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Hi Everyone,

I'm not sure where to begin as I'm sure you've all heard it before. So, lets just get through the boring stuff...

I'm a 42 yr old professional female. 6 years ago, on Oct 30th, I was awoken at 2am with what I was sure was an ice pick being driven through my skull - after ensuring I was alone and was not being "attacked", I struggled to the restroom to find my eyelid dropping, sweat pouring from above my left eye only - and the pain, oh the pain - I have no words to describe what I felt, but here, I am sure all of you understand "that" pain. I curled up in a ball, pounded my head against the wall until my Docs office opened at which time I called him immediately. So, in short, Oct 29, 2005 was the end of life as I knew it.

After almost a year of investigation, countless amounts of narcotics, from Demerol of Fentanyl (which I am still on), they chose to diagnose me with CH.

Now the bizarre part begins. My private insurance brought in their own team of physicians and such, doing anything to be able to stop paying me is my guess, a weird revelation occured TODAY.

One of the Docs from this team (General Internist) called me about 30 minutes ago, said he and a couple of his colleagues were going through my file, and apparently every test involving cardiology functioning showed the strange, what was considered at the time, benign, heart abnormality showed up, so he wanted me to have an echocardigram. He said he would call and have it ordered as an emergency, and it would be done in the next few days...The phone wasn't hung up for more than 10 minutes before I got a call from the hospital saying to be there at 1:45 this afternoon.

I'm scared, confused, in pain (as always), and have no clue what my heart has to do with my headaches.

Anyway, nice to meet you all. I look forward to learning from you all.

Jo'elle

Hello and welcome to the board Joelle!

Try not to get too worked up over the heart issue before you know just what is going on (easier said than done, I know).  I do know Mitral valve prolapse has been discussed on here over the years, but I am not a doctor and do not know what it is you could have (or not).

Anyway, I'm very sorry you're in pain and I hope you can get into see a headache neurologist that is familiar with cluster headaches and that can get you off the narcotics and onto some Oxygen for aborting and a preventative.

melissa