"According to the General Chiropractic Council, chiropractic is "a health profession concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, and the effects of these disorders on the function of the nervous system and general health".
Chiropractors (practitioners of chiropractic) use their hands to treat disorders of the bones, muscles and joints. Treatments that involve use of the hands in this way are called "manual therapies".
Chiropractors use a range of techniques, with an emphasis on manipulation of the spine. They may also offer advice on diet, exercise and lifestyle, and rehabilitation programmes that involve exercises to do in your own time. Some chiropractors may also offer other treatments, such as acupuncture.
Chiropractic is part of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This means that chiropractic is different in important ways from treatments that are part of conventional western medicine.
Some uses of chiropractic treatments are based on ideas and an evidence base that are not recognised by the majority of independent scientists."*
* http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chiropractic/pages/introduction.aspx
I wore a splint for over three months – sadly with no results. I am so tired of this! The pain didn’t get any better while wearing it, but the headache was always at a stable 2/10, which I cannot complain about. The dentist suggested seeing a colleague chiropractor. I have been seeing him now for a few weeks, although with no concrete results.
The chiropractor gave me various exercises to carry out at home, which I did religiously. During our sessions, which last a fleeting 15 minutes, he has carried out various neck exercises. My neck is certainly more flexible, which the chiropractor seems pleased with, although it hasn’t made any difference to my headache, which needless to say hasn’t pleased me too much.
I now have another two sessions left. I don’t want to be pessimistic, but given that it has made absolutely no difference to my head pain, I am not expecting any miracle cures over the next week.
In the last few weeks, however, just as I was about to take out the splint, the headache got substantially worse – to about a 6/10 last week which had not happened in a long time. One really forgets about how bad it can be. I thought my head was about to burst. I could feel the blood trying to push through my veins and pump away all over the right hand side of my head, thumping away. When my headache is bad, I can move my head about and feel the pain reverberating elsewhere in my head – like a loose tool in a box, it’s as if the pain were jumping about, digging into my skull.
Today it seems to have calmed down, at about a 3/10. Why? I just wish I knew.
Posts
http://lymemd.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/new-onset-chronic-daily-headache-in.html
ReplyDeleteAlso babesiosis (Which is like a malaria parasite, and it doesn't have to live in the red blood cells, it can live in the central nervous system)
Man, it's cool to see someone who's going through the same thing as me, but so disheartening to see that you haven't found a cure or some decent relief yet. The way you describe your pain really hits home for me - I feel exactly the same way and it's constantly there, yet sometimes goes down, triggering that "omg, it's going away" thinking pattern, only to be broken a day later by a 7/10 headache.
ReplyDeleteMy email is rpalmer92@live.com - I'd be very pleased if you could keep me updated via email and we could also maybe try to swap some ideas and just have a chat about it all in general!
I will comment more later with details, and I'm not thinking this is what you're dealing with, but I wanted to get the word out there for Systemic Candida. I had daily headaches for 4 years. Everyone assumes candida effects only digestive issues. No - it can ruin your life in many ways. Especially when it becomes systemic and causes Leaky Gut Syndrome. I am on my path to health by detoxing. Candida was verified doing a stool analysis.
ReplyDeleteI am new to the world of chronic headaches. Mine started in January 2014, so I've just rounded the corner on 6 months. It is only very recently that I've admitted to myself that I need to do something about this, or rather to attack it like I would any problem, on all fronts with as much effort as I can manage. Your description of your headache, a few posts ago, was very interesting to me. Mine is also in my right temple. Is this common?
ReplyDeleteI find your blog both encouraging and extremely depressing. I think it's amazing that you are still fighting this thing. Some of the emotional issues you bring up are already surfacing for me. This headache has started to define my life. It has started to define who I am. And somehow it feels good to know that other people with the same problem have gone through the same things. At the same time, you have worked so hard to find a cure, and haven't. It is so disheartening to think that this headache could still be with me 4 years from now. Thank you for sharing your own experience, I hope somewhere in here there may be a solution for me.
