Deserving

At the first consultation of a new treatment Tuesday, after turning me into a human pin-cushion and hearing my life story, the acupuncturist said he didn't believe there was anything psychological to my headache. The solid mass that pretends to be my muscles gives him the hint that it's physiological. 

But at last weekend's hypnotherapy session I was asked about focusing on why my headache started. I spoke about how I often feel that I did something to cause this headache. The medication overuse, stress and anxiety, going on too many roller coasters. 

When you walk into a room for a Chiropractic appointment with someone who is not your usual chiropractor and they say that you're giving yourself mini-whiplash every time you flick your fringe out of your eyes and that's probably the cause of all your problems, you're inclined to believe them. They are the expert after all.

Except I didn't have a fringe when my headache started. Sure my mini-whiplash probably doesn't help, but it didn't cause my headache in the first place.

And the cause, the why my headache started, is likely to always be a mystery. Yes it could have been the stress of moving schools. Yes it could have been the roller coasters. 

Yes it could have been the medication overuse. And whilst I know that biologically medication overuse comes from taking pain killers too often, and not from huge quantities in one sitting, there is part of me that will always think I am to blame for this headache because of the things I have done, and because of the pain I have caused. It's karma. Except I can't cross it off a list like Earl. 

Trance on Saturday focused on emotions, and how they can cause pain. And how pain can manifest itself as an emotion. 

When I try to describe how my headache makes me feel, it's along the lines of frustrated, powerless. When I try to describe how my headache feels, if it were emotion, it would usually be anger. An anger that assaults my muscles, my skeleton, my senses, my organs. An anger that courses its way through my veins, pools in the temples, strikes behind the eyes, lies at the base of my skull, coiled like a snake waiting to spot its prey. 

When treatments don't work, I usually think it's because I haven't tried hard enough to make it work. When my head gets worse it is easy to point to the things I'm doing wrong, and not the things I'm doing right. The eating pastries as a snack, not the 2 litres of water I drink every day. The times I sit on my Xbox for hours not the runs I go for, the walking I do or the daily stretches. 

We only have one life, and sometimes it can be too short. I need to let go of this feeling that I did something in this life or lives past that mean I deserve this pain. I need to focus on making the best of the life I have, and make sure that I get the right balance to enjoy the life I deserve. 

The Problem With No Cure?

I haven't blogged here for a while not because my head has been good, but because I get so bored about talking about my headache, and I imagine so many people get tired of hearing about it.

What I would really like is a clean slate. For someone to take all my muscles out and replace them with new ones. To give me fresh blood vessels. To straighten out or curve up my spine so that's normal again. 

How much difference can you make to damaged goods? 

I can't see a future with this headache. Or is that my headache can't see a future with me? 

My Back Aches

One of the few alternative therapies I have never tried over the course of the last 7 years is Chiropractic treatment. It has often been suggested to me, but I have tried almost everything else.

So a few months ago when I was walking through the Epsom shopping mall I jumped at the chance for a quick and free back check. I then signed up for a full consultation, which only cost me £50, including any x-rays required.

The place I went to is called ProBack, and I saw a Dr. Christian Allard.
The first time I went he explained how a back should look, and then he caused me pain by making me touch my toes and try to bend into various difficult positions. He checked my posture, he looked at my neck. He took a general medical history too.
He said he thought it was my brain stem causing the soreness I always feel and also causing my headache. Did you know the brain stem is the first thing in a person to develop? Dr. Allard also decided I needed x-rays.

I had to wait quite a few weeks for my x-rays at the clinic, because it was waiting for a part from America in order to make it work. But I got the results literally 10 minutes after the x-rays were done.

