Hindsight is 20/20, right? Looking back I see how good my first headache doctor was. And considering the fact that I held a phone book in front of me, closed my eyes, let it open in front of me, and just put my finger down and called the doctor I blindly picked I was incredibly fortunate. She was a redhead and she was a woman. I guess I should have known she'd be good the moment I saw her.
The only thing I didn't like about her - she dismissed my headache journal completely. Didn't want to see it at all. I had read that you should keep a journal about your headaches to help with a diagnosis- what days you have them, what time of the day they start, what foods you eat so you can determine if certain foods trigger them, what part of your head they start in, if they migrate to another part of your head, what medicines you take, if they help, etc. I had done this for nearly two months. It probably wasn't helpful anyway. How could it be? The headache had started months, maybe even more than a year ago - I couldn't even remember now it had been so long ago. It was constant. I could say what part of my head hurt worse at what times of the day. I could say what smells, lights, sounds, etc made my head hurt worse. Clearly it wasn't tied to my menstrual cycle and as far as I could tell it wasn't tied to any foods. Oh, and no medicines were helping.
I told her I was having three types of headaches and no medicines were working on them anymore. She asked what those three types were. I explained - sinus, tension, and some unknown.
She asked why I thought I was having sinus headaches - I explained that it hurt behind my eyes and my brother has sinus problems and allergies and he says that he has pain and pressure around his eyes. So it must be sinus headaches. Plus, Advil Cold & Sinus USED to work when I'd get this kind of pain so it made sense to me.
Then she asked about the tension headaches. I told her that I get a lot of pain at the base of my skull and it seems like my neck muscles and are really tight. I had been on muscle relaxants once for this and that made this type of headache go away at that time so they must be tension related.
As for the third type - well, they're excruciating and I can't function. It's like a combination of all of them.
She said, "You're having migraines."
I said, "I can't be having migraines. I have friends who have migraines and they said that if I'm not nauseous or if I don't puke it's not a migraine. And I've read about migraines and I read if it hurts on only one side of my head it's a migraine. This hurts on both sides of my head."
She said again, "You're having migraines."
Other than the dismissal of the headache journal she was thorough. Ran blood tests to check hormone levels, ordered me to visit a massage therapist monthly, sent me to physical therapy biweekly, and gave me several different samples of migraine medicines to take home and try out.
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