A close friend of mine used to have the exact same thing. She always had a headache. I would recommend going to see a specialist. It ended up being neck issues as to why she was having problems. http://lambtonphysio.com.au/phy/why-people-see-us/neck-pain-and-headaches
ReplyDeleteI have had a headache for 2 years and 9 months...every day. It seems unbelievable to me. I've had surgery, three of them, and still the headache. Reading your blog, was like hearing myself talk.
ReplyDeleteYou are not alone.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI had a headache from July 2011 until just a few months ago. I did a number of things, and I’m not sure what worked, but something did.
Here’s what I did:
-talked with a psychologist once a week
-started taking Cymbalta 60 mg/day
-saw a TMJ specialist in Nashville, TN (people come from all over to see him, apparently not all TMJ specialists are created equally.This guy is one of the “head haunches” in the cranio-facial pain realm) --- His name is H. Clifton Simmons-- http://www.cliftonsimmons.com/index.htm. To be honest, this is what I think helped the most.
-worked on my posture
-did neurofeedback (don’t think this did anything)
-really focused on the “fake it til you make it” philosophy (have you seen the documentary or read the book “The Secret”? It sounds dumb, and it may well be, but it helped me I think.
I found your blog in 2012/2013 when i was at a really really low point and basically devoid of hope that my headache would get better. Thank you for the comfort it gave me--it made me feel I wasn’t alone, and at the time that gift was a small, yet very powerful comfort.
Let me know if you/anyone else looking for headache answers want(s) to talk in detail about headaches/things to look into.
And remember, I got better!!! That’s good news not just for me but for all of us!
also, my email is amy.cover@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteHi Amy, thank you for your message and for sharing your experience. I am glad to hear things have worked out for you, and it's nice to know my blog was of comfort in one way or another.
ReplyDeleteWill take a look at the Secret film you mentioned - I haven't seen it.
Could you please tell me what exactly you did with the TMJ specialist? What treatment did he give you? What were your symptoms originally? Just a headache, or did you have other symptoms too?
Thank you.
I just had headache. It was on both sides. I started gradually, and then one day just stuck and didn’t go away. I didn’t have any of the ear stuffiness or shoulder pain or crazy popping that people talk about.My jaw did click when it opened and closed, but it wasn’t anything super noticeable.
ReplyDeleteI emailed the details of the treatment, for anyone else looking for details, shoot me and email or look at this blog post. This lady did a pretty good job describing the process. http://katemcafee.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-tmj-odyssey.html
What everybody seems to be overlooking is the "trigeminal nerve". I'm surprised you haven't got a tag on this blog that relates to it. It's one of the most important nerves in your face. I'd suggest you do a bit of research on this nerve. It's probably not spoken about often enough. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteAlhamdulillah my 30 years headache is lessen due to multiple efforts. Today I ordered "Amino balance" as its the only food that really heal. Wish me luck.
ReplyDeleteI read your blog months ago, when I was a few months in to having NDPH and facial pain. My headache started on the 28th July 2013. I tried a huge number of different pain drugs, epilepsy drugs, nerve blocks, herbal remedies, osteopathy, trigger point massage, hypnotism, reiki, crystal healing and my friend even dragged me along to a shaman! (Yep, I was desperate at that point!).
ReplyDeleteI also have tinnitus along with the pain, and found some people on a tinnitus forum (Tinnitus Talk) taking a fairly new epilepsy drug - Retigabine which works differently to all the others I'd tried, a couple were totally cured after a few months, and were able to stop the drug. I figured that as my tinnitus started at the same time they must be related. So I searched more online and found some research that showed it helped with neuropathic pain in rats.
I went back to my neurologist, Dr Mark Weatherall in London, and asked him about it. He had prescribed it to a couple of epilepsy patients but never for pain. After he researched it himself he prescribed it to me. I've been taking it for 6 weeks now, still tapering up and each time I taper up 50mg the pain level drops even more. I'm getting hours some days now of virtually no pain at all (that never happened before) and the rest of the time the level is much less than before.
I'm also taking 50mg of Dosulepin (an antidepressant) with it, which I've been on since the middle of last year. Dosulepin only knocked the pain level down a notch or two, nothing as major as the relief I'm getting from Retigabine.