Dr. Allard asked me if I was sure I hadn't been dropped as a baby or been in a car accident. My thoracic vertebrae looks good, my lumbar are a bit out but really only because my neck curve is reversed.
Yes. You read that right.
My neck curve is reversed. I think this roughly translates into my neck is backwards.
My cervical curve is the wrong way, and he thinks that is causing my headache and a lot of my pain.
Yay.
There's also a big gap between my first vertebrae and spine on my right-hand side, which accounts for the loss of sensation. (In my first appointment, he moved a feather down my hands and feet to see if I could feel it. I could barely feel anything on my right hand side.)

So some permanent nerve damage, but not completely untreatable.
I do, however, have the back of a 40-year-old.

So what is the solution, according to Dr. Allard and ProBack.

ProBack use a particular machine to treat back problems, called the ProBack Pulse. Rather than the usual back cracking you might associate with chiropractors, ProBack practitioners do not work on that basis. The Pulse machine works to record the health of your spine, one vertebrae at a time, and then uses vibration to loosen the tension and reposition vertebrae to make it better. I'm not going to lie, it sounds like a taser. But it does not hurt at all, and it does make you feel looser, but for me it did not eradicate any pain.
If I want to treat my back effectively, and get it back to full health, Dr. Allard recommends 3 sets of 12 treatments. The first 12 are done in quick succession - 3x a week for 4 weeks, or 4x a week for 3 weeks. The next 12 are done twice weekly, for 6 weeks. Then once a week for 12 weeks. So you are looking at up 22 weeks.
And each treatment is £40. There is a payment plan available, but you do the math.

Cost never used to be an issue for me with treatments for my head. But because I have tried so many, and been let down so often, this is quite an expensive gamble. There is no guarantee this will cure my headache, although it is guaranteed to make me taller by improving my posture.

The theory is that I have a headache because my back and shoulders and neck are bad, and my back, shoulders and neck are bad because I have a headache. Vicious cycle.

Could Dr. Allard, and ProBack finally be the cure?
I'll kick myself if it is and it's taken me 7 years to get here!

But I am going to get a second opinion first. Much as I trust them, and they have given me no reason to think they are lying (and I saw the x-rays, my neck is the wrong way!), I want to be sure I am going to get a result for my money.

So watch this space, and I'll let you know whether Dr. Christian Allard saves the day.

Funnily enough, the way I've sat to write this blog, has made my back hurt :(

Aftermath

Today, I visited the dark world I rarely inhabit - only this time, I was at work.

As I sat there trying desperately to ignore the growing pain, all I could think was that I had so much work to do.

Because migraines, they stop you doing anything. They sap all your energy. They stop your thoughts from making any sense.
"I don't live in Sutton, I live in England", came out of my mouth today during this delirium.
As well as saying "I'm so high" when I got dizzy. I meant high as in tall. Which I'm definitely not.

But whilst the migraine stops you, nothing else stops. The world keeps turning. Work carries on. But without you, despite your best efforts.

I wanted desperately to stay. I had things to do.
But when you have to go and lie down in a medical room with a pillow over your face, there's not all that much you can get done at work.

I'm fed up. I can't remember the last time I felt well. I'm 23, I want to make the most of my life! I want to be able to work to my full potential, socialise and have fun. I don't want to go home to bed every night feeling drained because my head has not stopped hurting.

I don't get why I've had two migraine attacks in such a short period of time. I have only really had a few before, maybe one a year on average.
The worst thing is I will probably never discover why. I can see doctors, osteopaths, chiropractors and even hypnotherapists.
But what can they do? Crack my back and make me forget it ever happened?

I just want it to stop hurting. 10 hours later and I'm still struggling with bright light, and loud noises, and the pain in my head that comes and goes like waves.

I would like to wave goodbye to it please. Pretty please. With an aspirin on top.

A World of Pain

I am writing this blog from a dark place that I do not visit regularly, or stay in long.
But when I leave, the door to this dark place is always open. Always ready to receive me. Always happy to welcome me into its unrelenting and tortuous arms.

Because the pain that leads to this dark place never stops. It never goes away. I can never turn my back on it, because it is always there. It is such a part of me that I think the only way it will end, is when I do.

