"Horrified at lack of knowledge and care"

Five weeks after my daughter was born, I woke up in absolute agony with extreme pain radiating between my breast bone, ribs and back. I started being sick and screaming at my husband he needed to call someone because the pain was worse than childbirth. He called an ambulance, the ambulance crew were great as were the nurses in A&E. The doctor in A&E dismissed the pain, saying I was having back spasms because I had been pregnant and needed to strengthen the muscles in my back. I didn't question it, believed him and when it felt better I went home and thought little more about it for another few weeks.

A few weeks later, the same pain, I didn't want to call anyone because it had been dismissed before. Eventually called 111 who just told me to wait until my GP opened the next day. The nurse practitioner prescribed me diazepam and told me to take it whenever I felt these spasms coming on. I wasn't even referred to physio at this point. Over the next couple of months the spasms got more frequent and more intense, I had various visits to the GP and urgent care, all they did was prescribe painkillers, eventually got referred to physio but it did little to help.

Every time I told every professional that the pain was worse than labour and childbirth but felt like very few believed me. Even those who did put it down to just having been pregnant. I told my husband on multiple occasions that I wanted to die rather than go through this pain over and over again, and I did genuinely feel that way. I didn't feel it was a muscle spasm but my thoughts and feelings were dismissed by every doctor I spoke to because it had already been diagnosed.

I became terrified to hold my daughter as she grew as I was so scared to trigger anything that might bring on a spasm. It affected my bond with my baby, I still feel that I have lost so much time with her and had to seek counselling (which was very expensive) and ended up on anti-depressants, feeling that she deserved much better than me and that my body had let us both down. While not the sole contributor, it also did contribute to me stopping breastfeeding as I was terrified to strain my back, another blow to my mental health.

I felt like this was just something I had to deal with by myself and it wasn't until we moved in to my mum's house temporarily and she witnessed a spasm that she encouraged me to start seeking emergency help again. I went back to urgent care once and A&E twice before a doctor finally said that it didn't seem like a back muscle pain. I started hysterically crying, I just couldn't believe someone was finally listening to me. That was just over a week ago and I'm currently recovering from gallbladder removal surgery after a quick ultrasound confirmed the gallstones which had given me countless attacks and ultimately caused pancreatitis (luckily mild).

The nurses in the ward kept telling me how common it was for new mothers to get gallstones. I was absolutely horrified that I had something so common but was left by myself to deal with debilitating pain for almost five months whilst also trying to look after my new born daughter.

I have never felt so let down in my life, I feel that I was screaming out for help and being disregarded at so many points by the only ones who really could help me. This has affected my whole family not least my daughter, who I almost feel I need to rebuild our bond as a result, when a quick ultrasound could have pinned down the problem so quickly. I am actually dumbfounded now when I look up the symptoms of gallstones now and they are identical to mine yet countless professionals just missed it.