Posted by mmark on November 16, 1998 at 11:37:05:
i have been diagnosed with cluster/vascular headaches,
after much xrays,
mri's, antibiotics etc etc (but i really don't trust
the docs after
they messed up on the xray diagnosis once)
i have been going for 9.5 weeks now.
the question i have is -- do my pain/other symptoms
match? (MD opinions appreaciated as well)
i wake up in the mornings with a clogged nostril,
but i can sleep the whole night through without,
not once, ever, being woken up by the headaches.
i go through the early mornings into the afternoons
(usually) with a dull pain on both (both!) sides of
my head, above my temples, just where the curvature
of the head begins, a pain that is like someone
took a baseball bat and smacked my head about an hour
earlier. dull, not pounding, sometimes worse on one
side than the other, generally worse on the side
that my nostril was clogged. sometimes (like now)
i will get the sensation that my ears are clogged/
blocked.
then, i will get, later
in the afternoon, this feeling of preassure (especially
lately, after being on indomethacin, i seem to feel
that the pain associated with the preassure is
very much not as pronounced, but the preassure is bad
enough alone)
and a sensation
as though a rubber ball is stuck in my nasal cavity,
just behind the bones of my nose...also, a sensation
as though i need to sneeze, and sometimes
i do sneeze, many times in a row.
this preassure will build
and build until the late evening, when, along with
immense pain, i will feel that my head is (literally)
about to explode. the sides of my temples feel numb
to the touch, and if i push my tongue against the
top of my palate (i'm sure somebody has tried this)
i get a wave of increased preassure that starts from
that point on my palate and seems to flow out my nose.
my skull is tender below my eyebrows, esp lately.
the pain is bilateral -- although often worse on one
side than the other.
blowing my nose, or some other nose related activity
seems to change the character of the pain...
usually it will taper off at midnight, and i will
sleep comfortably
although at one stage i was unable to sleep, for
a few days, because it would not taper off until
3am
i have had headaches before -- and then, i always felt
that the pain was 'inside' my head. here, i feel
that it is actually outside
of course, the sinus thing is foremost in my mind
do some people have psuedo-sinus symptoms, and others
not, because those are two distinctly different things
like i said, i have been going for 9.5 weeks with a few
days here and there
i also remember the first time it happened -- sept 2nd
1998.
i was sitting on my bed in my college dorm, when
suddenly, this intense, constantly building
preassure built and built in my head, so strong
i thought, again, that literally my head would pop
open. then it went away after 30 secs. later in that
afternoon, it came back as a more dull type pain,
and stayed with me.
please help