Posted by Tina Carson on March 29, 1999 at 20:20:55:
I'm in this sight because my boss has been diagnosed with cluster headaches. He asked me to enter his letter here for your input. (Which I have already done)
The names of the medications were what caught my interest. A very good friend of mine has been struggling (not even comes close) with headaches for the last two years immensly. She has been taking Imetrix for a very long time. I have watched her go through a lot of this pain, and I want to tell you, I began to doubt the realness of it. My friend is a recovering addict, and the behavior that I saw on a consistent basis was close to that of someone loaded on narcotics. (I'm also in recovery) I have always tried to support her in the medications the doctor had been prescribing, but inside I have had my fears and doubts. My fears come from the belief that drug addiction is sililar to an allergy...once "arroused" it's obsession is awakened. With the narcotics in some of these medications, it seems like an absolute high risk. And inside, I have never believed the depth of the pain and symptom she showed. Slurred words, vision problems, nausia, all with a headache?
My friend cut her wrists six weeks ago. While in the psych ward, they diagnosed her bi-polar (in less than 4 days with out having any history on her) they put her on psych meds, etc.
Three weeks ago, she ended up having a GranMal Seizure. The doctor (and there have been many different ones) said that it was from withdrawels. She decided to stop taking all of these different medications at once for whatever reasons. Probably because she was nothing but a zomby on them or sleeping. The last ten days that I have seen her, she has never looked better (medication free), HOWEVER, she suffers, as she has through out this entire ordeal, with these headaches. Just the other night, it came on sudden, vision very bad, nauzia, slurred speach, then after an hour and a half, normal. I've resigned myself to the fact that I just don't understand what's going on, but it's been hard to believe that this was real 5-6 times a day, etc. After just reading some of your messages, I don't know what to say.
I feel remorse. How can someone give you support through these headache experiences? How can she learn more so she can find out if this is what she has or not?
Sincerely,
Tina