Re: Chronic Headache/Daily 28 years

Posted By CCF Neuro[P] MD, RPS on January 25, 1999 at 18:05:57:

In Reply to: Chronic Headache/Daily 28 years posted by Lanelle Chastain on January 25, 1999 at 14:58:22:






I am a 33 y/o female.  I have had daily headache pain for as long as I can remember. The pain is a dull ache between and behind my eyes.  I have seen GP's, Ear Nose & Throat Spec., Neurologist in my early years and was pronounced physically fine. Since that time, prior to 10 years of age, I have had two more CT's and most recently an MRI last March which revealed nothing of any note. I have been prescribed a number of medications from aspirin to beta blockers to pain killers to anti-depressants. Nothing has ever eliminated the pain, only aleviated it for a brief period. On the 1 to 10 scale most of the time it is at 1-3. For the past 11 days it has been mostly an 8 to 10. These episodes seem to be more frequent and last longer as I get older.  I also suffer from tenitis and have had this as long as I can remember.
There do not seem to be any "Headache" specialists here in Seattle or they are very difficult to find.  This all seems to be out of the realm of my GP.  Has anyone ever heard of anything that remotely resembles what I have described and is there any advice that you could give to me? Are there any specialists in the US to whom I could correspond or perhaps see for this disorder?
Thanking you in advance.
Lanelle Chastain
Dear Ms. Chastain:
Sorry to hear about your headache.  Wow, daily for 33 years.  I am sure that it must be some sort of record.  Since every thing that has been done has been negative for really terrible things, besides the nagging headache at least your not in pending doom.  Your probably have done the headache diary, the correlation with foods, and the myriad of medications.  It is hard to tell you what we would do, but if you were coming to us and having daily headaches for a much shorter time (1-2 years), we would probably start a medication called Elavil (probably have been on it) and steadily raise the dose until an effect is seen or the dose got to be 5 mg/kg/day.  Then we would try something else, probably like every one else.  Somewhere down the line we likely would have tried 400 mg of Riboflavin (a B vitamin) for a few weeks.  But I am sure you have tried all of these.  There is one of the best headache specialist at Thomas Jefferson in Philly.  His name is Dr. Silberstein and he runs the headache clinic.  Another
expert is a Dr. Diamond at the University of Chicago.  It wouldn't hurt to give them a telephone call.  Sorry, that I can be more definitive.  Best of luck with your headache.
Sincerely,
CCF Neuro[P] MD