If you want to try another drug I really can't recommend this enough. I hope it will work for others too. I'm writing to all the websites I visited when I was pretty much bedridden in agony, as I want something good to come out of that year and a half of extreme pain.
This probably sounds like some kind of drug or doctor advert but it isn't I promise you. I see Dr Weatherall free on the NHS. The neurologist I saw before him shouted at me for researching, I know he would never have listened and prescribed this to me!
Not sure what country you're in, but in the US it's called Potiga/Ezogabine.
P.s. If you need to show your doctor some print outs of research evidence, here's some links:
http://www.molecularpain.com/content/10/1/15
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/npp/research/dab/npp/dab/Lang.PM_et_al_2008sdarticle.pdf
http://www.molecularpain.com/content/6/1/49
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12559370
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/23/18/7227.full.pdf
Hello - i was recently diagnosed with NDPH and was wondering if any treatments have been helpful for you?
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Hello all, I have come across this blog a few times in the last few months and I thought I would briefly say where i'm at. I'm 21yrs old and i've had a headache since the age of 11, at the start I couldn't stand it, I missed lots of school as a result,the after seeing countless doctors after one year I knuckled down and realized it was staying with me, over the few years following I did every treatment I could find and saw everyone that came my way, nothing helped, the way I coped was buy distraction, I studied, I learnt new things, and found interests in knowledge. It has huet my parents to see me with the pain as well as those who knew about it, in public I can hide it, at home not so much... But now I live away from my parents and every time I talk to them I tell them i'm fine and avoid the topic. I have given up on finding a solution and only wish I had the faith that you still seem to have, all I can do is wait and study. Usually it's a 4/10 peaking to 8/10 twice a week. Twice in the last 10yrs I have been hospitalized due to being paralysed because of the pain, not being able to communicate because of the pain and blacking out because of the pain. Remaining in hospital for 3-4 days receiving pethadine as pain killer but no solution, so I go on. I hope you find your cure and you keep moving forward with your quest, as mine started at a young age, I do not remember what life is like without the pain . I wish you the best and everyone else good luck!
ReplyDeleteWas in minor car accident in May 2008 and have had headache ever since. Was at stop light and got hit from behind. Much worse in beginning but last several years it's been a 1 or a 2. Noise (even soothing sounds) and lights and temperature oh yeah and stress makes it much worse. Had a brain CT, cat scan and saw a chiropractor but tests showed nothing and chiropractor didn't do much but help get kinks out. Someone mentioned the trigeminal nerve... definitely going to look into that!
ReplyDeleteI just came across your blog as I was reading about my own issues. It looks like it has been inactive for awhile, but in case you still have the issues or anyone else comes across this blog in search of answers I wanted to share just a small portion of my story. Very very very long story short, I also suffer through migraines. It has been years now. It is a combination of things and really too much to get into for a comment, but part was food sensitivities, which changed to an epidural leak, which couples with stress and tension and you have a perfect storm of daily migraines. When I hear these stories I feel so much empathy and sadness that I want to be able to share any tidbit or chance of relief I can. There are two things that have greatly improved my migraines that I have 90% free migraine days a month. 1) magnesium supplement with topamax and 2) Botox injections every 3 months. Your best bet would be to see a neurologist, and if they are a great doctor these solutions would be a great option for you if others were exhausted. As a side note: if your doctor is not helping, find another doctor! You know your body and you know if something is not right.
ReplyDeleteIf you have any questions feel free to comment and I will try and check in to see if there are any, because no one should have to continually live through this with no help and no hope.
Hi there. I found your blog years ago in 2010 at the beginning of my journey with a chronic headache. I got better about a year later but have had stretches of weeks/month long pain in between. I'm also in the UK and really love the way you write - I rediscovered your blog recently after a few years absence. It seems that you haven't posted in some time, but if you get this comment it would be great to share some experiences.
ReplyDeleteAn email address you can contact me on is s1147340@ed.ac.uk.
Best wishes,
Isabel