It's okay for me to be in neverending pain

[ShadowBall]

This is more of a rant about my idiot mother than anyone at a hospital. As a quick background: I'm on my mother's insurance for about another year while I'm a student. I'm also very prone to sinus headaches and infections which only go away with antibiotics. End background.

I've had sinus headaches for months - I went to the outpatient clinic some time ago because I didn't want to wait three weeks to be seen by an ENT. I went in and basically said, "I know I have a sinus infection. Need an antibiotic. Can you help?" I got a broad-range antibiotic and it did fuck all for me.

Cue this past Monday - I go in for wisdom teeth removal with a splitting headache due to what I know is sinus pain. When I was sedated, all I kept saying was my head hurt. Now, a few days after my surgery, my head hurts even more, which I didn't think was possible. Same kind of pain - feeling like I got punched right in the center of my head. My sinuses hate me.

I was going to call my dentist to ask if there's any relationship between sinus infection/headache and *maybe* get a referral to an ENT if there was. Nope, my mother put a stop to that in a heartbeat. She feels anytime I say I have a headache, I'm just making it up and she doesn't want me telling anyone I've had a headache for months because it will make her look like a bad mother who doesn't care about her daughter's health. So she decided to call for me and was told the painkillers I was taking are known to cause major headaches and that I should take migraine Excedrin instead. She made damn certain to answer the phone when the office called back because she couldn't have me blabbing to the dentist that I've had chronic sinus pain that is now worse - they might think ill of her stellar parenting!

Okay, fine...doesn't change the fact I have very obvious sinus pain. I've told her I'd pay to go to an ENT and just get this shit taken care of...you know...while I can still have the luxury of insurance. Nope - apparently that makes my mother a bad mother too and the only way I can ever get medical treatment is if she pays for it and it's something with obvious outward symptoms. For example, if I have bronchitis, I get taken to the doctor immediately because (gasp) someone might take my mother's parenting into question for allowing me to be sick with a cough!

But if it's a piddly sinus infection that rages for months and makes me miserable and dizzy - pff - who cares about that? Doesn't matter that sinus infections don't go away on their own and, in very very rare cases, they can cause brain abscesses. I also got told today that I'd "better get all my being sick out of the way while I'm on this insurance." Since, you know, I can totally control when I'm sick. But what difference would it make when I'm not allowed to go to the doctor when I'm sick and insured anyway?

I don't know why my mother is so against me going to a doctor, finding out how bad my sinuses look, and getting proper medication rather than going to the acute care clinic, getting amoxicillin and not having it do anything. She seems to think I make stuff up for attention or something, but I can say quite honestly my headaches are very real and very painful. She withholds medical treatment from me, but then makes sure no one sees or knows that because, if they do, everyone will know she's a bad mother (which she is anyway)!

In fact, many times when I've gone to the doctor for a physical or just to score antibiotics, I've been instructed by my mother to not tell the doctor the full extent of my symptoms because it could result in further and more expensive treatment (which are probably covered in full or mostly by insurance). Like when I went to get my physical prior to going to college, my mother drilled it in my head the whole way to the hospital that I was specifically NOT to mention my sinus headaches I'd had for months because it could mean me being referred to a specialist and that would cost $$$$$.

One of my favorite quotes of hers regarding me seeing doctors is, "The less you tell 'em, the better off you'll be." Yes, don't tell a doctor all your symptoms because that will clearly make you more likely to get proper treatment. Good logic.

A tiny tiny part of me almost wishes I do end up with something seriously wrong with me just so a doctor can look that bitch in the eye and say, "Your daughter needs a $10,000 surgery. It could have all been prevented if you just let her see a doctor for a $30 copay and she got some $10 antibiotics."

So for now, I've been taking OTC painkillers like candy and looking for home remedies for sinus pain. That's all I can do. I'm glad to know it's worth saving the cost of insured antibiotics and a copay for me to be in pain every single day.

[Sapphire Silk]

OTC pain medications are not safe by the very nature of being OTC. Too much Tylenol can lead to liver damage. Ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) can cause kidney damage and bleeding stomach ulcers.

Excedrin Migraine is a great med for mild migraines (I take it myself) but is not the final stop.

Problem is, your mother implied or told the doctor's office you were having migraines. Thinking that, they were correct in telling your mother that those medications can and do cause rebound migraines. This is why narcotics are totally inappropriate for treating migraine pain.

But that's not what you have. Different story. 'triptans like Imitrex would be totally inappropriate for your headaches if they are from a sinus infection.

