Tell me about your headaches
 

Doctors have asked me for the longest time if I have experienced any headaches....and until now I only had the normal ones.
Now I have been noticing a type of headache that feels more like "a pressure" inside my head with pain behind my eyes...sort of.
At first I thought it was some type of sinus issue but sinus meds don't do a thing for me! And sinus problems are usually not something I experience.

I also noticed that when I have the "headache" I also have an increased sense of being off balance. My eyes feel more strained and I can not drive at all due to the "off balance" wobbley in the world feeling. I typically wake up with this headache and can't hardly get rid of it unless I take an Excedrin Migraine and a Ativan...and even then it takes the edge off only.

Any brothers or sisters out there? Am I starting to get the headaches related to MS? How do your headaches affect you?

I have migraines, which come on with a flashy light thing, and then I get pain on one side of my head. if I catch it early I can get it calm with laying down and advil. if I let it go, or ignore it I have to go to bed, take a narcotic and sleep to get rid of it.

I have tension headaches. normal run of the mill, tight neck, leads to tight muscles that run up the back of the head. It hurts on both sides, and rest or advil will make it much better.

I have MS style headaches, where I feel dizzy or off balance. my brain feels sore, bruised or like someone is squeezing it. This can be on one or both sides. it can come with or without nausea. I feel like my brain is simply exhausted and the inside of my skull has been scrubbed out down to the marrow. its stronger over my right eye, which is where a glioma lays in my head. I must go to bed with this. I am not a safe walker, or driver, or errand runner while in this state, as I am quick to fall or lose my balance. Rest is the only cure. Sometimes it goes in an hour, sometimes it takes 2 days.

Headaches are miserable. I hope you dont get them anymore. :hug:

Karilann,
 

I have read in some of the MS literature that many people have these headaches behind there eyes as one of their initial symptoms. They can also affect your vision. But it is temporary from what I understand.
Now, there will be many more people who will be much more knowledgeable about this.

I have never experienced that type of headaches. I have had headaches since a teen, but not at that location.

Hope your pain eases up and passes very soon! :hug:

PS... You might google Optic Neuritis. I think that is the term I was trying to come up with. Here is one link but I'm sure there are many others.
http://www.bing.com/health/article/m...iple+sclerosis

This is it!
 

In your third paragraph....You have described what I am talking about!! I don't have a glioma, but everything else sounds soooooo familiar. Thanks so much for sharing. I was starting to feel like a nut job because nothing I would take would really help. i have to just lay down and wait it out.

I get severe migraines, 3-4 times a week. I get diizzy, blurry vision, light sensitiviity, nausea, and extreme throbbing and pressure pain. I describe them very much like Dejibo.....but I have always just considered them migraines....not MS headaches, if fact, I never new there was such a thing. I thought that MS patients just get more migraines.

I take migraine meds, maxalt and/or zomig....and if it is really bad, I will take 4mg of zanaflex with the migraine med and just go to sleep.

Bingo! I went undiagnosed for so long because I just stubbornly kept going to work thinking "Well, it's just migraines, I'm unlucky".

It took much more distinctive symptoms (L'Hermittes Sign, namely) for me to realize "Okay, something's not right..".

I had gone at least 2 years with left side pain under my eye... my short term people at work (disability) figured it was dentistry gone wrong, then went the sinusitis route, etc.

Whodda thunk it would end up being MS? :Oops:

Hi Karilann,
About my headaches:
I have had headaches upon waking a few times a week. It started in 1994. It goes away after a few hours with caffeine and Aspirin.

Then I can get a migraine that last a few days. That I need a dark room and to lay down for. This is only about twice a year.

Then I get sinus headaches with a cold, like now it lasted 4 days. Nose runs and is bloody way up high in the sinus area. ENT doc did a CT of sinuses and a MRI of the head (not looking for my lesions, just structure) a few years ago.

Normal at the time of course, said I had a deviated septum that's all. Many people have that. My sinuses are my weak spot. Cold weather aggravates them, not hot weather.

My head also gets the pain like Dej and Karilann described. That I believe is the MS headache vs. the other crapola ones. These get worse with relapse, but can be there when they feel like it. I haven't found anything for them.

IVSM if I relapse helps, so maybe inflammation?

If not in a relapse, I normally get this pressure as a fullness all over, tight scalp, vise-like in my whole head and it hurts just to move a few hairs on my head. Back of head hurts at ear level. Perhaps muscle spasms?, I don't know just guessing.

I do believe headaches are common with MS people, some like normal people get, and ones that are related to our MS are different. JMO :)

I know what helps my headaches/migraines/MS headaches... thankfully it's legal medically in my country, because it's often the only thing that does work.

My headaches are getting progressively worse....I will be talking with my Neuro about them on Wednesday. It felt as though I had a "vice" squeezing my head when I woke up this morning, so I took 2 Exedrine Miraine and it reduced the pain down to the 'swollen brain' feeling.

I am very perplexed....... do Neurologists look at 'MS headaches' as a symptom of MS?
In fact, my migraines is what took me to a neurologist years and years ago, but when I started having other symptoms, numbness, tingling, blurry vision, loss of balance, word-find issues....he just kept telling me it was all migraine related. But when I started to have double vision, I found a new neurologist.

I had NEVER thought of MS as a source of my problems.....but at my FIRST visit, and after a very thorough neuro exam, which showed abnormal reflexes, ataxia, nystagmus, positive babinski, positive hoffmans, positive rombergs, etc.....my Neuro said his gut is telling him MS, but I would need further testing.

So about one month later, after an MRI that showed about 10 lesions, abnormal evoked potential and a visit to opthalmologist; dx: optic neuritis, I was diagnosed. Very quick from what most people have to go through to get a dx.

I said all of that to ask.....Do you think the years of my migraines were actually MS headaches? and again, do neurologists see them as a MS symptom??