Hi kkat, Mark let me know you are having ongoing headaches. I also had an ongoing headache for about 6 months that I referred to as "headaches" even though it was one ongoing headache - my cognitive functioning was so poor I could not communicate very well at the time. It started off as a somewhat normal-feeling kind of headache, but ibuprofen nor tylenol would work to quell it, which was odd when I had a headache. Over the weeks and months it became worse and worse and worse in terms of the pain I was feeling from it and the side effects of it.
Since many neurologists now believe that migraines are hereditary and I had never had one before the accident I was in that caused the mTBI and no one in my family suffered from migraines, the first neurologist I went to did not think I was having migraines. He did not address them the first several times I went to see him - I was suffering a LOT of symptoms and he just didn't have the time to talk with me, I was always shoed out of the office before I could even really start talking. Plus my speech and cognitive functioning had been damaged to a point that it was very easy to disregard what I was saying. He decided I was having tension headaches. I tried to argue with him and he wouldn't hear it.
Before this accident, I would work through a tension headache. I was a very tough gal and worked a lot in a very physical, male-dominated industry and this was the norm. I worked when I was sick, etc.. So, I decided to see a different neurologist.
These "headaches" were so bad that they were sharply throbbing and the throbbing was all over my body as well. I couldn't move or do much fo anything because of the pain. All I could do was lay down on my couch. Standing made them worse, activity - even walking, made them worse. My depth perception was all messed up, but I didn't really realize it at the time. Even though it was on ongoing headache, it would increase in severity at different points.
The second neurologist I went to decided that even though migraines were not a part of my family's or my history, that the head injury had kicked off something called status migrainosis - on ongoing migraine that is severe and lasts for weeks and sometimes months if left untreated.
She prescribed me a LOT of different medications to treat migraines. In addition, my PCP had prescribed me a narcotic to treat the pain and it did not even scratch the surface of the pain. I wanted to increase the dosage of the narcotic and the neuro wanted me to decrease it; I listened to the neurologist.
After one month of taking a very aggressive approach to the headache under the new neurologist's care- this is about 5-6 months after the accident - my boyfriend finally convinced me to go to the ER to get a really strong narcotic to treat the pain. A friend of his does that when her migraines are really bad and that's still what we thought was wring with me.
I had to wait a long time at the ER, the entire process of getting there was horrible for me. They gave me something called dilaudid, and it cut my pain in half. I looked up online that this drug is supposed to be 10x stronger than morphine, The Dr. at the ER asked me if the pain was "dull", "throbbing" and on the "side of my head" which I now know is typical for migraines. And sometimes it was... but at this point in time I told him that my pain was "sharp", "continuous" and "behind my eye".
My boyfriend urged me to tell my neurologist that because it seemed out of the ordinary.
I told her and she ascertained that I probably had iicp, increased intracranial pressure. She ordered me a spinal tap and it relieved the severe pain I had suffered for 5-6 months within five minutes.
I was ready to kill myself if the pain didn't go away; and normally I'm a very happy and joyful person!
I've read that iicp occurs rarely with concussion, only about 3% of the time.
Since the spinal tap I have been recovering from being on 6 months of bed rest and the initial injury. The iicp may have damaged my brain further than the original injury, but there is no way to really determine that.
Please, make sure you tell your Dr. or Neurologist details about all the pain you are feeling and the different symptoms you have and your history. Make sure you write it down and just give them the piece of paper in case you forget.
Some people get iicp randomly, without a known cause, and here is a website for a foundation to educate people about it with some great information:
http://www.ihrfoundation.org/