Headaches/anexity after substance use

[nafet]

I've never really had that much of an issue with anxiety. 6-7 years ago, at the age of 21/22, I would get a few debilitating out-of-nowhere full blown attacks; in all likelihood these were due to an existential bump I was going through. But since then things have improved. In recent years, I've just had the occasional anxious thought, but never attacks.

For two months and one week, I've been dealing with an atypical headache issue. It all started after an evening of drinking and coke snorting(a habit I've since kicked). Later into the night I began feeling awfully anxious and an odd feeling of pressure was felt on the left side of my head(temple, and ear)-- it felt like a blood vessel/artery was to constricted, it went away quickly. I have no history of headaches.

The next morning I woke up with a constant, mildly irritating, pressure feeling mostly localized to the left side of my head, sometimes felt on the right. In addition to this my anxiety is up a few notches, not sure if it's because of this, which makes it a compounding factor. It's like the feeling of wearing a hat that's a bit too tight. I was better off shying away from coffee, or even beer(for a while). I saw my primary care physician; he did the basic tests for neurological damage(gross and fine motor skills) all were good. He suspected vascular issues so he ordered an MRA of my head and neck, but the scans revealed no abnormalities.

The next step was a neurologist. He thought my reaction to caffeine could be consistent to a migraine with an aura(tingling in left extremities, stiffness in neck, accompanied by amplified head pressure). And that the pain could be vasospastic in nature. He instructed me to take Tylenol in case it gets worse, and a nutritional supplement high in B2, Magnesium and feverfew(for 3 months) in case it's a migraine. He didn't rule out anxiety/stress.
I went back to my primary physician for a second opinion. He thought chronic migraines were unlikely since I have no personal/family history of it, but vascular pain could be a cause. His guess was that the main culprit was stress and anxiety which could all eventually subside in less than a moth, and that I just needed to relax.

Could head pressure type feelings be due to anxiety? They do feel a bit similar to the ones I had during the attacks I had way back in the day.

[dominosarah]

Are you feeling any better?  I am glad you were honest with your doctor!

[dominosarah]

Yes the head pressure can come from anxiety.  How long have you been clean off coke?  Did you tell your doctors you had done that?

[nafet]

Yes I did tell them that.