Hi everyone.

I've had an undiagnosed illness for 5 years resulting from a virus/infection I took back in 2016. This illness started suddenly with the virus and has only been steadily getting worse, with nothing I've tried having any effect at all on the symptoms or their progression. Most of my symptoms primarily affect my brain/head and arn't causing much physical complaints (other than general tiredness and weakness). My worst symptom of all is a severe, steadily worsening brain fog and anhedonia/apathy (which fits the description of "bradyphrenia"(progressive cognitive slowing), which forced me to give up college and work the day that it happened. There is also this horrible discomfort in my head all the time that seems to accompany the brain fog and my other head symptoms.

One of my main symptoms just now is a severe pain in my head when I try to rest my head on a pillow when I sleep. This is a short-lived pain that very quickly builds up and becomes unbearably excrutiating (worst pain imaginable) on any part of my cranium that's taking any kind of pressure, with the back of my head being affected the worst. Resting my head in certain positions will also cause this pain on the opposite side and feels almost as if my brain is being pushed against the other side of my skull. Similarly, pressing on my lower chin will cause this pain on the top of my head.

My only option I have to be able to rest my head on anything and get any sleep is to rest the side of my face on a tightly rolled up pile of soft scarfs, so that my head is raised up and my cranium isn't in contact with anything. Resting areas of my face that are on the opposite side to any area of my cranium also causes this pain, so I often have to keep trying different positions untill I finally find one that isn't causing any pain, which is generally the side of my chin or cheek areas. Sleeping like this is very uncomfortable and my face always hurts the next morning

I get episodes which last about a month where these symptoms get particularly bad. During these episodes, other symptoms I get which accompany this pain include loud ringing ears (like I've been to a rock concert), a wooshing noise when I rest my head in certain positions and pains in the extremeties of my skull (expecially the crown) which feels like something is cut and bleeding. I can also get feelings of dizzyness and vertigo and flashes in my eyes (when closed).

Allowing the pain to build-up too much (lying on a painful area of my head for too long) during these episodes causes a sudden, severe stab of pain, followed by sudden loud ringing in ears (like a bomb just exploded next to me) and a feeling of hot liquid dripping down the side of the head where the pain came from.

Given what I've said, I am now suspecting that I could have some form of viral induced Intracranial Hypertension. Other than IH, I currently can't think of any other explaination for why I would be getting head symptoms like this. And as I said. most of my symptoms are either brain or head symptoms, and there's no major physical complaints like you would generally get with complex chronic illnesses like ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia etc.

Anyway, if anyone here has any thoughts to share on this, it would be greatly appreciated, thanks!