Amoxiciliin is usually the drug of choice, but the treatment is often prolonged. Sinus infections, true sinus infections, are notoriously difficult to treat.

All I can say is you need to trump your mother and find a way to see a doctor without her. I'd try the ER, and then tell the ER doc the reason you are there is because you are on your mother's insurance and she won't stop interfering with your doctors thus preventing you from getting the right care. You can then ask him to call an ENT for a consult.

Normally I would not suggest this; it's a form of ER abuse that I specifically wrote NOT to do in the How to Use this forum posts. But this is different; you have a third party who is actively interfering with your getting the right medical care.

[42_42_42]

You are an adult. Even if you are on your mother's insurance, you are still an adult. Go to the doctor and have her removed as a contact person. Sign whatever you have to sign that puts HIPPA in place. When I was in college and on my parent's insurance, the doctors still didn't talk to them about my care, they talked to me. Heck, find a doctor that accepts the insurance and go there. Have the bills and statements sent to a different address. What your mother is doing is PHYSICAL ABUSE.

As someone who suffered for many years with sinus problems of my own, here are some safe OTC things you can do to help relieve the symptoms: neti pot with saline rinse. Use at least twice a day. Also ask the pharmacist for a bottle of Alcolol. You can dilute it with water and flush your sinuses with it using the neti pot or you can get a dropper and use it straight. Fill a small cup with the Alcolol and fill the dropper from the small cup. Lay down so that your head hangs upside down over the side of your bed and drip the Alcolol into one nasal cavity. It will cause a burning sensation because of how inflamed you are. This will improve as you continue the regimine. Continue droppering the Alcolol into your nose until you've put at least 4 mL into each nasal opening. Then carefully roll over and gently blow everything out of your nose. Make sure you keep your head at an angle so the stuff doesn't go down your throat! Do this at least twice a day.

This won't clear up your infection. Only a good long bout of antibiotics will do that (my worst sinus infection I was on antibiotics for a month). However, once you do get the infection cleared, daily sinus rinses will help keep them from reoccuring. You may have something going on inside that makes you more prone to getting and keeping them. Something that can only be corrected through surgery.

If I were you, I'd tell the doctors the truth and get a referral to an EMT. Just because your mother doesn't want you to do this isn't a reason not to take care of yourself. So what if she get's angry? So what if she "looks like a bad mother"? Your first priority is YOU.

[Kaylyn]

Next time your mother goes off on how everyone will think she's a bad mother because she let you have a chronic headache for months and months and refuses to allow you to get it looked at because of HER pride, ask her how she'll feel if it's truly something serious and potentially deadly? Will she still look like a stellar mother after you've DIED from something that she wouldn't let you get treated?

Not saying you actually do have something deadly. But if it is an infection and it gets out of control, you just never know.

And I second what everyone else has said. Screw your mother. From what you've said of her on other posts on here, she's way too much of a control freak. Take care of yourself, and let her rage about it to her heart's content later.

[Bright_Star]

I'm sorry but what she's doing is borderline abuse. You need to get that looked at right away cause sinus infections DO NOT get better on their own. AND you need to inform somebody of what your mother is doing. Get some people involved even if it means putting her in the hot seat.
Let's face it...if you don't get that taken care of right away then what is a minor annoyance could turn into something that puts your life in risk. & then what will your mother say?
Your mother is worried that people will think she's a bad mother? She needs to have it drilled in her head that what she's doing is making her into a bad mother.

[Treasure]

As someone who suffered for many years with sinus problems of my own, here are some safe OTC things you can do to help relieve the symptoms: neti pot with saline rinse. Use at least twice a day. Also ask the pharmacist for a bottle of Alcolol. You can dilute it with water and flush your sinuses with it using the neti pot or you can get a dropper and use it straight. Fill a small cup with the Alcolol and fill the dropper from the small cup. Lay down so that your head hangs upside down over the side of your bed and drip the Alcolol into one nasal cavity. It will cause a burning sensation because of how inflamed you are. This will improve as you continue the regimine. Continue droppering the Alcolol into your nose until you've put at least 4 mL into each nasal opening. Then carefully roll over and gently blow everything out of your nose. Make sure you keep your head at an angle so the stuff doesn't go down your throat! Do this at least twice a day.

I don't know what Alcolol is, when I first read it i thought, Alcohol, and went NO! then realized i read it wrong...

I do pretty much this, with really bad sinus pressure (not necessarily an infection - usually trying to stop it from getting to that point) but I use Hydrogen Peroxide...

