Ice Pick Headaches / Brain Pains

[Mr Light]

Anyone here with medical knowledge?

I've been having this problem since I was a teenager, for twenty years. Every few months or so, out of nowhere, I feel a sudden stabbing pain in the back of my head, like a throbbing vein in my brain. It's always in the exact same spot, just left of center near the base and running up. Sometimes I feel a pressure suggesting it could happen, sometimes not. It seems to come when my head is tilted a certain way, like down and to the right, and it always sometimes happen when I'm stressed (but not always). Some days it's a little pulse, other days it's a 'oh my god is this the one that's going to kill me' protracted pulsing lasting several seconds.

In the past week, it's been happening every single day now. This has never happened before. It's always one spaced wide apart. I did have a very stressful day a week ago, but I've had stressful days before without this happening.

Some googling suggests an "ice pick headache", only mine is not in the eye/temple area and I'm not 45 years ago. The scarier options are brain tumor or aneurysm, though I doubt I've been having an aneurysm for 20 years with no other symptoms or damage.

http://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/ice-pick-headaches

Obviously I've never gone to a doctor about this; I have a deep crippling fear of needles, doctors, hospitals, etc.

 

[DimesDan]

Obviously I've never gone to a doctor about this

Obviously you should see a doctor about this regardless of your fears of medical environments.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

In the past week, it's been happening every single day now. This has never happened before.

Dude. You NEED to see a doctor. Doctors and medical procedures might be scary but so is dying from something you could have treated. As we get older the likelihood hood of having something serious just skyrockets and guess what, in the age before medicine you just DIED. Now we don't (always) have to do that. So please, get a recommendation from a friend or family member for a nice doctor and start exploring what this could be.

Maybe you can find a friend or family member who can commit to coming along with you. This is a good idea anyway if you are overwhelmed/scared by medical things, good to have someone along who can ask questions and remember what the doctor said which is sometimes hard if you are the patient.

 

[Relayer1]

It's unlikely to be anything serious if you've been having them that long. I've been having very infrequent cluster headaches / migraines for many years and the last one lasted a month. I don't worry about them any more, BUT I have seen a doctor.

You need to too, even if it's only to put your mind at rest...

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Go to a doctor, fear be damned. It could be just migraine or migraine-related symptoms, or it could be indicative of something else, something more serious. In any case, doctors have ways of testing you and finding this stuff out. More so than a bunch of people on the internet who have never examined you.

Seriously...just go.

 

[Mr Light]

My nurse friend is pretty sure it's just headaches. I'm gonna finally bite the bullet to go to a clinic tomorrow. Because I didn't have any other plans ;-) I'll happily get an MRI or CAT scan, it's just needles that completely freak me out.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

still you should see a doc. The way you describe it it is possibly a slipped (or just worn down) disc in your neck that pinches either a nerve or a blood vessel. To make sure of that you need a MRI or MR angiograpy. NO pain involved and you'll ony get a tiny injection in your arm to make the blood vessels better visible. With an aneurism you should already be familiar with the procedure.

Brain tumor or cancer is unlikely (though not 100% impossible) as typically both lead to rather sudden and drastic changes in memory, behaviour or motorical skills, depending on their location. (Had 3 cases in my family, hence I am more familiar with the symptoms than I like).

Since you already have an aneurism it is more possible than in other people that the prob is triggered by a second one in your neck. As the brain stem controls such important things as breathing and heartbeat, you should no longer hesitate to see a doctor. There are so many possible causes that you ought to let some highly qualified person rule out the more dangerous ones. No offense to your GF - indubitably she is experienced and well trained in such matters - but she has no x-ray vision.

 

[Mr Light]

^^
I've never had an aneurysm. To my knowledge. Also she's not my girlfriend haha

I'm going in a few hours.

 

[Mr Light]

OK I went to see a doctor today. She said oh that's just headaches and gave me a perscription. But if they're still going on in a week I could go see a neurologist.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Standard treatment protocol.....look at/rule out the simple stuff before you send the patient to a specialist to look at other possibilities. I had to go through this when getting an autoimmune disease diagnosed in 2014, and I was misdiagnosed 3 times before one doc finally got it right.

It's annoying but I see why they do it this way. Hopefully all you have is just headaches.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

yep, same here: 10 years odyssee because of frequent ventricular fibrillation. And then we found out it was a dislocated rib that pinched the nerve that controls the heart's own pacemaker cells. Couldn't possibly get much crazier LOL.

