Headache and Migraines Forum - Persistant headache

Hi,

I'm posting for my wife because she is unable to look at a computer screen. She is 40 y.o. and has had problems with headaches for the last couple of years.

The problem seems to have started when she got a new pair of glasses with a new prescription in June 2006. Whenever she wore the new glasses she would get bad headaches, describing the pain as being behind her eyes and it felt like her eye was "pulling". The optician told her to persevere until her eyes adjusted to them, but she didn't adjust and went back to her old glasses and the headaches disappeared.

New lenses were fitted into the glasses and also her original prescription was put into the new frames, but she was never able to wear the new glasses without experiencing the headaches.

She suffered from bad colds in October and again in December 2006. After both she suffered from headaches, even with her old glasses and was prescribed anti-biotics as the GP thought she had sinusitus. The first time the headache went. The second time it didn't.

She was given various anti-biotics as the doctors treated her for sinusitus, but the headaches never went. She also had numerous eye tests, which all conclude that her eyes are healthy for somebody with high myopia (short-sightedness). One of the opticians diagnosed her as needing a slight prism in her lenses. The prism lenses were put in the second and a third pair of glasses frames.

Meanwhile, Ears Nose and Throat at the local NHS Hospital stuck a camera up her nose, found nothing and prescribed another batch of anti-biotics, diclofenac and nasal spray that did nothing. Also, the GP was prescribing higher and higher pain killers from paracetemal with codiene, to co-prodamol, to tramadol. She was also signed off of work.

I was able to get her on my private health insurance through my company and got her an appointment with a neurologist in June. The neurologist prescribed amitriptyline and sent her for an MRI scan, which showed nothing abnormal.

The Amitriptyline began to work and she weened herself off of the painkillers. An appointment for a C/T scan finally came through in July, and this also showed nothing when she finally got the results in August.

After upping the dosage of the amitrityline as prescribed by the neurologist, she began to drop the dosage due to the side effects of the amitriptyline - being tired all the time.

When she saw the neurologist again in October she was down to 5mg of amitrypiline. The pain hadn't gone completely, but was manageable. The neurologist said she could try coming off the amityptilene as he could not imagine the small dose was doing a lot.

The headaches got worse after she stopped the amitriptyline and she started back on it. The GP has also now put her back on Diclofenac and also prescribed a nasal spray (going back to the sinus theory again).

She has also been seeing a chiropractor for the last month.

Originally she described the pain as behind, above, and between the eyes in the middle of her forehead. The pain now is often described as a line going up over the top of her head, just to the right of the center of her head. She even has trouble laying down to sleep as the pillow puts pressure on her head.

She also has problems reading or looking at a computer screen, and if she is having a "good" day, doing either of these will quickly turn it into a bad one. She also takes off her glasses often as this helps to relieve the pain a bit.

Nothing seems to have helped and I was wondering if anbody had any suggestions or ideas of where to go from here. Thanks.