Post-traumatic headaches

[wakey]

I am still having 24/7 headaches (among other things like fatigue, noise & light sensitivity, etc.) that worsen with activity, mental or physical. I can't seem to kick them even for a minute. I would appreciate any advice on this. This is really debilitating.

[Eowyn]

How long ago was your injury? What have you tried?

[Eowyn]

What diagnostics have you had done? What kind of doctors/practitioners have you seen?

Have you taken any supplements? Done any therapy trials?

[Eowyn]

Here are a few articles I found informative (varying from readable to quite scholarly):

http://www.brainline.org/content/200...r_pageall.html

http://www.neuropsychologycentral.co...c_headache.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22373462

[Chitown]

Hi,

This is my first time doing this. But I am just frustrated. I am 21 and well, I received a mild concussion in October of 2010. I am a retired tumbler, but at the time I was doing a major skill on an event and ended up flying into a cement wall with the back of my head and upper back/neck. Every day, and I mean every day, since that night I have had a headache. I am on my third neurologist and I have lost count of how many different medications I have tried but really nothing has helped.

I don't know what has happened to all of you or what you have been able to do. I just wanted to see if there has been anything that has really helped you. Personally I have never met anyone that has gone through this so nobody really understands what it is like to have the constant headache day in and day out without anything that seems to actually help. It is just so frustrating and I have been losing hope that this will get better since so much of what I have read on the symptoms of Post Traumatic Headache is that it usually goes away in a few days, weeks, months, or a year.

Sorry for a semi-rant. As I keep saying it is just so frustrating and the doctor that I am seeing currently (which has been over a year) is having me come in less and says it is great there has been no change and to keep going along with what I have been doing. Then tells me to try not to be stressed which is rather hard to not let happen since I am in college while having two jobs.

Thanks for reading this. =/

[Mark in Idaho]

Chitown

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Ouch, your impact on the wall hurts.

Have you had any diagnostics of your upper neck? I bet it is injured. Icing it can be a good therapy. If it helps, you almost have a diagnosis. The Brainline article I posted at the start of this thread talks about these head aches. They are rarely properly diagnosed and treated. It takes special imaging to show the fine injury, usually stretched/torn ligaments and damaged cartilage. This causes inflammation that lead to muscle spasms and nerve inflammation to this area.

If you have tender spots behind your ears, especially where the skull ends, that is a classic upper cervical injury from concussion/head impact.

Do a search on this forum for "NUCCA" to find posts about upper cervical chiropractors.

Tell us more about yourself and the things you have done to try to recover from your injury. There are dietary/nutritional things you should do to minimize head aches. Alcohol, caffeine, MSG, "Artificial Sweeteners" and some others. Also you daily activity level can seriously impact head aches. I get them from reading for too long. I need to close my eyes for 5 or 10 minutes to get some relief.

Feel free to unload. Your 1st post was not a rant, just even a semi-rant. We are very tolerant of people dealing with PCS. We all have lived with PCS.

My best to you.

[Eowyn]

Have you had a vision efficiency evaluation (VEE)? For some of us, difficulty with our eyes working together has also contributed to headaches. The VEE is different from a regular medical eye exam.

You can find practitioners at http://www.braininjuries.org or http://www.nora.cc in the United States.