Posted by Sean on May 03, 1998 at 02:44:10:
When I was younger my mother used to get Migrane Headaches
which would put her in bed for hours at a time. Sometime durring my late
teens I started having heaaches too. My parents took me to see
the doctor, I had a Brain CT (With and without) contrast
but nothing was found and no diagnosis was made. Maybe my headaches were
not too common durring college because I don't remember many.
When I did get them I would stay in bed in pain, take some
Advil and wait.
Then I went to medical school. I still remember sitting in class during the second year,
we were having a special lecture on headaches (2.5 hours for all
those interested in the amount of training we get :), actually we
recieved a lot more during the years but ussually as an aside while
discusing Diseases or synrome with headache. This was the only time the topic was addressed
by the topic of headaches). I was feeling a little sleepy that morning but as soon as the
doctor started decribing Cluster Headaches I pearked right up. I was like
he was ddescribing my headaches exactly except the frequency of my headaches, at that time,was so long (a few
weeks between them) that my roomate (now a neurosurgeon) still jokes that
I have unclusetered clustered headaches!
Since that moment of self diagnosis I have continued to treat myself with
NSAIDS (Ibuprofen) as my headaches were very rare, but the frequency and number
of my headaches have increased in the last few years and in an atempt to
control them I have tried the following:
Imitrex - I hate Needles! This did nothing for my headache, but did
produce a funny sensation, like someone pulling on my hair.
(only took it once)
Ultram - Didn't help my headache, made me act a little funny (not the
sort of thing to take when working :) ) (only took once)
Oxygen - I've used this a few times (my profession makes this
a simple opition since O2 is simple to find in the hospital), it works
well if I catch the headache early and use it for 10-20 mins
Vicoden --again not something you want to take while working.
this madde me nausious and I'm not sure it helped much.
Just thought you guys would like to hear that some of us M.D.s are dealing with
this problem in a personal way as well as professionally!
Sean