My Headache - Mark Atwood — LiveJournal

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			Mark Atwood




			01:28 am December 28th, 2008

fallenpegasus


	My Headache
	Some of you who know me, know that I have a headache, that has lasted for the last several years, waxing and waning in strength. Most of the time, I forget it's there, but if anything reminds me, I check, and yeah, there it is. And sometimes I don't need to be reminded, it reminds me itself. Like right now. What's odd is that it's changed sides, originally on the left side of my head and face. Now it's on my right. I have no idea what causes it, or influences it's strength. It's weakly correlated with changes in the seasons, in the weather, and with travelling. My doctor is stumped, as is a whole array of specialists. I know it's not a tumor or anything like that, I have a whole array of fun MRI images of the inside of my head to prove that. The process of coming up with this null diagnosis taught me a fancy word: "idiopathic", which is medical latin jargon for "damned if we know". One theory is that I may be one the luckyest sufferers of a cluster headache. If so, I am humbly grateful, because the nickname for the condition is "suicide headache". It's nowhere near that bad for me, even right now, but it's really really not pleasant at all.

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	Comments




			Comment by Somewhat Bent

	From: ladyallyn	Date: December 28th, 2008 11:34 am (UTC)		(Link)

I, too, have a chronic headache that has lasted for years. It's almost always centered in my left eyebrow. Two thoughts that you may or may not have tried;

- steroids. I discovered by accident when taking oral prednisone for something else the headache abated significantly, and the effect lasted a while. ( a few months, perhaps 3)

- BoTox. The jury is still out on this, but there is strong ongoing research showing a large percent of people get at least some relief of migraine-type headaches with very modest application. I only recently tried this and can't say for sure about the headache relief - yet - but can absolutely endorse it for increasing the range of motion in my neck and decreasing a chronic spasmed trapezius muscle that *nothing* else has worked on.

Trials info; http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/1145/0

Worth running up the flagpole with your friendly neurologist (who is usually the one to do the injections).

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			Comment by dip_thong

	From: dip_thong	Date: December 29th, 2008 12:51 am (UTC)		(Link)

Still voting for tryptamine therapy.

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			Thread started by Tanjent

	From: tanjent	Date: December 29th, 2008 02:15 am (UTC)		(Link)

I've had many many issues with similar headaches, even going so far as to see a headache specialist and have a MRI, CAT scan, and spinal tap done.

In the end, my solution - absolutely no forms of caffeine for a month, and two quarts of water a day every day. The headache gradually subsided, and now I balance my caffeine intake against the knowledge that if I start to get headachy it may be a month before it goes away.

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	From: fallenpegasus	Date: December 29th, 2008 04:30 am (UTC)		(Link)

But I would miss my delicious green tea...

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			Comment by Miss Morgan

	From: wurtmann	Date: December 29th, 2008 06:17 am (UTC)		(Link)

I have learned a great deal about pain through the years. Tomorrow I will post some possibilities. But for now, do not sleep with your head near any currents of energy--heating pad, light, phone, computer, clock, ipod,etc.

I have had an intermittent roar like the beat of a helicopter in my head since March and the only time it has gone away completely was when I was in Colo where there was no industrial pollution--no city noise, phone, computer, and minimum electricity. I am becoming convinced that our lifestyle of being plugged into gadgets or city noise, I call industrial noise is detrimental to our health.

And yes, caffeine as well as artificial sweetners are bad too.

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