I'm stronger than I used to be about it. I am able to write this blog. I have been able to work, and commute home from work, and when I got in I fed the cats. I have been able to take off my jewellery and get into my pyjamas.

But this pain systematically claws at this strength I cling to, looking for the weak spots.

And when it finds them, I end up collapsed on the kitchen floor sobbing my heart out, but afraid to move because every turn of my head results in more agony.

I heard on the radio this morning, that Nice have issued official advice for headache sufferers, which include Acupuncture for tension headaches, and not taking painkillers. My nan even cut out the article from The Telegraph for me.

This is something I already knew. Medication overuse is one of the vague reasons given to me for my 7 year itch headache. That, as well as psychological problems and anxiety about joining Sixth Form, riding too many rollercoasters in Florida, drinking Coca-Cola and eating chocolate. One of my GPs actually suggested that maybe when my parent's divorce had finally been settled, my headaches would get better.
Yes, the divorce they started LAST YEAR. 6 years into this pain.

So, for those suggesting that my Chronic Daily Tension Headache could be treated with Acupuncture, may I inform I have had 2 courses of Acupuncture, one lasting about 8 or 9 weeks when I was in Sixth Form (so right at the beginning of my headache), and another lasting months, and provided by the NHS, during my 2nd and 3rd years at university.
And oh wait, I'm not cured.

As for taking too many painkillers, that's a No Sh*t Sherlock situation. I have not been the most responsible with painkillers over my life time and they have usually been the first thing I reach for when my head hurts. I have pushed myself to resist, and today I did. for 4 hours. Until my headache got so unbearable I could barely walk straight and I thought I was going to pass out and/or vomit from the pain.
3 hours later, the headache is marginally better. I still feel hugely nauseous and faint.

Going cold turkey from painkillers is not mission impossible, but it is mission un-bloody-likely. Not when you've had 7 years of pain already and whilst you can cope with the day to day dull ache that NEVER.GOES.AWAY, the blinding nausea-inducing headaches are not going to go away unless you go to sleep then and there. And when you are trying to make a living and get on with your life, that's not going to happen.

The neurologist in The Telegraph article recommends that coming off the painkillers should be done in consultation with your GP about preventative medication.
Ohhh! Why haven't I tried that??

Oh wait yeah. Years number 3 and 4 of headache. Silly me.

So essentially, this new "official advice" proffered up today to us poor headache sufferers (of which there are 1 million of us with medication overuse headaches, and a further 1.5 million with tension headaches - so which group do I wallow with I if I have a Chronic Tension headache possibly caused by medication overuse and/or tension?) is nothing I haven't heard before.
Oh except that tension headaches are difficult to treat.

No wait, I knew that one too.

**

Do I walk around with haunted eyes?
Do you see the pain that resides
Behind them?

The stabbing, the scraping, the hot poker iron.
The hammer, or mallet, the roar like a lion
When it throbs, and it pounds, and whirls me around
The world of pain.
Welcome. We hope you enjoy your stay.

Action Week

Ages ago, I decided that doing several things in one go to target my headache would be a useful experiment.

So in the last 5 days, I've had my own little headache action week.

Last Thursday, I had a 2 hour sports massage. It was brutal at times, but I wanted to start loosening my knots, in order to help the Botox, that I had booked in for Saturday, to work.
I still felt pretty knotted up afterwards, but it did help. I came home and did a hypnotherapy relaxation session from CD as soon as I got back. I wanted to help my muscles relax as much as possible.

On Saturday I had Botox treatment. The first time I had Botox for my headache, it helped somewhat, but that was 6 months ago now. I saw a different doctor this time, at a different clinic, and I have a review session in 2 weeks. This doctor explained the muscles in my head, and why he'd put the Botox in the particular places. When he showed me which muscles he'd be injecting, they started to hurt more in anticipation (or a last offensive attack?) The doctor was jovial, and I can't wait to go back haha!

