Headaches

What a surprise, I get headaches, a lot of them. Sometimes I think my life is one big headache. Grr. I have been getting them since I was 8. It was an interesting scenario. Picture this: Sicily 1922 (oh sorry, that's an episode out of the golden girls). Anywho, it was ahlloween day, we came to school dressed in costume. By morning tea I was starting on my first ever migraine. My teacher (who btw, had been an inpatient at a mental health facility the year before and I don't think was coping that well with the stress of teaching) refused to send me to the sick bay, so I spent all recess with my head in my friends lap. After recess she ended up sending me to sickbay, but weirdly told them not to call mum. I got my lunch order delivered there, didn't eat it, but dozed on and off for the rest of the day. At the end of school, my friend collected me and told me that shed get her mum to drive me home (I used to walk). The school had one of the first pedestrian crossings in Melbourne and halfway through it, I did a power spew......and promptly started crying. All I remember of the rest of the day was mum putting me in bed and talking to my friends mother for a while at the gate about it. I believe she complained to the school about this incident, but this is not a whingeing about my headache qt 8, I know there were far worse things that could've happened in my childhood. It was just the first one ever.
As you may be aware, I have a meningioma (only a small one left, but still there). It will be gone by the end of the year after dr teo has finished with me, but I think I'll still get headaches and will still feel a lot of paranoia about them. Being somewhat of an expert on headaches, I shall discourse about them here (that sounded impressive, didn't it?).
Migraines: often one wide of the head, can cause photo phobia (light sensitivity) and loud noises can be unbearable. Can be accompanied by an "aura", such as visual disturbances and quite often nausea and vomiting are the end result. Yay. Lie in a quiet, dark room and take painkillers. You can take medication as a preventative if you get them often enough.
Cluster headaches:similar but usually not one sided.
Tension headaches: stress can cause them apparently, so they're considered one that can be managed by lifestyle.
Hunger headache: I've had these. Been skinny/slim all my life, so I eat a lot, just to stoke the fire continually. I'd say, the drop in blood sugar levels bring on the headache, but I have NOT researched this. This is anecdotal evidence (as they say).
Sinus headaches: caused by viruses etc, gaarh! I hate the feeling where you think your face will explode. Steam, cold and flu medicine etc can help this. If there's an infection, antibiotics.
Referred pain: if the muscles around your head or neck are stiff/sore, you'll get a headache. Heat, blessed heat, massage if you're lucky and pain relief if necessary.
Sadly I've pretty much had all of these. My lifelong history of headaches was probably part of the reason I saw 5 different doctors before one ordered a CT scan for me. Even hen the bad nes came back my GP said "you don't come across as someone with a tumor" even dr teo was surprised I had no other real symptoms. Go figure.
My only advice? If you have persistent headaches, be persistent yourself in getting answers. If you have pain upon standing up, see your doctor straight away, something is definitely wrong. That was the only other symptom I had and it was a recent one, telling my GP I had that probably saved my life.
Hmmm, this post was meant to be humouress as well. I'll leave you with this for humor. I got told recently that a woman (in the US) claimed that immunizations caused her toddlers brain tumor. No, it's not the fact that this woman's child is dead from a tumour, that's a tragedy. It's the lengths to which this woman went to link the vaccines to the tumour. Ive since found her letter to a politician on the net and she put a lot of work into, basically bad science.