Last Thursday night I was laying in bed watching tv and I got this very intense pain in my upper back, shoulder, and neck. It lasted for about a half-hour and it slowly decreased in intensity. I didn't sleep well that night. The following morning I had the same pain again. It wasn't as intense but it was in the same area as before. It lasted for a little while and again it passed. I worked all day with no real issues. It was Friday and I was looking forward to the weekend. Work ended and I went home. We all had dinner, I took a shower, and I was sitting down using the computer when this very intense pain hit me. It was worse than the night before and I had difficulty breathing. I had Bruce get an ice pack and I layed down in the bed with it on my neck. I layed there for about 15 minutes and then decided that to be on the safe side we better go to the emergency room.
When we got there the triage nurse did an EKG and took my blood pressure which was 160/94. We were asked to go to the waiting area and they would call me back when they had a bed available. We sat in the waiting area for 30-40 minutes and like the previous times the pain slowly decreased and went away. I told Bruce that I wanted to go home. We got up to let the nurse know that we were leaving and she said "Of all the people in that waiting room, you are the one who MOST needs to stay here." I said fine and went and sat back down even though I would have rather have left.
A short time later the nurse got a wheelchair and took us to the back where a nice emergency room physician told me I was having all the classic symptoms of a heart attack and that they needed to keep me overnight for observation and run some tests (stress test, echocardiogram and a ton of blood work) on me the following day. The nurse started an IV and the lab came and drew blood and a nitroglycerine patch was placed on my neck to lower my blood pressure which was still high. Around 12:30am I was placed in a room in the chest pain unit with a nurse that was dumb as a rock. She took my vitals and I attempted to get some sleep which as we all know is impossible in a hospital with all the beeping machines and vampires. This one lady had no clue what she was doing and I still have the bruise to prove it. When they took my vitals at 3:00am my blood pressure was 67/36, she said that can't be right and she took it again with almost the same result. She then went and got another machine and took it once again and guess what got the same results. She then looked at me and said "Are you wearing a nitro patch?" I said "You are the nurse shouldn't you know?" she got pissy and looked under my hair and ripped the patch off my neck.
They ran all their test the following day and couldn't find anything wrong with me. They released me that afternoon and gave me a card to follow up with a cardiologist. Now if there is nothing wrong with my heart why do I have to go see a cardiologist? I went home and stayed in bed the rest of the weekend. I got up and went to work on Monday and around 4pm started having the pain again and my blood pressure was again elevated. I made an appointment to see my doctor the next morning.
Went to see my doctor he is 99% certain I have a pinched nerve in my neck since they both present the same way. He has me sedated on muscle relaxers and pain medication while we wait for my insurance to approve the MRI for my neck. So that is where I am at this point. Waiting for a phone call for an MRI and drugged to the hilt. All I am doing is eating, sleeping, and drooling... lol