Hi there.
For the last 6 years I have been experiencing up to severe headache about once anually, I have always rejected them as beeing muscular or stress caused - thus my treatment has been focused on physical therapy when it became overwhelming. And since the symtoms went away after a few weeks I assumed it was successfull. In my latest attack I went to a new therapist who rejected all the claims of the previous one, and said there were nothing wrong with the balance of my neck and chest muscles (the old one said my chest was too tight and was constantly pulling my neck muscles). I went to a doctor today who based on my symptoms diagnosed me with CH. After reading up on it many of the pieces fall to place including
1. Daily attacks that occur around the same time of day. 1-3 of them for the last month, however with a handfull of pain free days.
2. Unable to sit still during an attach. I massaged my self with a rolling pin during one of them so hard that the result was a numbness in my left part of the scull for one week. Pain ranging from I'd say 2 to around 8 on the Kip Scale.
3. All pain for the latest month beeing centered around my left eye, ear and back to the base of my scull. Could be just one of the location, or up to all at once. I think in the past all has been on the left side, but not really sure. At least on the same side during the entire period.
Some other stuff also, but my question is rather on what seem atypical of CH:
1. Pain in the
temple seem to be common. However I have little pain here. I would descrive the extreme pain to be behind my eye(like someone trying to jack it out with a spoon or similar) and
directly behind my ear canal (like a screwdriver beeing stuck in there). Is pain in the ear common? From what I can find it is not...
2. Only after reading about it I can admit to having a moist and red eye, this was not something I have taken notice of earlier. My eye seem to get wet (only had two attachs since I became aware to look for this) but not enough for tears to run down. The eye seems to be more red, but not something that I would say is striking. No droopy eyelid.
I realize the symptoms are very individual, but would anyone say that the presence of ear pain and the absence of shadow symptoms points in a different direction than CH? My doctor did also prescribe an MRI to be on the safe side, but I have had a few MRIs of my head in the latest years in other settings and nothing scary were found there.
Any insight is appreciated. For me, lyckily, I would classify this as manageble for the most of the time although I am finding myself rejecting social interactions due to the inconvenience of the attacks and my following "grumpy" mood. Still, any medical aid in coping with this would be extremely welcome, therefore I am trying to qualify/disqualify my GP's diagnosis (think it was the first time she had given it) so we can look in the right direction. I have a nasal spray (zolmitriptan) to test our, so when the next one hits me I'll see if that helps.
Sorry, my intention was to make a short and specific question but my word-diarreha got the best of me
BR,
Tom