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.

At War with my Head

Life got in the way of me posting on this blog. But telling a colleague today about everything I've done to try and cure myself made me realise that I need to get this all down. I need to help other people. I need for my own sake to document the pain and the problems.

I've been trying to keep a headache diary for the last few weeks to help identify any triggers. I haven't done a headache diary for many years and I remembered why once I started doing this one: they are impossible to keep track of. Well, not impossible, but the only way I could record every fluctuation is if I didn't work all day and literally sat at home waiting for them in order to write them down.

From what I've noted so far, triggers include: walking, the cold, sitting still, not eating, not drinking, eating and drinking, sleeping too much, not sleeping enough.

I am all for control, ok, but there is just no way I am going to be able to control all these things that I might see as triggers.

Not eating and drinking - ok, I'll just eat or drink something. Cue trigger from eating or drinking. And I am being way more careful or what I'm eating these days.
I can't not walk. I can't avoid the cold in this country. And my job requires me to sit still at a desk. I take regular breaks, but this doesn't seem to help.

I have a cold at the moment which really hasn't helped but I can't stop that either really. I think the massive pains I'm getting in my right temple and sinuses (and weirdly, stabbing pains in my left ear that feel like someone is ramming a screwdriver down into there) are related to my cold. But I'm trying to treat and there's not a lot else I can do.

I saw Dave Taylor at the weekend, and whilst he is a great chap and a fantastic masseuse, he's didn't make a huge amount of difference, and that's because I leave too long between sessions. I have time and money issues (I lack both). But I'm making a headache plan because I have waged war on my head.

Or at least I thought I had, until I re-read my last post, all those months ago, and looked at the thread I had linked. I think the biggest problem is facing up to the fact that I may well have this condition for the rest of my life. And it really is difficult to do that when every single day it makes you want to blow your brains out. Honestly, no matter how happy I am with my boyfriend, my job, my life in general, everyday I wish there were a way I could blow my brains out just to get rid of this headache. I was to inject poison into my veins so the blood vessels that might be constricted just melt away. I want to poke my finger in my ear and keep poking until I get to the muscles around my head and just pull them out. Gone, away.
I have never been so close to jumping in front of a train as I was yesterday.

And it sounds melodramatic, and I know that I could be SO much worse off. But at the same time, I live with this pain every day. If I didn't have enough to deal with, like finding my own feet in the world, negotiating a career in this job-poor country and trying to carve an identity for myself, I am constantly taunted and tortured by this pain.
It is wearing me down faster than it has been before. I used to be pretty strong. I'm getting to feel pretty weak.

But when you have to sit and work all day with stabbing pains coming from both sides of your head and an ache at the bottom of skull like it's going to fall off, you do start to question the hell the point of it all is.


I am trying very hard to focus on the positives. I am starting hypnotherapy this coming Saturday, so hopefully I will be able to blog about that. What I'm aiming for (and I think he is on the same page with me about this) are some self-hypnosis techniques I can use to relax myself. I'm notoriously bad at relaxing, everybody I know knows this. The guy I am seeing is Steve Cook. He seems really lovely and keen to help. Maybe he's already worked his hypnosis skills on me but I feel I can trust this guy. He has been on the level with me about what he can and cannot do, and I am looking forward to some positive results.


I'm hoping I can find a community for Chronic headache sufferers. As soon as I do, I'll post it on here.

Raynor & Revelations

Raynor massage is the one therapy I am pursuing at the moment, and I thought it about time to write a new post, so it is only appropriate that I write about Raynor.

I receive Raynor from a lovely guy called Dave Taylor (for his website, click here). I've had 4 treatments from him now, and each one has been different in some way. Dave has practically magical hands, and knows just how to find my sore spots, and make them feel better. Whilst causing them a lot of pain.

Raynor massage was developed by a gentleman called Brandon Raynor, who studied various massage techniques and alternative medicines, and wanted to combine them all to completely treat the body: "It covers not just the muscles of the body but also the skeletal system and the subtle energy systems of the body."

Having had plenty of massages and experiences in Eastern medicine, I sort of understand the idea of chi, and energy blockages in the body causing tension. Raynor focuses quite seriously on a person's chi, and associates a lot of tension with emotional problems or stress. Mental well-being is as important as physical well-being, basically.

Having a Raynor massage is difficult. It's hurt, I'm not gonna lie, in fact sometimes it hurts like hell. Sometimes it hurts so much I can't understand why I'm not passing out from the pain. Raynor encourages patients to breathe properly throughout the massage, and breathing is very important to get yourself through the pain of the massage. Of course, it's not always easy to regulate your breathing (long breath in through the nose, long breath out through the mouth) and often I end up breathing more out of my mouth like you see pregnant women in labour of hospital dramas doing in order to get through the pain. And it's important to remember that it is not the masseur causing you pain. They are just trying to get out the deep-rooted tension in your body. It just happens to be happening at the end of their fingertips, palms and elbows,

Dave has managed to find some really sore spots on my body in the 4 times I've seen him, spots I didn't know existed. I know I have tension in my neck and shoulders, and I know I have tension down my spine and lower back. But I've learned from Dave about how the muscles run from shoulder to hip, how all the leg muscles are connected together around pubic bone at the bottom of the spine (look at the Hip & Pelvic Girdle section here). And in my 3rd session, Dave suddenly hit a spot in my hip that apparently held a lot of tension. It felt like he was putting as much pressure as humanly possible on it: he was basically pushing on it with the same pressure as you do when you tap your finger to the beat, i.e. no pressure at all in comparison what he could be be doing. But it hurt so much I cried and shouted. Dave, and the concept of Raynor, encourages emotional responses like that. It's best just to let it go.

