My wife was put in the hospital 2 weeks ago with sever abdominal pain. The doctors believed this to be a problem with her liver and eventually diagnosed her with a sphincter of oddi. They performed a sphincterotomy on her. This seemed to resolve the issue. However, one day into her hospital stay (before the procedure) she developed this incredible head/neck ache. The doctors all thought it was a migraine (she gets a mild migraine about twice a year, nothing like this), however none of her pain meds (dilaudid, ultram, morphine, vicodin) touched the pain in her head at all. The pain in her abdomen resolved a couple days after the surgery, but she was discharged with the pain in her head telling us to treat it as a migraine.
A day later with no resolution, we went back to ER. They were thinking it was viral menengitis, but after a CT scan, two bleeds were discovered, one on each side of her head, about an inch behind the forehead (I believe in the frontal lobe). She has had a ton of tests, and here is what they have excluded:
Aneurysm, stroke, tumor, cancer, vasculitis, AVM. They did a ton of blood tests, all of which have been normal. She has had an ultrasound of her carotids and heart, all normal. I'm sure there are several other things, but I'm not sure what all the blood tests were for. Needless to say, she has had CT scans, MRI's, MRV's, an angiogram, ultrasounds, blood tests, etc. with no diagnosis. Everything comes back normal except for the obvious, the blood on her brain.
They have basically said they have run out of tests to do on her, and they are trying to get her pain under control so she can be discharged. We are obviously very nervous about bringing her home without any diagnosis. She has had about 6 or 7 doctors looking at her case, and I do believe they are very good doctors at a very reputable hospital (Spectrum Health of West Michigan). However, I'm uncomfortable with the lack of a diagnosis. People don't bleed in the brain for no reason.
My question...has anybody ever seen this? Are there things I could ask the doctors to see if they have overlooked something? Clearly this is not a normal thing, are there things diseases or sicknesses that could result in a brain bleed but not show up on any of these other tests? (no history of drug use, no car accident or fall, no changes in behavior prior to entering the hospital the first time).
Any info or suggestions you can give would be a huge help...I need to get her recovered and back home...her kids need her!!! Thank you!!!!!!