I did another hypnotherapy relaxation session over the weekend too. I get fidgety, it's hard to stay still for so long. But it does make me feel quite relaxed.

Today, I had a good Raynor massage from Dave Taylor. We get on very well, and he knows my body very well too. When he finished, I lay there in headache-free bliss for a few moments.
Today is the first day that the Botox starts getting to work (3 days after treatment, 14 days maximum it takes to work), and my headache pain has been minimal. It has barely spiked above a 5 today, and has rested mostly at a 2 or 3! Walking around made it worse at times, and some of the pain has probably come from dehydration. But mostly the worse pains I've felt today have been muscular. So that's something!

I just wish I had the time, and the money, to have more regular treatments.

Maybe now is the time to start Yoga again, while my head has a chance.

Hypnotherapy: The Beginning

Yesterday I had my first Hypnotherapy session with Steve Cook at the Chiltern Health Centre.
It lasted 1 hour, and I did a lot of crying. More than I was expecting to do, as I wasn't expecting to cry at all. Which is funny, because pretty much everyday this week I have cried because of my headache, so why shouldn't I cry in a session about my headache?!

Steve took the opportunity to teach me EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique. It uses tapping of certain points on the face and body to relax and help certain ideas sink in. I think. That's how I see it anyway. It works better when someone else does it to you when you're trying to relax and calm down a headache, because when you do it to yourself you're constantly thinking of the points and which one's next, so you don't really concentrate on the issue you're facing. But I have found it relaxing. I have taken a photo of the help sheet I have been given that indicate the points and their order. You start by tapping on your hand while giving the pain submodalities and telling yourself that you "deeply and completely accept [yourself]".



So I am hoping that this technique will be the start to learning to control my headache. But the thing about this EFT was that it brought up a lot of psychological issues. Consultants have previously thought that my headache was caused by some inner pain I have. But £80 sessions at the Priory didn't help solve that, or at least I'm assuming it didn't because I still have the headache. But regardless of whether it was caused by inner pain and psychological problems, this headache has certainly caused some of it's own. I feel like this headache will never leave me. I am on the verge of giving up, In fact, if it wasn't for the fact the headache has been worse this past week, I would have seen this Hypnotherapy as just another thing to give a go, but now I am sort of seeing it as a lifeline.

I find it difficult to believe I may cure it, and that makes me apprehensive about hypnotherapy, because he wants me to keep an open mind. But from what I've read from other people's experiences, it discourages me from that hope and almost giving me an excuse to resign myself to this destiny of pain (i.e. they have it after 30 years, why should I be any different?).

I am also apprehensive at the idea that someone will be delving into my unconscious to see if there's anything else we've missed. Am I repressing something awful? Is it simply my self-esteem issues manifesting itself as a headache? Am I bottling up too much anger?

And at the end of the day, I can relax myself all I want, but I will still have the muscle tension and the knots gripping my body and keeping it tied up tight, good and proper. I've always wondered if I had a day of massage, or a massage every day for a week, a month, would it get rid of all the knots and the tension?

I just have to keep reminding myself that I could be so much worse off. And I know I have to keep on fighting. If we were put on this earth for anything, it wasn't to make money, to have kids, to create more efficient manufacturing industries. It was to overcome obstacles. And I'm still overcoming this one. Maybe it can't be overcome, but I'd at least like to get somewhere with it. I'm been trying to for so long already.

Oh So Tired of Being Sick

I am off work today. I'm not dying of flu, or a stomach bug. I am in pain from my head. Yesterday was the closest I have come in the 6 years I have had this headache of doing something stupid with my life.
For the last week my head has been worse than it's been in years. They are wearing me down.

But yesterday was AGONY. Pure, hot, agony. I took 2 Ibuprofen but they only took the edge off it, they didn't get rid of it, I had a massage in my lunch break and that made my headache worse. I wasn't doing anything different, just working like usual and the pain just kept increasing and increasing. The last time my head hurt so much as when I went swimming in 1st year of university and I thought my head was going to explode it hurt so bad. Yesterday was like that, but worse, and on dry land.

