Tuesday, March 14, 2006
(Notes leading up to March of 2006, beginning in mid-November, 2005)
I can't say for absolutely certain, but I'm pretty sure that my consistent headaches began in mid-November, 2005. Not crippling headaches, necessarily (though one morning was pretty durned bad), but there. Aching. Especially in the morning, just as I woke up.
Frontal headaches, usually starting on one side or the other, but eventually a dull throb across my entire forehead. Similar to headaches I associate with eye strain... as if radiating from behind the eyes to the front of my head. What a way to start the day.
Once I got moving, they would lessen a bit... and they were easily controlled with over the counter stuff, like Tylenol. So while I would complain about them a bit to my wife (who certainly showed patience at first), I discounted them as annoying, but manageable.
As time wore on, though, it was clear that the headaches were getting to me -- and not just early in the morning. I was more irritable than usual, and seemed to be easily susceptible to the headaches coming back as I got tired during the day, or as the house grew noisy before bed, those sorts of things. Enough that my wife eventually put her foot down and made me take the matter up with my doctor.
That was in late February.
That's right... I dismissed consistent, recurring headaches for over three months before checking on them. I was focusing on the severity... but that's only one aspect.
On 3/2/06, I went in to see my doctor to discuss my headaches. He's a nice enough fellow, but not the most experienced person I've ever worked with. In his mind, the trick with headaches is trying to find the trigger. Since I didn't have any other serious symptoms (like vision problems, slurred speech, difficulty with motor skills, etc.) he was of the opinion that they were probably fairly ordinary headaches... perhaps caused by stress, or diet. He suggested I try keeping a headache diary, to try to find a trigger, and we could talk again in a month. Thanks to my wife's insistence, I conveyed the fact that we were concerned that there might be something "bigger" at work. To his credit, he listened to that and decided to schedule a head CT for the 7th.
It was an interesting weekend, after that. My wife had had a head MRI done before and hadn't found it to be the most fun experience in the world (like being stuffed into a toilet paper tube, I think she said), so I wasn't sure what to expect. Certainly I was hoping that the CT would be useful for ruling things out, not ruling them in, but it sounded a heck of a lot more proactive than keeping a headache diary. [Entry 1. Sleep. Wake up. Headache. Entry 2. Sleep. Wake up. Headache....]
I can't say for absolutely certain, but I'm pretty sure that my consistent headaches began in mid-November, 2005. Not crippling headaches, necessarily (though one morning was pretty durned bad), but there. Aching. Especially in the morning, just as I woke up.
Frontal headaches, usually starting on one side or the other, but eventually a dull throb across my entire forehead. Similar to headaches I associate with eye strain... as if radiating from behind the eyes to the front of my head. What a way to start the day.
Once I got moving, they would lessen a bit... and they were easily controlled with over the counter stuff, like Tylenol. So while I would complain about them a bit to my wife (who certainly showed patience at first), I discounted them as annoying, but manageable.
As time wore on, though, it was clear that the headaches were getting to me -- and not just early in the morning. I was more irritable than usual, and seemed to be easily susceptible to the headaches coming back as I got tired during the day, or as the house grew noisy before bed, those sorts of things. Enough that my wife eventually put her foot down and made me take the matter up with my doctor.
That was in late February.
That's right... I dismissed consistent, recurring headaches for over three months before checking on them. I was focusing on the severity... but that's only one aspect.
On 3/2/06, I went in to see my doctor to discuss my headaches. He's a nice enough fellow, but not the most experienced person I've ever worked with. In his mind, the trick with headaches is trying to find the trigger. Since I didn't have any other serious symptoms (like vision problems, slurred speech, difficulty with motor skills, etc.) he was of the opinion that they were probably fairly ordinary headaches... perhaps caused by stress, or diet. He suggested I try keeping a headache diary, to try to find a trigger, and we could talk again in a month. Thanks to my wife's insistence, I conveyed the fact that we were concerned that there might be something "bigger" at work. To his credit, he listened to that and decided to schedule a head CT for the 7th.
It was an interesting weekend, after that. My wife had had a head MRI done before and hadn't found it to be the most fun experience in the world (like being stuffed into a toilet paper tube, I think she said), so I wasn't sure what to expect. Certainly I was hoping that the CT would be useful for ruling things out, not ruling them in, but it sounded a heck of a lot more proactive than keeping a headache diary. [Entry 1. Sleep. Wake up. Headache. Entry 2. Sleep. Wake up. Headache....]
# posted by JamesP3325 @ 9:46 PM 
