Anyone who had bacterial meningitis please help asap

[Rlm87]

I’m afraid maybe I have meningitis but don’t want to run off to the emergency room so please read what’s going on and give me your experiences and advice. I want to hear all the details about your onset of symptoms, etc!

So first of all I had my spleen removed 6 years ago, so I know I’m at a higher risk for meningitis and other issues when I get sick.

I had a baby a few months ago and am scheduled to go have my vaccines in a few weeks. Baby has only had first round of vaccines at 2 months so far.

So this is what’s going on:

My 10 year old daughter was sick last week. She had a fever for 24 hours and threw up a couple times. She had chills and said she had a headache. She was back to school 24 hours after fever subsided and has been fine.

Tuesday evening at 6 pm I began to have diarrhea, nausea, quickly followed by chills and then fever and severe headache. I was in the toilet every hour with diarrhea, but no vomiting.

Then muscle aches and weakness started. I was trying to let my fever be untreated during the night because i wanted it to help fight off the sickness, but at 3 am I took Tylenol.

When I woke up with the baby for the day on Wednesday at 6 am my temperature was normal, headache less severe, nausea a lot better, but still had diarrhea and very achy and exhausted. I took some Tylenol at 7 and even ate some toast. But I felt so exhausted that after nursing the baby I told my husband he had to stay home from work because I could not possibly care for her all day.

So yesterday, Wednesday, he stayed home and I stayed resting. The nausea came back and diarrhea was still there. In the afternoon my temp was 101. I took Tylenol and ibuprofen and it went to normal.

That evening I nursed baby to sleep at 7 pm and fell asleep. I woke up at 10 pm more nauseous than I had previously been and threw up for the first time, mostly dry heaving. I felt horrible all night long but my temp stayed normal. It was normal when I woke up today, Thursday, also.

So today, Thursday, I still have diarrhea but feel mostly fine besides that. But I have back pain and pain and pressure between my shoulders. I also have some neck pain but not severe. I can bend my neck down. But what I’ve read is that it isn’t guaranteed that you will have severe stiff neck.

I haven’t had meds all day, and it’s now 1 in the afternoon and I have a temperature of 100, when it was normal all day.

That with the pain and diarrhea is scaring me. Im confused why my temperature is coming and going. I’m also weak and dizzy but that could be because I haven’t been eating and am probably a little dehydrated. I’m not nauseous anymore and am actually hungry, and don’t really have a headache except when I bend down to pick something up. I still have diarrhea.

I don’t want a spinal tap I don’t need one. But I’m terrified that I have it and if I don’t get treated right away I’ll end up dead or disabled.

I’ve had gastroenteritis before but never had it last this long or had fevers like this.

Please give me your stories and opinions!!!!

Thank you!!

[ohmyhead]

Mine started exactly like this. My son who is 6 had high temperature and diarrhea for 5 days and I looked after him. He was then ok and back to school. And I had some diarrhea just the first day and then went on with very mild temperature- 37.2 C ( I am from EU). Now what bothers me in your case is the head, neck and shoulder pain. The problem is you keep taking panadol and other stuff and don't know how much the pain is. I had one or two pills like this in the beginning, but the moment I started feeling nausea I figured out my pain must be way stronger and the nausea might be from extreme pain. I let the pills wear off for 3-4 hours and then I knew I was in bad condition and rushed to hospital.

One other thing you can check is how you react on light? I could not stand light and also could not look at the tv for more than few minutes.

Hope you are just with a flu. And I hope the baby is safe and ok.

[Rlm87 in reply to ohmyhead]

Thank you. I actually have not taken medicine very often. I went all day yesterday, until my fever spiked to 101, without taking anything. also today I only took it once, so it has been worn off more often than not. Would the pain most likely be severe if it was meningitis? I do not drive so husband would have to take me to urgent care and baby would have to ride along. I am also breastfeeding and baby will not take a bottle, and her bedtime is in one hour.

I have been ok with light also. Watching tv and the light in the kitchen is very bright and hasn’t bothered me.

I’ve been going back and forth in my head all day about what I should do...

[ohmyhead in reply to Rlm87]

Although I would say if you are ok with light and don't have like banging headache it might be a flu....I would also say that everything from bottle, baby, sleeping hours, driving etc does not matter when it comes to your health and wellbeing. You know the whole family will be ok only if you are ok. So if you can- go get yourself checked and them all can sleep tight.

A friend of mine took her husband too late to hospital 2 weeks ago. He was going to work with symptoms and she only noticed something is wrong when he stopped hearing her out of the blue. He stopped breathing in the ambulance and was 2 days in coma. Thanks god he's back to normal now, but we are no doctors and even if we are it takes some serious tests to tell if it is m or not. So just for your peace of mind- if you can go get yourself checked. It's a tricky bastard and sometimes people don't suspect it on time.

p.s. one other thing I remembered- pregnant women and women with small babies have amazing intuition. it's nature taking care of the little ones. If you have even 1% doubt- listen to it.

Good luck

[Sprout]

If you even suspect you have any form of meningitis get yourself checked, don't wait, don't go by symptoms, I had none and made it to medical attention with "Less than hours to spare".

You can have this disease and display NO SYMPTOMS AT ALL, the first sign for me was a hemorrhage in my throat losing copious amounts of blood overnight I went to my doc the moment they opened I got to the hospital less than 5 minutes before I collapsed and woke up 3 days later.

Call NHS Direct on 111 and get some advice NOW!

[SimonaM]

Hi, I am so sorry to hear what's happening to you. I don't know anything as my son just got it. So I am not much of help. Sorry.

My advice, go hospital and get checked out. I hope and pray it's not your worst fear but at least you'll know what's really wrong. Hope you get better soon..xx

[spouseM]

without reading your entire post I would say, get to the Dr.

[shellmegandaisy2013]

Meningitis doesn’t I initially present like this but if you’ve had cold/flu like symptoms it does mean your more likely to contract it and it stick, meningitis itself is a very weak bug/virus so your immune systems needs to be weakened for it to take hold, meningitis itself has a 4 hour incubation period and a 12hr presentation period so if you had meningitis from the outset it would of needed to be treated within the 4-12 of presenting the symptoms the fever itself with meningitis is hard to control so if your able to control the temperature it’s a sign it’s not a vicious infection but If your ever unsure never wait to get it treated or looked at even if you think it might not be it’s better to be safe than sorry, hope your feeling better 😊

[Vmzoster]

There are some key things that mean you likely don’t...#1 your writing is very clear and concise. This would be unlikely with meningitis as you’d likely be very confused, disoriented, slow, and have a hard time writing to this level. #2 there is NEVER. Reason to go to a forum first if you think you have meningitis. Time is too precious and it’s too dangerous to take that time.

Additionally, it is not for you to say to don’t need a spinal tap. If you are really concerned for meningitis you would want one because that is how it’s diagnosed.