 

[Mr Light]

So, I'm taking the perscription motrin and it seems to do nothing. I was better over the weekend but once I got back to work to yesterday it started again. I had like three prolonged pulses just this morning (before leaving for work) which is like an all time record.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Hopefully a neurologist figures it out. The thing is, it's weird sometimes with doctors. Sometimes you get ones that don't like you saying ANYTHING other than describing your symptoms, because then they categorize you as a hypochondriac who looks at WebMD all day and diagnoses themselves. They take the attitude of "I know better than you, so keep quiet, 'kay?" and sometimes it's passive aggressive. And they have their way of showing their ass, like making you wait or being extremely curt.

Or you get the docs that listen, and go over things line-by-line, and take your input into account. I had to go through this after I was misdiagnosed. It happened enough, and I had been to so many doctors, that I was pissed off. I got lucky that I finally found a doctor that listened to me when I said "The GI doc said I had this, the neurologist said I had this, the rheumatologist said I had this...I DON'T HAVE THAT. This feels DIFFERENT. It might be something else, a sum of the parts, and I think that what the other docs are doing is diagnosing the SYMPTOMS..."

She listened. She saw the frustration. Maybe she was naturally empathetic, maybe she was just having a good day, but she said "Alright, then let's start over." She looked at months worth of test results and notes (it didn't take very long, actually), and found something that honestly, the rheumatologist should've caught and didn't.

She tested for what she thought it was, and yep...correct. Six months of seeing doctors and one who actually took her time and listened (rather than assumed, or getting caught up in symptoms) finally got it right. I got on an immunosuppressant and felt better within a matter of days.

The experience taught me a lot about doctors, really.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, I've had a bunch of good doctors who took their time to listen. It can make a huge difference when they take the time to actually hear someone out. Ironically, I had to go see a specialist one time, and word was that he wasn't terribly good in terms of bedside manners. I don't know if he was having a good day or what, but I actually had a really positive experience with him. Had to think he had had a change in his outlook .

 

[publiusr]

The experience taught me a lot about doctors, really.

I've got some horror stories for you

My Dad complained of back pain for years. One doctor told him to walk more each day. He just bought a golf cart that had conked out to avoid having to do just that. He couldn't make them understand when he said "your back isn't supposed to hurt--like this!" The family doctor said he was already on too much medication to go on arthritis medicine. I told my Dad--with the doc sitting there, that we just need to go somewhere else.

"All right--we'll send you to..."

On Dec. 31st of 2013, mind you, he was subjected to assembly line medicine. Put a back brace on an old person, repeat. Get them out the door.

A month later, my Dad can barely walk. I drive past an entrance to what law enforcement called "Kill-on-the-hill" or "Murder-Center-East." I ask a nurse for the empty wheelchair she is wheeling back.

No.

He got catheterized, and an appointment was made for an off site MRI.

We got the results back literally the day we put my Dad in the ground (Feb 1st 2004)

He was eaten up with cancer that was all in his spine and his legs. That and a knot on his aorta.

My Mom didn't outlive him four months.

No lawyer wanted the case--"they were old."

 

[BillJ]

Maybe go to an optometrist?

 

[Spot's Meow]

Maybe go to an optometrist?

This may not be a bad idea, if you have not been in a while. If you already go regularly and wear glasses you can disregard this, but if you don't wear glasses and haven't been for while then it might be related to needing glasses. Before I had my glasses I would get headaches sometimes, and looking back on it now I think it was related to staring at a computer screen all day at work and/or straining to see. I still get occasional headaches (these are more hormonal I believe), but getting my eyesight checked did cut down on some of them.

Of course, the place where you describe the headache doesn't sound like it's close to the eyes, but it never hurts to get a checkup anyway.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

I've got some horror stories for you

Yeah, your dad should have been given a blood test and an MRI after he complained about the pain longer than 6 months. That's utterly ridiculous that they blamed It on age and didn't at least do some tests.

In my case, I guess I was lucky in that they knew "something" was going on, because my resting heart rate became 90-ish, my active heart rate was somewhere around 115-120 (despite being on a beta blocker), and I started to ache. ALL OVER. All in my bones. In my muscles. And I was just 29 at the time.

One doctor dismissed it as "You have cerebral palsy, maybe these are just aches and pains. But I'll refer you to a cardiologist for the fast heart rate."

