A model claims her GP made her feel like a 'drama queen' when they suggested she just had a 'low pain tolerance' to headaches - only to miss a condition that left her blind. Hazal Baybasin began getting headaches at the start of 2019 but says she was 'pushed aside' by her doctor who sent her away with just painkillers.
After three months of constant headaches, the sales worker felt her life was 'falling apart', as she could hardly sleep or eat, and was being pulled into meetings for missing targets and snapping at colleagues. Things got so bad that Hazal, who was 28 at the time but is now 32, finally went to A&E at Barnet Hospital where she claims she was told she was 'absolutely fine' and sent away with co-codamol.
However, after getting a cab home, she passed out on the sofa and was found by her mum and brother who immediately called an ambulance. After a week in Northwick Park Hospital, they discovered three large clots in her brain which were spreading down her neck and within two days Hazal had lost her vision.
She claims specialists said the only way to bring her sight back would be in a life-changing procedure with very high risks - suggesting she would have to choose between being blind or being paralysed. However, after being transferred to Charing Cross Hospital, doctors managed to retrieve just a pinprick of her vision and they finally diagnosed her with a rare brain condition, idiopathic intracranial hypertension.
Hazal, from Edgware, London, said: "After a few weeks, I was taking paracetamol every few hours and it was only just scratching the surface, it was just barely making me able to go about my day. It was affecting my work, I was snapping and arguing with my colleagues to the point where my supervisor pulled me aside and said 'look you're not yourself'.
"I couldn't eat, I felt nauseous about eating anything. This made my energy levels so low. I couldn't sleep from the pain, I was just exhausted. Everything was just falling apart.
"When I called the doctor up they kind of pushed it aside as a migraine. I'd never even really had a migraine before, and the doctor told me it was just an extreme headache and that maybe I just have a low tolerance for pain.
"I felt like I was going to be a drama queen if I carried on saying I was in pain after that. It was one of the girls at work who said 'Hazal, I don't care what your GP told you over the phone, this isn't a migraine'."
That weekend, Hazal decided to go to A&E at Barnet Hospital, but walked there as the pain was so strong she was unable to drive for fear of not being able to hold her head up. Hazal said: "I went for a CT scan and they said my brain was absolutely fine and that I had nothing to worry about, so it must just be a very serious migraine. He gave me co-codamol to take and I booked a cab home."
Within minutes of returning home, Hazal says she passed out on the sofa. She was soon found by her mum and brother who were shocked she had been 'brushed off' with painkillers and called her an ambulance.
After spending a week at A&E at Northwick Park, they discovered three large blood clots on the surface of her brain that were extending down her neck. Rushed to intensive care, Hazal's condition only got worse and despite voicing concerns about her sight, 48 hours later she had gone totally blind.
Hazal said: "My sight literally went overnight. My family were sitting in the room with me and I asked them to turn the lights on and they said they were on. That's when I got this really cold feeling and thought 'f*ck, it's not just blurry, it's dark now'. At this point it had turned pitch black so I couldn't see anything at all.
"It was a kind of fear I'd never ever felt before. It was the most scared I'd ever been in my life. It was surreal. I was in an extreme amount of pain to the point where I couldn't physically walk, I was in a wheelchair.
"I couldn't see anything, it was pitch black. I had all of this anger in me but I couldn't get up and run away. I was just screaming and crying thinking 'this is me now'.
"The consultant said they could maybe do something to bring my eyesight back. However, the procedure was risky and they said there was a very high chance I'd come out completely paralysed.
"I remember screaming and saying 'How can you ask me to choose between staying blind and being paralysed?' That's not a decision I could make and I didn't want either option."
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
Luckily, Hazal's brother pushed for a second opinion, and she was soon transferred to Charing Cross Hospital who immediately knew what was wrong and began to help bring back her sight. Hazal said: "The neurologists [at Charing Cross] immediately knew what was wrong. They didn't sound scared or worried, they'd seen things like it before.
"They said the procedure to bring my sight back wouldn't be risky at all. They did it [the lumbar puncture] and I saw three immediate flashes of light, like a pinprick in the centre of my vision.
"They repeated the procedure every other day and brought back a pinprick of tunnel vision in the centre after about ten days. The following morning I was taken in for neurosurgery, it was the first time I've ever had surgery in my life.
"I woke up in an intensive care unit. I was there for a week and after that my headaches were finally manageable. I spent the next month or so with a physiotherapist to help me adjust to my sight. They said that the tunnel vision I was left with was all they could bring back."
Hazal says she was told by specialists at Charing Cross that her condition was preventable from the beginning if she had been taken seriously by doctors. She has since channelled her anger towards the NHS into creating an accessible skincare brand, BlindBeauty, which she hopes will raise awareness.
Hazal, now a model and business owner, said: "If I'd been taken seriously from the start it would have 100% prevented me from going blind. It was confirmed to me by Charing Cross, they said it was shame I didn't get to them sooner because they could have preserved more of my sight.
"They said if [previous doctors] took me seriously, rather than telling me to take stronger pain killers, it would have been picked up and it would have been prevented from happening at all. Hearing that made me so angry at the time.
"My advice to anyone is, if you're feeling any kind of pain and discomfort, don't try and seek relief from it, start investigating why that pain is there in the first place. No kind of pain or discomfort is normal, regardless of what your doctor says.
"If I'd done that, I've have found out I have a neurological condition and I would have prevented going blind." Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust have been contacted for comment.
