Posted by Sarah O. on May 20, 1999 at 09:44:43:
Hello everyone,
I'd never heard of cluster headaches until this morning
when I decided that I simply needed to do some research
for myself to try and understand what's been happening to me.
Here is my story and I apologize in advance for its length:
One day in January, I had the most intense headache that I simply
assumed was a migraine. I'd had 2 other migraines in my life and
this felt one felt similar so I left work, went home, lay in the dark and
waited for it to go away. Well, the stabbing intensity subsided
after a while but a dull, buzzing ache stayed with me for weeks! It just
never went away. After a week, I went to my GP and she gave me migraine
medicine to try and "blast" through the headache. (Several doctors
I saw used that term. Isn't it awful?) Needless to say, the migraine
medicine didn't work at all. Feeling increasingly desperate, I went
back to my doctor after more than two weeks and she sent me to the
emergency room for a cat scan and a spinal tap.
I'd never been to an emergency room before and it was quite an
experience waiting in the lobby for hours. The good news was that
nothing turned up on the cat scan. Yeah! They sent me home saying
that the results of the spinal tap would be known in a few days. The
ironic part about spinal taps? The after affects of having
someone stab a needle in your spine is blinding headaches! It was
a painful few days.
Two days after I left the emergency room, they called saying there
was an irregular growth on my spinal tap result and I should come back
in for another. (A reading that might mean spinal meningitis) They
were pretty sure that I didn't have it since I had no other
symptoms than headaches but they wanted to be sure. So we went through
the tap again and I was admitted overnight under quarantine. Eventually,
the results showed that I did not have meningitus (some sort of contaminent
must have invaded my test results) and they sent me home
with percadan. I had spinal tap headaches for a few days, then
the original headache came back for a few days, and then I finally
began to feel well again. It was about 4 weeks from the initial headache
until my head cleared completely.
None of the doctors ever came up for the reason for these
mysterious headaches and my GP ended up attributing it to maybe
a strange virus. I was just thankful for finally feeling better
and have been headache-free since the middle of February.
Until this week. On Monday, I had one of those killer headaches
out of nowhere and, like last time, I've had a dull, buzzing kind
of pain ever since. Does this sound like anything you've ever heard of?
I feel better this time knowing that it did eventually go away and
that there was nothing on my cat scan but still...I feel desperate
and desolate that it has happened again. All I can think about is
this ache. Does this sound at all familiar to anyone?
How can I help myself?
Again, I apologize for the length of this message but I felt so thankful
at finding this site and thought I should spell it all out before asking
for advice. Many thanks to anyone who can share thoughts.
Good luck to you all.