I get to the cardiologist, a rather cantankerous and booming old man, and he was like "Why the hell didn't they order a blood test? You haven't had one in 2 years." And he bellowed to his nurse to come stick me with a needle. If I hadn't been hurting so much, I would've laughed. But he also made a mistake...he put me on a calcium channel blocker and increased the beta blocker to "control" my speeding heart. Long story short, that didn't work, and it made my right foot swell, which I still have today, 2.5 years later.

But the blood test showed that my hemoglobin was really low for a man....I don't have periods, so I must be bleeding from somewhere. They send me to a GI doctor. In the MONTH I have to wait for that damn appointment, the pain gets worse, I am losing weight, my hair is falling out, and I am no longer able to transfer myself in and out of my wheelchair, to my bed, get dressed, shower, etc. And if I get any sleep at all, it's 2-3 hours a night.

At this point, I'm thinking "I have cancer. At 29. Fucking hell."

They order more blood tests. They send me to a rheumatologist who thinks the pain is psoriatic arthritis after taking 20 xrays. The blood test that detects overall inflammation in the body shows that mine is literally off the charts. I have an MRI. No test can find cancer. They then think it's some autoimmune thing.

GI doc orders a colonoscopy to rule out stuff. With the pain I was in, that was the worst 24 hours of my life. "Oh, a colonoscopy prep isn't that bad," they say....my ass. It was hell for me. But GI doc sees that 1/3 of my colon is inflamed. She thinks it's Crohns. She orders 2 more tests to see if I am properly digesting/absorbing food and nutrients. Ugh.

I see a neurologist. I see another rheumatologist. I even go to Duke University and get examined there by THREE doctors who think it is a vague inflammatory issue with related Crohns disease. I see a podiatrist for my stupid swollen foot.

I see a pain management doctor, which turns out to be the worst experience I've ever had with a doctor, because the guy was a dismissive, arrogant piece of shit who claimed I had been to another pain doc when I hadn't, portraying me as someone trying to score drugs. He tried to claim I was lying ("I don't like liars," he said), and he had "state records" to prove it. If I could prove I'd never been seen by this other office, he'd "consider" treating me. He used his position of authority to railroad me, and imply I was drifting from clinic to clinic, when in fact the only pain medication I had EVER been on came from my GP, and after rationing it, I was finally running out. He looked like Robert Carradine from Revenge of the Nerds, and I hated his smug face and his manner.

So I went to the office he said I was treated at (they were aghast at his accusation, since I was never in their patient system), and got them to write a letter that I had never been seen by them. I sent the letter to his office, and at the bottom I wrote "I don't like liars."

ANYWAY, at this point I was at my wits' end. I was running out of pain medication, didn't want to go back to ANY pain management doc after the experience I had, and didn't want to take any more meds lest I form an addiction. My crazy aunt tried to tell me that everything would get better if I took turmeric daily and stopped using fluoride toothpaste. So I saw one final rheumatologist. The consensus at this point was that I was suffering from "Crohns-related bodywide inflammation" and a mystery autoimmune illness causing the bone/muscle/joint pain.

Basically, she noticed something the FIRST rheumatologist should've noticed immediately. A uveitis diagnosis 6 months prior. That was a major sign that all those other doctors either missed or didn't know about. It made my diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis all but sewn up, but she still tested to be sure. All the related symptoms I had were because of this. Every single one. I had a particularly nasty case of AS, but it explained everything, even the colon inflammation (which wasn't Crohns after all). And all those other doctors were chasing the symptoms rather than looking for other signs. A simple daily dose of oral immunosuppresants was all I needed. No pain meds or anything else.

I couldn't believe it. It was so simple. How in the hell did so many of them miss it?

Live and learn.

 

[RandyS]

Do you have a family history of headaches? I suffer from chronic migraines which I inheiritied from my mom, who in turn got them from her dad. Although I take both perscription and over the counter medicines for them, sometimes the only thing that kills them is to sleep them off. It was the same with mom and grandpa.

But I agree with everybody else, go see a doctor.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

same here, Randy. My great-grandmother wrote in her recipe book that applying a slice of lemon peel to your forehead lessens headaches. I tried it out last time I had a Sinusitis and it worked amazingly well. It cools and soothens. Next time I get a migraine I'll give it a try again. I think it might work with a mild one; I'm sceptical about a major one, though. Usually, I take Metamizole drops but this drug is forbidden in many countries (eg the US). Works miracles against a migraine, though =)