Headache and Migraine Group: Let’s connect

Thanks Jody I will hang in there and take it one day at a time. I hope it finally works for you.
Bernie

I am a 76 year old woman. About 6 years ago (AFTER I retired as a writer), I started experiencing an irritated scalp and tight neck, which gradually got worse. Docs, including a neurologist, wanted me to go on gabapentin immediately, but I wanted to give other solutions a try. I did physical therapy with several different practitioners, but no luck and the pain was getting more constant and waking me up at night. I finally went to a pain specialist who immediately said it was occipital neuralgia. Happy to have a diagnosis, but I seem to be trapped in a 3 month cycle with steroid injections in my neck. I have relief for about 6 weeks, but I can’t have more steroids until 3 months, so about six weeks of pain, up to a 10 at intervals. Treated with Tylenol and ibuprofen, every 3 to 5 hours. I recently stopped the ibuprofen, but my body is on a rebound schedule so I have to take the Tylenol every 5 hours now. I am very fatigued and this is affecting my social and emotional life and energy level. I may try the gabapentin next. Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with a low dose of gaba? Any other suggestions? Sorry for this long post.

Yes it took a bit over a year, I think my 5th injection is when it started to work.
I only had relief though but I suffer 24/7 and I was a constant 10 pain and it brought me to about a 7 but I would have occasional 10’s.
This lasted for about a year and then zero relief.
She started injecting into my neck and that gave me a 7 for 2 months and 10 the third month. My last injection she didn’t put as much into my neck and I have been pretty much a 10 for the past 2 weeks.
I’m going to ask her to put it all in my neck next time.
But keep in mind that everyone is different, I just happen to be one that isn’t finding better results. I suggested that my dental hygienist try Botox and she found instant relief and is very thankful for it!
Hang in there and fight the good fight
Jody

Thanks Jody. Did you go thru this & finally get relief from Botox ?

Botox can take up to a year to start relieving the migraines so hang in there!
Jody

I have had headaches for over a year & I had Botox twice so far no help.I takeSpironolactone 25 mg. for B.P. Can this be causing my headaches ?

That sounds like classic cluster headache symptoms. My heart goes out to you.

Vasoconstrictors help me but they have their own set of worrisome issues.

There are a lot of newer preventative medications on the market for migraines that may work and I think at least one that's got an approval for cluster headaches. They didn't help me but they may help you.

One thing I'd suggest is to try to find what if anything triggers your episodes and remove those. These could be food, food additives, medications, alcohol etc. in my case, anything with vasodilation properties can trigger or worsen a headache.

Some people seem to have issue with things that elevate serotonin or histamine. Hopefully you can narrow down your triggers.

I hope you feel better soon

Please let me know if u ever come across a solution to this problem. I had a very bad episode recently when I had very bad pain behind my right eye and eyebrow daily for almost 5 hrs and 12 consecutive days in a row.

I'm having migraine headaches since last almost 15 yrs now. However, what surprised me was this constant throbbing pain behind my right eyebrow and eye on a daily basis from 6.30am to around 12noon continuously for 12 days. Cold compress, coffee shots and painkillers helped to some extent but affected my daily work. It stopped after 12 days and am dreading when it will recur

I'm a 55 year old male who has had cyclic cluster headaches since the late 80s.

Over the past few decades I've tried virtually every medication treatment (both on and off-label) on the market. The only ones that seem to offer relief are abortive vasoconstrictors such as triptains and high dose oxygen.

As I've aged, I've noticed my cycles are shorter but the intensity of the headaches that occur during those cycles are worse.