I soak a cotton ball, and squeeze a drop or 2 into my nose... and I let it bubble and fizz and then, when I feel like I'm about to sneeze, I grab the tissues... and SO much stuff comes out..... but OH, I can breathe! repeat for the other nostril....

this is NOT something I recommend for regular use, as if you have a clear passage, you can feel the peroxide ALL THE WAY back....

If the neti pot thing is difficult for you, use a simple saline nasal spray - just make sure it is pure saline.

I'm sure Panacea will have much to say about my methods, - I am merely stating what I do, not telling you what you should do.

[ShadowBall]

Perhaps my headaches feel worse due to my face being sore and the painkiller headaches on top of the sinus pain...don't know for sure. The sinus pain hasn't gotten worse or better since it started, so I guess that's bad and good. The thing is Mom did similar shit to me in high school - one of her coworkers had to tell her it wasn't normal for a 17-year-old to have a headache for three months and it wasn't normal for me to empty a bottle of aspirin in less than a week.

She's so worried I'm going to need a $3000 MRI that the insurance won't cover like that first time I got a bad sinus infection. Why the fuck I needed to get my head exposed to radiation to determine the extent of a sinus infection is way beyond me, especially when the second time I got treated for it, I got a camera up my nose instead.

I have to go back to the dental office next week to see how my mouth is healing and I may ask about the issue there and see if maybe I could get a referral and just say the dentist felt my face and said my sinuses were really infected. Doesn't mean I'll be "allowed" to see an ENT, but it'd be a start.

Right now, my only salvation for treatment is hoping I get a different infection (like ear infection or strep or bronchitis) and then being able to use the antibiotics to treat the new infection as well as the sinus issue. The only bad thing is the antibiotics used for sinus infections are never broad-range like the ones I always get for other infections, so I don't know if it'd do any good.

Well, I do know how to give myself swimmer's ear, so I could maybe do that, but it'd still just get me a trip to the outpatient clinic and some penicillin or amoxicillin. I know I'm used to having headaches when I have to stop and think even for a second, "Does my head hurt? Yeah, it hurts." If it's not my sinuses, it's tension headaches, but the latter aren't that bad, so I've grown accustomed to them.

I'll see what I can do to get treated, but my mother's always so desperate to be right that I'm not sure how well I can do. I'd really rather deal with this shit now rather than still have it in a year when I have no insurance and a bottle of antibiotics will cost $50.

It's not like I'm constantly sick either - I might get bronchitis once a year, maybe an ear infection every other year, and I've gotten a sinus infection maybe three times in the last six years. Run of the mill stuff. Why she has to make such a big fucking deal out of me seeing a doctor when I'm sick - especially when I'm in pain on a daily basis - is just a mystery to me.

[42_42_42]

She makes a big deal of it because she's an abusive bitch.

I really don't understand why you allow her to control you so much. Fuck her!

I've had probably close to a hundred sinus infections in my life (yeah, I was sickly kid). I have NEVER had an MRI or a camera up the nose for one. Neither is needed to diagnose one.

I know why you have tension headaches all the time. It's because of your mother and the way you allow her to treat you.

If you continue to allow her to control and manipulate every little detail of your life, then you are complicit and it's your fault for allowing her to treat you this way.

You HAVE to stand up for yourself.

I've been making my own doctor appointments and taking myself to them since I had my driver's license at 16. There's no reason you can't do the same. If you don't have access to a car, take public transport. If you have a CVS or Walgreens near you with a nurse-practitioner clinic, go to one of those (they take pretty much every insurance out there). They can diagnose you, give you antibiotics, and an ENT referral. Don't even mention to your mom that you are going. Just go. If she has a bitch fit about it later, you can just tell her to go fuck herself, or you can point out that since they prescribed you antibiotics, obviously you needed to go.

This is alkalol (sorry, spelled it wrong before) http://www.alkalolcompany.com/index....hat-is-alkalol
If your local pharmacy doesn't have it and can't order it for some reason, they have it available on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/ALKALOL-16-OZ/...2803331&sr=8-3
It's a homeopathic, non-drug interactive nasal rinse. My ENT has pretty much all of his patients use it.

[Dips]

OK. I'm going to be blunt here because I truly believe hearing this will help you. And I want to help you.

Your mom sucks.

Fine. We've acknowledge that. Now what?

Sucky as she is, your mom isn't responsible for the situation you find yourself in.

If you were a child, she would be. But you're not a child.

If she were physically holding you prisoner, she would be. But she's not holding you prisoner.

You are an adult. You have freedom of movement. If you don't go to the doctor for this it's on you, not on your mom. There isn't a court in the world or a judge that would hold her responsible for your very own decision not to see the doctor for your sinus pain.

