 

I have something that might help. When I was 8 my ear was partially riped/bitten off by a dog (the dog didn't mean to do it.) I was taken to the E.R., I had to keep a towel on the side of my head becuase of all the blood. I have to do all the regular stuff, sit there and wait for my Mother to give all my info to the desk and get a wristband all that. I never saw it in a mirror to see how bad my ear was, but from all the blood on the towel and right shoulder, and huge-eyed stares in the E.R. waiting room it must have been slightly bad lol. I don't remember being in as much pain as you would think for having your ear not completly attached. I waited probably 30min.-1hr. before they took me in to get the stitches. I was starting to shake at this point, I don't know if it was loss of blood, the pain, or if I was just cold. I remember that they gave me a shot of a painkiller, I don't know what it was. But the shot of the painkiller hurt worse than anything else, more than my ear, more than the stitches. They put a warm blanket on me to help keep me from shivering, guess it wasn't the blood loss since I didn't get a transfusion or something. They had to give me about 10 shots of painkiller since there isn't much flesh on your ear. I guess that thought that I was hurting becuase of my ear and the stitches, but I don't even remember the pain from that, it just hurt like hell when they stuck me in the ear with those needles to inject painkiller into me. Anyways, they got my ear stuck back to my head and I had to ear a big bandage on the side of my head for half the summer hahaha. I can barely see the scar now.

Notes: 30min-1hr wait after getting the E.R. Happy with the treatment, I wasn't in that much pain until I started getting stitches so I didn't feel like I was in a big hurry.

 

Got 100% Thanks for all the input, it really helped support our theory of under-treatment of pain in the er. I figure since the population here is mostly young and male, and that is highest population for accidents, the probability was high to get some good er input. Thanks to everyone who posted.

 

What are you trying to say? that we're wreckless......... LOL

 

well, i sat on a tazer.....flawless did a superman jump off a balcony........fr500 got his ear bitten off........yea ide say were pretty reckless :P

ive got hundreds of er stories. shitty timing on my part that u are done...sorry!