I went to the ER yesterday partly for a 4 day migraine, partly because I was having stroke-type symptoms that I've never had before. Numbness on my right side, cheek, hand, lower arm, foot, back of leg, calf. The school nurse checked and i had some weakness in my right hand. It was also freezing compared to my left. I was scared. The ER though, It was rediculous!!! I had to wait in the emergency room for 5 hours. I'm sound sensitive, so being in there made it even worse --- kids running around and hollering, parents yelling at their kids, people talking like nothing is wrong with them. I really don't think that the triage nurse knew how to check weakness in the legs though. She said that they are exactly the same strength, which i know for a fact that arent to begin with, because I had major knee surgery on my right knee not too long ago, and my PT checked the strength last Monday, and there's still quite a difference...just thought that was funny. Anyways, the triage nurse said we could sit in the lobby because of my migraine, then a cop said we couldn't because its illegal to be in hearing distance of the reception and triage, so we moved just into the room. Then a different cop said we couldn't sit there because its a fire hazard. So we had to move into the waiting room. Needless to say, I was in tears in like 10 minutes...the noise made a fullblown migraine that much worse. It's a hospital and they didn't even have ear plugs!!! Ugh. Then they finally got me a bed, and behold, it was on the other half of the triage room seperated by a curtain. Can't be in hearing distance of the triage my butt! They did a CT scan, which came out normal. They blamed the numbness on the migraine. The doc gave me some percocet to help ease the pain, since all of us knew he wasn't going to get rid of hte migraine. I was glad for that, because it helps my pain so much!

But I was wondering what you all do when you need to go to the ER. With all of the noise and waiting and your head killing you...it's like torture!