So go. What's stopping you?

Do take Panacea's excellent advice on how to protect your health information. Go to the ER if it leads to less hassle. As an additonal precaution go ahead and make sure your providers know not to discuss your health information over the phone (prevents your mom from impersonating you on the phone).

And I know what you're going to say next. That she'll make your life hell if you disobey her.

OK. And?

Your life is hell right now. With sinus pain.

How is life being hell without sinus pain not an improvement?

[iradney]

OK. I'm going to be blunt here because I truly believe hearing this will help you. And I want to help you.

Your mom sucks.

Fine. We've acknowledge that. Now what?

Sucky as she is, your mom isn't responsible for the situation you find yourself in.

If you were a child, she would be. But you're not a child.

If she were physically holding you prisoner, she would be. But she's not holding you prisoner.

You are an adult. You have freedom of movement. If you don't go to the doctor for this it's on you, not on your mom. There isn't a court in the world or a judge that would hold her responsible for your very own decision not to see the doctor for your sinus pain.

So go. What's stopping you?

Do take Panacea's excellent advice on how to protect your health information. Go to the ER if it leads to less hassle. As an additonal precaution go ahead and make sure your providers know not to discuss your health information over the phone (prevents your mom from impersonating you on the phone).

And I know what you're going to say next. That she'll make your life hell if you disobey her.

OK. And?

Your life is hell right now. With sinus pain.

How is life being hell without sinus pain not an improvement?

This. So much this. Your mom can only take so much blame - sure, she TELLS you not to. But you're the legal adult who is listening to her, despite knowing that it's not a good idea. You need to take responsibility for yourself and your life and do what is good for you, not what your mom thinks is good for you.

[telecom_goddess]

I understand the OP's perspective. My mother was even WORSE than hers. When you have no money and you're stuck in the same house as someone like that you feel trapped. And with my mom if I did something she didn't want me to do I ran the risk of my shit being destroyed. She did it before when I was a kid. As painful as the sinus stuff is I can understand it not being worth the worse headache she'll get from the "disobeying".

With that said....if you can deal with putting her in her place and just doing what you want anyway even if it means risking everything you have go for it. It might end up better in the long run.

I personally never got real freedom until I moved out of state. The nightmares didn't stop until my mother was dead.

[Dips]

I understand the OP's perspective. My mother was even WORSE than hers.

<snip>

That's really horrible. That was abuse and I'm really glad you found the courage to get away from it.

ShadowBall, if you are in similar sitatuation where your mother will hit you or destroy your property then you need to get the police involved and/or get the fuck out of there.

Staying in a situation like that is just not a viable option.

[Bardmaiden]

I understand the OP's perspective.

Me too but not my mum, I grew up with an emotionally abusive step-father (I made a counciller go when I told her about it). My mother hid the fact that she was being hit. She checked out shelters and such but could not find one that would take the family, two kids, very ill grandfather and a dog. So she had to stay, a fact that haunts her slightly to this day.

I am in my thirties now and I still find myself behaving in certain ways or reacting in a certain way because of my step-fathers behavour, he died some eight years ago. I am trying to change my behavour (I am not worthless, I deserve to have friends, other positive affamations.) but it is hard and I still do some things because it was so ingrained.

I got out of my situation by leaving home but that took the death of my grandfather to make me snap. Yes for a bit I struggled got taken to court for unpaid bills and other trials but now I am getting there. I have a loving sister and boyfriend and my best friend thinks I'm awesome, things I may not have found if I had stayed.

[telecom_goddess]

That's really horrible. That was abuse and I'm really glad you found the courage to get away from it.

Thanks

Me too but not my mum, I grew up with an emotionally abusive step-father (I made a counciller go when I told her about it).

I'm sorry about your situation as well. I hope ShadowBall can get out of this situation, it's already going to color her own self perception and relations with other people but if she can get out now it won't get worse.

[Bardmaiden]

I'm sorry about your situation as well. I hope ShadowBall can get out of this situation, it's already going to color her own self perception and relations with other people but if she can get out now it won't get worse.

Thanks, it took me a while to even realise the extent of the abuse, when you grow up with it it can be very hard to think that other people don't live that way. I will tell people in a cheery voice bits of my childhood and they will be shocked where as I used to think most people had a life like that.

ShadowBall I hope you can sort your medical stuff and other bits out. It took me years to recover to the point I am at now and I still am recovering and maybe for a good few years yet. I left home at 20/21 (around my birthday) and I am 34 now.