'Healthy' dad's shock diagnosis after suffering 'skull exploding headaches'
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A man has shared how he suffered "exploding headacahes" before getting a shock diagnosis which caused his kidneys to fail. Chris Madden, from Edinburgh, had been a healthy 44-year-old before he started suffering from sudden, excruciating headaches, which left him feeling like his head would explode.
As it happened during the pandemic, he ended up spending seven months on telephone appointments before actually getting in front of a GP. Once he saw the doctor, he was told he had extremely high blood pressure. In August 2020, the electrical engineer was rushed to the Royal Infirmary, where he was told his kidneys were functioning at four per cent due to IgA nephropathy.
He was told to start dialysis immediately while awaiting a transplant. He told Edinburgh Live: “I was feeling unwell at the end of January 2020 and did not know why,” he said. “I got these really bad headaches but I could not see a doctor face to face because it was Covid.
“I had some telephone consultations but they thought it could have been related to stress around working from home among other issues we were dealing with during the pandemic. But I got to the stage where I felt my head would explode in August 2020.
“I saw a GP and they found my blood pressure was extremely high. From there I was sent to the high dependency at the Royal Infirmary where they discovered something was not right with my kidneys. "I spent a week there and was told my kidneys were operating at a four per cent function. My body was shutting down. Ultimately I needed a new kidney to allow my body to function again.”.