It is in fact been bad since I woke up today too, but I have done some yoga, and relaxed, and it hasn't gotten as bad as it did yesterday - at least not yet.
So I'm kicking back, drinking water and orange juice, and sniffing a whole lot of Olbas Oil (this sudden increase in pain is most likely a result of a cold, and possible sinus problems, so I'm about to spend half an hour under a towel with a bowl of boiling water to clear some stuff out.)

What irks me is that I can't seem to do anything to get past it anymore. It's there, all the time, it always has been, but it is stopping me from living. I had to cancel on my friend twice this week because my head was so bad. Now I've had to take a day off to try and get it under control. It's not on. I'm torn between accepting the pain and waging war, but I can't see how either action will bring about a happy ending.

Hmph. Time for the steam bath.

Origins

5 years and 4 months ago, August 2005, I was about to start Sixth Form. I'd done ok in my GCSE's, well enough to get into the Sixth Form at Overton Grange to do the A-Levels I wanted. I was leaving behind the friends I'd had for 5 years at my old school.

It was in this August I noticed the headaches. I've always been a headachey person, but the last time I'd noticed headaches so regularly I was 8 and it turned out I needed glasses. But this time, I went straight to the opticians and they said I was fine, that I didn't even need the glasses I had. But I continued to get the headaches.

It's been suggested that my headache is psychological - that the stress of joining a new Sixth Form created my headache, and it started to maintain itself through the muscle tension it created as a result. I can understand this theory since I do find it hard to start at new places and make friends, but Sixth Form was the best time of my life, the best two years. So any stress that I had about it dissipated quickly. Why didn't the headache go?

As my diagnosis is Chronic Daily Tension Headache of muscular contraction type, the idea that my headache started psychologically, but remains because of muscle tension is logical, but can't be the whole story. This is where the theories of the consultants come in. My headache specialist nurse and I agreed that it is likely my headache started as a mixture of tension and medication overuse.

Medication overuse is a headache triggered by too many painkillers. Painkillers are designed to turn off the pain switch in your brain, which is switched on when you are in pain. Except, when you take too many painkillers, the your brain, and the pain switch, sort of build up an immunity, and the pain switch doesn't switch off, it just stays on. So, having been someone that relied on painkillers, they stopped working, and my headache never went away.
If my headache was just caused by medication overuse, at the beginning I could possibly have gotten rid of it by going cold turkey from painkillers, that's usually the cure. But I didn't know this until 3 years down the line, and at that point I went cold turkey but nothing happened. By that point, my headache was caused by the muscle tension I still have today.

Without knowing for sure what my headache was caused by, it's been hard to get effective treatment. I had 2 MRI scans incase the headache was caused by something in my brain (the second one was requested because my 2nd consultant thought I had an enlarged pituitary gland. I didn't. I do however, have a cyst in my brain, which is apparently normal... I should probably get that checked out again soon...) I also had blood tests to rule out anything else that could be causing it.

I treat my muscle tension the best I can, but I don't get regular massage and heat rub and heated pillow don't go far enough. My own personal theory is that if I had a whole series of massages in one week, to finally get my body unknotted, then I could start again, and treat my body better in order to be sure it won't get knotted up again.


But sometimes, not knowing what to do, because of not knowing what it is, is the hardest...

Introduction

I am 21 years old, and I have had a headache every single day for 5 years and 4 months.

This blog will be a diary of my explorations into curing, or managing at the least, my headache. In addition to charting any progress made, I will give you the back story into my headache, which started in August 2005.

My official diagnosis is that of Chronic Daily Tension Headache of muscular contraction type. My previous diagnosis to this was migraine/tension headache, which sounds a lot more vague and was inaccurate in that although I have had suffered from migraine's in the past, I don't suffer from them regularly.

