Is Your Headache A Migraine?

Michael John Coleman once had a migraine headache that lasted for 21 days. "The first five days, you do not sleep," said Coleman, executive director of MAGNUM, a national migraine group.

[jatwood]

TMD misdiagnosed as migraines for years - yeshiva test insufficient to diagnose migraine:

After years of being completely disabled by neck and head pain, that is always diagnosed as migraines, I have proven that I have severe TMD instead. I score 3 for 3 on the Yeshiva University "Is it a migraine or not?" test. Only triptans help beat down the headache once it is severe enough. However, I have always complained that my prodrome and postdrome are often as bad as the 'migraine-like phase', with neck and head pain at least as painful, and what I call my 'pain attacks' didn't start until after years of untreated pain for an undiagnosed broken neck. Nor do migraines run in my family.

Since the neck to fingertip injury I reported to my HMO in '93 was NOT carpal tunnel, I finally got my requested neck x-ray in '96, which showed the spinal cord kinked, or folded over upon itself, with the inside halves of C5-C7 crumpled away. After the lamination, I stopped regularly losing all use of my hands and now have 30% of my former arm/hand strength.
But the neck, head, shoulder, etc., pain kept getting worse and worse, and when an emergency room doctor suggested triptans that helped a little, I started a 6 year nightmare of migraine treatment for what wasn't migraines. I suspect that since Repax/Imitrex act as anti-inflammatories, they helped once my entire meninges gets inflammed. Years of preventative side effects didn't help, and I was eventually shuffled off to a pain doctor. I was surprised when synthetic opiates helped for a few weeks, but only for a few weeks. Until some TMD articles became available years later on the web, I never realized that I was temporarily interupting chronic jaw clenching when I got those few weeks of relief at the end of 2003.

I'd already done biteguards and arthrotenseis surgery many years earlier and been told that I had TMj but that everything that could be done had been done and that it wasn't progressive. Well, it was. What an unnecessary waste of a life.

A first session with botox gave minimal relief after a week, for a couple of weeks, but I obviously need more; my chewing isn't weaker, nor, I suspect, the clenching. For years My family and doctors chided me for avoiding sleeping, but I pointed out that only 15 or more hours after awakening did I occasionally begin to feel human. If I sleep more than 1 hour, I often get an attack that crescendos for 24- 48 hours, and takes 36 to 48 hours for resolution and recovery. If I tape my nose almost shut, it forces me to mouthbreathe, which allows me to sleep 3-5 hours without kicking off the 'pain attack' cycle.

I am currently waiting for a second botox appointment, and am sad to think of how ruined financially I have been by 15 years of mis-diagnoses, co-pays, inability to work, and now the rationing of healthcare by keeping off-label drug uses (like botox for TMD) off label as long as possible thus unre-imbursable, while those without much $$ try to scrape up clinical trials...but, who am I to complain if the trashed 15+ years of my life are resolved by off label treatment from my own diagnosis?

Just make sure you rule out bruxism's silent, insidious sibling 'jaw clenching' if you have one sided headaches that aren't really strongly pulsing. And take the yeshiva test with a grain of my salty tears.

[Groucho AKA Falcon 68]

jatwood wrote:

TMD misdiagnosed as migraines for years - yeshiva test insufficient to diagnose migraine:
After years of being completely disabled by neck and head pain, that is always diagnosed as migraines, I have proven that I have severe TMD instead. I score 3 for 3 on the Yeshiva University "Is it a migraine or not?" test. Only triptans help beat down the headache once it is severe enough. However, I have always complained that my prodrome and postdrome are often as bad as the 'migraine-like phase', with neck and head pain at least as painful, and what I call my 'pain attacks' didn't start until after years of untreated pain for an undiagnosed broken neck. Nor do migraines run in my family.
Since the neck to fingertip injury I reported to my HMO in '93 was NOT carpal tunnel, I finally got my requested neck x-ray in '96, which showed the spinal cord kinked, or folded over upon itself, with the inside halves of C5-C7 crumpled away. After the lamination, I stopped regularly losing all use of my hands and now have 30% of my former arm/hand strength.
But the neck, head, shoulder, etc., pain kept getting worse and worse, and when an emergency room doctor suggested triptans that helped a little, I started a 6 year nightmare of migraine treatment for what wasn't migraines. I suspect that since Repax/Imitrex act as anti-inflammatories, they helped once my entire meninges gets inflammed. Years of preventative side effects didn't help, and I was eventually shuffled off to a pain doctor. I was surprised when synthetic opiates helped for a few weeks, but only for a few weeks. Until some TMD articles became available years later on the web, I never realized that I was temporarily interupting chronic jaw clenching when I got those few weeks of relief at the end of 2003.
I'd already done biteguards and arthrotenseis surgery many years earlier and been told that I had TMj but that everything that could be done had been done and that it wasn't progressive. Well, it was. What an unnecessary waste of a life.
A first session with botox gave minimal relief after a week, for a couple of weeks, but I obviously need more; my chewing isn't weaker, nor, I suspect, the clenching. For years My family and doctors chided me for avoiding sleeping, but I pointed out that only 15 or more hours after awakening did I occasionally begin to feel human. If I sleep more than 1 hour, I often get an attack that crescendos for 24- 48 hours, and takes 36 to 48 hours for resolution and recovery. If I tape my nose almost shut, it forces me to mouthbreathe, which allows me to sleep 3-5 hours without kicking off the 'pain attack' cycle.
I am currently waiting for a second botox appointment, and am sad to think of how ruined financially I have been by 15 years of mis-diagnoses, co-pays, inability to work, and now the rationing of healthcare by keeping off-label drug uses (like botox for TMD) off label as long as possible thus unre-imbursable, while those without much $$ try to scrape up clinical trials...but, who am I to complain if the trashed 15+ years of my life are resolved by off label treatment from my own diagnosis?
Just make sure you rule out bruxism's silent, insidious sibling 'jaw clenching' if you have one sided headaches that aren't really strongly pulsing. And take the yeshiva test with a grain of my salty tears.

I feel you're pain.
I have the solution.
it's Mark Parker.
[e-mail].

severstal ask for Mark Parker m.d.

[Groucho AKA Falcon 68]

hi.

[Groucho AKA Falcon 68]

I feel you're pain.
I have the solution.
it's Mark Parker.
[e-mail].

severstal ask for Mark Parker m.d.