As a deep tissue massage, Raynor is very effective for me. I don't know if it'll ever get rid of all my knots, it's unlikely. But in the meantime, I think it'll help relieve some of the tension. And despite putting myself through that much pain for an hour, I feel much better for it afterwards.


Having just gone on & on about how excellent Raynor is, I don't think it will cure me. That's not me being pessimistic, that's sort of just being realistic. Because I am likely to have this headache, and this pain, for the rest of my life.

I read this thread online this morning. I don't know I haven't come across it before, I have googled my condition Chronic Daily Tension Headache enough times. But it confirmed for me what I had secretly been fearing, and what I didn't want to admit to myself. It's 5 & a half years this month I've had this headache, and it's important I don't stop counting, but it's also important that I stop putting so much emphasis on the longevity of this headache, and that the longer it goes on the less likely I'll be able to be headache-free ever again. There's no cure for CDTH, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy my life, and that one day I won't find something that cures me, or can relieve me of my headache for days, or weeks, or months on end. I think what I should now focus on is getting myself into the best possible health. I need to focus on conditioning my body with Pilates and Yoga, and start to eat a lot better. I would love to start running again, but we'll see eh?

I need to learn how to manage the pain. I've just got to stop letting my headache get me down.

I've just got to let it go.

Types

Sort. Variety. Species. Manner.

My types of headaches are all kinda different. I figured that this was the next port of call in explaining and conveying to you exactly what it is to have Chronic Daily Tension Headache. For myself, in any case.


1. Constant, dull ache: this is the 'base' headache, the headache I have every minute of every day. The headache I have had to get used to. I suppose if I have gotten used to it, it can't be that bad. And compared to what I get sometimes, it isn't. It's pretty self explanitory - I feel a dull ache constantly in my head. I usually feel it around my head like a band, but sometimes it intensifies and its a strong dull ache all around my head.

2. Throbbing: I suppose this is what most people would describe when they say they have a headache. Your head throbs, and feels as if it is pulsating on it's own. For me, this situates itself in the forehead and the temples, and I supposed this is typical of headache. When you see people complain of a headache, they tend to clutch their forehead and rub their temples.

3. Inside pressure: Often, doctors have asked if my headache feels like a band around my head. I think this is what most doctors think of as tension headaches. But just as I have my dull ache which does tend to feel like a band around my head, I also get a type of headache that feels like the pressure is coming from the inside, as if my brain is expanding and trying to escape.

4. Muscle headache: Again, I think this type of headache might be particularly symptomatic of having a "tension" headache. Since I developed my headache almost 5 and a half years ago, my neck and shoulder muscles have become more and more damaged. I feel as if my shoulders are bricks that I carry - I don't think my shoulders have been completely loose for a very long time. Every masseuse I see comments on how big my knots are, but they never quite get rid of them. In an hour session there is only so much they can do. But I think a headache has developed from this muscle tension. I feel the tension in my neck and shoulders everyday, but some days it feels worse. And I feel a headache creeping all the way up from the base of my neck. This kind of headache makes me feel more positive, however, because if I can solve the muscle tension problem properly, I could certainly have an impact on my headache. It's just that I don't have the money (or sometimes the time) to have a massage once a week, or even once a month. I'll talk about therapies I've tried in another blog, and this includes several type of massage.

5. Stabby pains: I get stabbing pains in various places, and it's usually in addition to have a throbbing, or to having simply a dull ache. But often, if I have a dull ache and a stabbing pain on top of it, it leads to a throbbing pain or an inside pressure. I usually get stabbing pains behind the eyes, or just beside in the temples, but I have had them at the base of my neck and right at the back of my head.

6. Migraine - Migraine is in itself a whole other type of headache to Tension headache, but I thought I'd mention it in here anyway. I have had a few migraines in the past, and sometimes the headaches I get (usually throbbing) can feel like a migraine. My original diagnosis was Migraine/Tension headache. I have migraine medication to take in the event of a migraine.



As I write this, I continue a battle that has been raging for a number of hours, a headache which fits into two categories in a way. My head feels like it has a tight band around it, but also it aches from the base of my neck. I took two paracetamol earlier, but it didn't do anything, and I have had to have a nap to get rid of the feelings of fatigue that were beginning to come along with it. Sometimes having a headache can really drain me. The one thing that I don't seem to realise, is that having a constant headache really bothers me. It really upsets me. When I sit down and take stock, like today I said to someone that now I have had this for 5 years and 5 months, that's when I realise, that's when it hits me, and I get upset. I mean, what am I meant to do? What can I do that I know will work? I feel like all this information is at my fingertips, but these days I am not willing to try things and see if they work. I don't want anymore trial and error, I just want it to work. And when my headache has a good period, I forget about trying to cure it, I just get on with it. In all honesty, I do just get on with it. Maybe that's what's wrong.

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.