telophase | (no subject)

After whingeing about going to see a doctor the next time I had a migranelike headache every time I had one, I finally went to one yesterday. He poked and prodded and questioned and said "hm" a lot and finally decided that I had either a migraine or a cluster headache or possibly a tension headache, that might be caused by that great factor Unknown, or by diabetes, or by hypoglycemia, or by allergies, or by stress. I already knew that I could trigger them by caffeine withdrawal, but I've also had them when caffeine wasn't a factor. SO he gave me samples of migraine meds and painkillers and a scrip for cheap narcotics and said if the migraine stuff worked, then his diagnosis was a migraine, if not then use the narcotics to kill the pain and get to sleep, and come back. :) He also said that if the headaches continued, then once I got real insurance instead of my current catastrophic-only temp insurance I should get it checked out by a neurologist, who could better rule out things.

I believe he thought it might be a cluster headache since those tend to occur on one side of the head, and that's what mine do. He was also intrigued that I found I could usually control the level of pain by eating something and getting my blood sugar up, even when I was having nausea from the headache, which is why he was thinking diabetes or hypoglycemia, I assume.

Anyway, the migraine stuff (Relpax) worked. It comes in a dose of 2 pills to be taken 2 hours apart. THe first pill didn't seem to do anything for almost 2 hours, then it started subsiding, and an hour after I took the 2nd, my headache was *gone*. THere was zero pressure in my head, and I cannot describe the relief involved in the sheer complete and utter absence of pain to anyone who hasn't experienced it. I've got this bottle of hydrocodone untouched now, but I found out online that it's good for coughs, so I shall hoard it against my next bad cold -- I get these horrible, scary coughs that last for weeks and codeine doesn't do a thing for me, so this stuff will be worth a try.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hypoglycemia is getting so common these days, wouldn't surprise me too much if that had a part in it. I can't say I've had personal experience that would support a correlation between low blood sugar and headaches, but it's different for everyone.

Regardless of the cause, hope you feel better and find a way to treat it.

I've always known that if I don't eat I get headachy, but it's usually gone within 30 minutes of eating a meal. It was the 48-hour migraine with accompanying nausea that made the correlation for me -- I hadn't eaten anything for several hours because I was feeling sick, and I forced myself to eat a bit, felt a little better, got worse, ate again... after a couple of rounds of that, I realized that the pain was responding to my eating. It never went away or got down to mild levels, but I could make it go from excruciating to merely unbearable by forcing myself to eat.

The doc wanted to know if I hadn't eaten before the other migraines, or if I felt weak or lightheaded beforehand, but I couldn't remember anything like that, and he thought it might be worth testing my blood glucose levels if they recurred.

My doctor prescribed me Maltex (I'm 98% sure that's the name) which is a disolve-on-your-tongue migraine medication. It works *really* well for me and is fast. Take one, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, takign another probably won't help. But it's always worked for me, and usually in under an hour. Might ask your doc about it next time you see him.

Cool, thanks. I have a working hypothesis that the Relpax took four hours to work because I'd already had the migraine for like ten hours previously, and I have one more dose to test that the next time I have one. If it still takes four hours to work, I'll look into the Maltex. :)