My hospital nightmare

[Lednuz]

I have had RLS or most of my life (I am now 77) bu one of the very worst nights of my life was about a year ago when I was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital (I had become seriously dehydrated) . The RLS kicked in (!) at about 11 pm, just when the doctors had disappeared. As it got ,worse and worse, I told the nursing staff that I had rls and that I needed some Clonazepam.They looked t me blankly and said they were unable to proscribe meds. I begged them to find a duty doctor, and they said he was busy in another ward. By this time my R LS was so bad that I could not even sit on the bed, let alone lie down. I stood by the bed, becoming more and more exhausted Eventually an overworked, harassed junio cr arrived, listened uncomprehendingly and then prescribed a mild sedative— which came nowhere near helping me. I literally stood there the whole night, with the phrase “This too will end. . . “ running endlessly through my mind.It was a terrible ordeal which finally ended at about 10am. I had been standing for 11 hours. when I to finally got through to the doctors I went into such a deep sleep that an opportunities thief was able to take my iPad from my fingers. As I said,the worst night of my life!

[Boldgirl45]

That's just awful - so sorry to hear :-(. And to have your iPad stollen too!! I hope you got some insurance money back.

[Lednuz in reply to Boldgirl45]

Thanks for your support. Yes, I did get a new iPad from the insurance, but I lost ofa lot of irreplaceable data. And I learned my lesson — I now carry a small bottle of Clonazepam tablets wherever I go.

[Gmc54 in reply to Lednuz]

Auto backup is a very good idea! Never lose your data again.......but I bet I'm now preaching to the converted!

[Lednuz in reply to Gmc54]

I learned a very hard lesson!

[montybear17]

Very sorry to hear you had such an awful time in hospital. I only get RLS every so often but it drives me crazy so I totally understand those on this forum who have it all the time. Sadly it's one of those conditions that many doctors seem totally unaware of which is understandable but not at all helpful to sufferers. Hope you have better care in future.