I was called a ‘drama queen’ with low pain tolerance — until I went blind

A young woman claims she felt like a “drama queen” when she doctors told her she just had a “low pain tolerance.”

She went blind in 48 hours later.

Hazal Baybasin began experiencing excruciating headaches in 2019. The pain was so intense that the 32-year-old UK woman could hardly eat or sleep, couldn’t keep up with work and just felt like her entire life was “falling apart.”

“After a few weeks, I was taking [painkillers] every few hours and it was only just scratching the surface, it was just barely making me able to go about my day,” the Edgware, England, native said.

“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.’”

The sales worker agreed, knowing that not she couldn’t carry on.

“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,” Baybasin said.

“Everything was just falling apart.”

Distraught and exhausted, Baybasin called her doctor but felt that he “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,” she said. “I felt like I was going to be a drama queen if I carried on saying I was in pain after that.”

Finally, after months of incessant headaches, one of Baybasin’s co-workers pushed her to seek a second opinion to validate suspicions that her pain was more than a bad headache.

That weekend, Baybasin went to the emergency room, walking all the way there because she was in too much pain to keep her head up in the car.

She underwent a CT scan and alleges she was told that she “absolutely fine” and “had nothing to worry about” — with doctors yet again insisting she simply had “a very serious migraine.”

She was given more painkillers and sent home in a cab. However, after being home for just a few minutes, Baybasin passed out on her couch. (Note: Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust have been contacted for comment about her claims.)

She was quickly found by her mom and brother, who were shocked she had been “brushed off” with pain meds and called her an ambulance to Northwick Park Hospital to seek yet another opinion.

After undergoing a week of tests at the new facility, doctors discovered three large blood clots on the surface of her brain that were extending down her neck. She was diagnosed with a rare brain condition: idiopathic intracranial hypertension.

Baybasin was rushed to intensive care, but her condition only worsened.

“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,” she said. “That’s when I got this really cold feeling and thought ‘f–k, 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.”

The previously healthy young woman lost her vision in 48 hours and was in such an “extreme amount of pain” that she was unable to walk and given a wheelchair. She was also filled with fear.

“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,” Baybasin said. “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.’”

Doctors finally presented her with a procedure option, but she claims she was told there was “a very high chance” she’d come out completely paralyzed.

“I remember screaming and saying ‘How can you ask me to choose between staying blind and being paralyzed?’” she said. “That’s not a decision I could make and I didn’t want either option.”

Luckily, her brother couldn’t let her make an impossible decision and pushed for another option, which led her to transfer to another facility: Charing Cross Hospital.

“The neurologists [at Charing Cross] immediately knew what was wrong. They didn’t sound scared or worried, they’d seen things like it before,” Baybasin explained. “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 center of my vision.”

Doctors continued the procedure every other day and were eventually able to sustain a “pinprick of tunnel vision.” Baybasin also underwent neurosurgery and finally felt relief from her debilitating headaches — but was unable to recover any more of her eyesight.

She was told by specialists at Charing Cross that her condition was preventable from the beginning if she had been taken seriously by doctors rather than being given stronger painkillers.

“If I’d been taken seriously from the start it would have 100% prevented me from going blind,” Baybasin insisted. “Hearing that made me so angry at the time.”

She has since channeled her anger toward the UK’s National Healthcare System into creating an accessible skin care brand, BlindBeauty, which she hopes will raise awareness.

“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.”