Pain in my head

[Jules0515]

When I lay on my right side at night, I get a really bad pain on the right side of my head. However, when I roll over and switch to the left side...the pain shifts as well. Then, I try lying flat on my back and the base of my head begins to hurt. Has anyone ever experienced this or have any idea what may be going on? My ENT suggests that it could be sinus drainage that drains to various sinus cavities depending upon how I am sleeping. Someone else suggested it may be related to a problem with cerebral fluid.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have,

Julie

[Dr Sharma]

Hi there. There are various causes of headaches.  These headaches could be due to stress, anxiety, migraines or tension headaches, sinus headaches radiating to the ear, headache usually front of head, on one or both  the sides of temples along with nausea, vomiting, irritability, low blood pressure, sensitivity to lights, sound, etc. aura associated with migraines could include blind spots, blindness in half of your visual field, paresthesia, weakness or visual hallucinations. Your vision needs detailed testing by an ophthalmologist. Hypertension and hypotension need to be checked. An MRI brain is warranted to rule out any intracranial lesion particularly aneurysm and MRI spine for ruling out cervical spondylosis and degenerative disc disease.  Temporal tendinitis mimics migraines including TMJ pain temporal headaches, tooth sensitivity, neck and shoulder pain. Treatment includes injecting local anesthetics and other medicines, moist heat muscle relaxants and NSAIDs along with physiotherapy. Multiple sclerosis would also need to be excluded. Treatment for migraines include drugs that prevent the attack like anti convulsants and drugs which treat an attack like triptans, ergots etc your queries should pertain to all these possible differential diagnoses. Trigeminal neuralgia needs to be considered. If the neurologist and radiologist are suspecting a cerebral aneurysm, they can confirm with cerebral angiography and clipping of the aneurysm could be done. This appears to be due to sinus inflammation through an infection due to postural variation of head, may be accompanied with fever and diagnosed by MRI or CT SCAN. Hope this helps. Take care.

[Caryopteris]

Have you tried sleeping with your head elevated?  You need to support your upper back, neck and head so you don't crimp your neck if you do this.  I used to have sinus problems, and this helped.  But I didn't want to sleep in this position all the time.  I discovered my sinus problems went away when I stopped using dairy.