Gee this place looks familiar.....
IMAGE courtesy of GurneyCam
Woke up at 2100 Saturday night for work with a pain in my left neck behind and inferor to my L ear.
I figured I slept wrong and just headed into work.
For the entire shift I would get these muscle spasms in my left neck every 3- minutes that would lift me up on my toes, clench my fists with white knuckles, draw back my lips, clench my teeth and generally feel like to top of my head was coming off. These would last about 5-10 seconds and then I'd be good for another 3-5 minutes.
I had some diazapam at home laying around from a previous back issue so I took 10mg of that and figured that would take care of the spasms. No go. Advil and ibuprofen didn't do much either.
It was not a good night. Power failure put the unit in the dark for several hours. The aides and I had to tie all the O2 concentrators, BIPAPs, etc. into the generator lines and I wasn't much use for anything that involved bending or turning ones head, but we got it done.
The supervisor was looking at me for meningitis, but I had no fever or other signs.
0700 comes and I did the fastest (but still accurate) narc count and report you ever saw and hightailed it to the hospital ER.
Caught a spasm right as I was signing in and the got me to the head of the line.
Started off with IV morphine and zofran and contrast for a CAT scan.
Doc did an external exam that didn't pick up much but then he started poking around inside my oral cavity with a tongue blade and he found one spot way the hell back that was causing pain. He suggested diazapam for the spasms and when I told him I had already tried that he decided to investigate a little more and see what was happening.
The CAT scan didn't show anything definitive. Doc asked a bunch of questions and one of them was whether I had had any dental issues lately. Light bulb went on. 2 months ago I had a left lower molar that was giving me some pain for a few days. Cleared up before I could see the dentist so I cancelled and thought nothing of it.
Money right now is on a wicked dental abscess. I'm on clindomyacin q4x10. 5/325 Percocet q4 PRN and Flexoril for spasms.
Went home and slept for 18 hours straight.
The pain is a bit better now. Still hurts but more from movement than the spasms that would come out of nowhere. The percocet is helping a bit.
Doc gave me a note to stay home for 48 hours, so I got someone to cover my shift last night. onights my off night for school, so I have to call my math instructor and see if I can skip tonight without incurring a penalty.