I hope with this blog that I can articulate my exact thoughts and feelings about my headache, and provide details for people who may have similar problems. To fill in the back story, I will tell you about the treatments I have had, such as Osteopathy and Acupuncture, as well as the different drugs I have taken, and the lifestyle changes suggested to, and sometimes made by, me.

Currently I am not on any medication. I take a fair amount of painkillers - some weeks, I can get away with only 2 painkillers, some weeks I take 2-4 everyday.
I try to live an active lifestyle, but I do not do any sport, and the most regular exercise I get is walking for 45 minutes to work, which is 3x a week. I do walk a lot in addition to this, but I gave up running/jogging a while ago. I have also not been swimming for almost 3 years because last time I tried to swim my headache was so bad I thought my head was going to cave in.

The type of headache I experience is hard to define. I have been asked many, many times to describe it, tell them where it happens, or whether it does this or that. It always does both. My headache can sometimes feel like a band around my headache, and sometimes it is a crushing pressure going inwards towards the brain. Sometimes I get stabbing pains in my temple, or behind my eyes, but also at the back of the head, or at the very top. I always have a dull ache, I can always feel my headache, but everyday it gets worse at some point. It feels like a rollercoaster: there are ups and downs, but I am always on it.

I have had 4 consultants, and a Headache Specialist Nurse, been on 6 different drugs (but not 6 different types of drugs), seen a Headache Psychologist, and another Psychologist at The Priory of all places. I've had 2 MRIs, 2 or 3 blood tests, and tried a range of alternative therapies and massages. Off the top of my head these are: Osteopathy, Acupuncture (twice), Acupressure, Kinesiology, Herbalism, Tui Na massage, Hands-Free massage, Shiatsu, Raynor massage, Ear-Candling and Reflexology. There are things I have found work, and some that don't. In the 5 years of having this headache, I have had what I call some "headache-free" sessions. These usually occur after having a particularly good and thorough massage, before I return to full-body awareness (for those of you who have had a really good massage, particularly Shiatsu, Tui-Na and Raynor, the types of massages that are very rough and strong but do wonders for actually getting knots out instead of just relaxing you you'll know that feeling where you feel just that little bit spaced out). Almost like before the blood rushes to my head again. These typically last about 15 minutes. I savour them.

I have at various times made various lifestyle changes, but there are things that trigger my headache that are typical, and things that generally should trigger my headache that actually don't.
(NB. When I say "trigger", I mean make it worsen.)
For example, chocolate (and I eat a fair amount of it), doesn't necessarily trigger a worse headache. I have cut it out before, and it made no difference. I did the same thing for caffeine (I don't drink tea or coffee, but I love Coca-Cola/Pepsi), no difference there either. I had a food intolerance test and they identified Cheese, Monosodium Glutamate and Saccharin as my problems foods. I avoid squash and saccharin in general because I agree with that, it does worsen my headache. I don't like cheese, but when I have it in foods it hasn't made my headache worse, and although I avoided MSG for a while, having had it since I noticed no problems.
The only other food I avoid because I know exacerbates my headache are Sesame Snaps. I used to eat these all the times when I was a kid, but after a break away from them, and then a return to packed lunches, I ate one and it triggered a migraine. It was horrible. I haven't touched them since.

Right now at this moment, I would say my headache is at 5 on a 1-10 scale (1 lowest, what I would call me "headache-free" sessions, 10 being so bad I want to die.)
I shouldn't use the words "want to die", because in general I am quite a happy person and I have no real desire to die. But I'm not going to lie - this headache gets me down sometimes, and when it gets so bad I can't think or see or function as a person, I wonder why I bother. I might have this for the rest of my life - why not just call it quits now?

Except I won't. I might have been cursed with this headache, but I am positive I can do something to sort it out. I might, after all, have caused it (more on that in the next blog, which I will probably call 'Origins').

Anyway, with this level 5 headache, I am going to go to sleep. Too little sleep - headache. Too much sleep - headache. And whenever I wake up - headache. Figure that one out.