Brain pain

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

I haven't posted here for a year or so, although I

occasionally " lurk " and read the postings.

I am a 54 year old female. I was diagnosed with fibro about 2 years

ago. My symptoms are generally not that bad...I take a Vicodin or

Flexeril 2 or 3 times a month, when the pain gets out of hand. I

continue to work 30+ hours a week, and my lifestyle hasn't been too

inconvienced by this disease. I seem to have more problems with the

fatigue aspect of it, than the pain aspect...however, since I also

have sleep apnea...who knows...

But something happened to me last week, and I just feel I need to

share.

Shortly after awakening on Wednesday morning, I had a sudden-onset

and severe pain on the top of my head, just left of center. It

lasted about 2 minutes, then went away completely. However, as the

day progressed, the pain incidents continued...sometimes 25 minutes

apart, sometimes an hour or so would elapse between them. The

longest one lasted less than 4 minutes, I would guess they averaged

about 2 minutes each. They weren't severe enough that they " took my

breath away " but certainly were not ignorable. In the afternoon, I

went for my weekly allergy shot, and asked the nurse to take my

blood pressure. It was slightly elevated, not enough to send me to

the ER, but higher than my normal. (I have never been treated for or

diagnosed with high blood pressure, although several years ago, I

did have a Branch Retinal View Occlusion-which is a stroke in my

retina-and is presumed to have happened as a result of a BP spike.)

Anyway, over the course of the evening my BP continued to rise, and

when it got to 190/100, I called my doc and he sent me to the ER.

They did a cat scan, which showed nothing except my chronic

sinusitis, and sent me home...no meds, no restrictions, and told me

to follow-up with my Primary Care Doc today (6 days later). OK, I

have to back up a little bit...prior to going to the ER I had been

at my son's house visiting my grandson. My daughter-in-law is a

massage therapist. I had told her about the " brain pain " I was

experiencing, and my BP issues. I also told her that I thought I

might have a trigger point in my neck. She was reluctant to work on

it with the underlying (and unknown reasons for)the elevated BP.

But she did do some myofascial release work on it, with

trepidation. When she was done, my neck certainly felt better, but

the pains continued, and my BP continued to rise.

Anyway, the Physcian's Assistant at the ER totally dismissed my

comments about the muscle trigger point, and kept referring to the

pains I was having as a " headache " . I don't know what her

experience is with Fibro patients, but I know I scared the heck out

of her when she tried to listen to my heart, and she placed the

stethescope on a trigger point, and I jumped backwards a foot and

grabbed her wrist with both of my hands as I screamed! It felt like

she was using a power drill with a 1/2 " bit!

Ok, so today I go to my doc, who " believes " in fibro, and is quite

supportive and understanding. He listens to what I was describing

about my " brain pain " , and said, " Yup. It (the pain) was an area

about 6 centimeters across, and oval in shape, and hurt like the

dickens, right? " My mouth just dropped open...I had told him

*where* the pain was, but not those details, and he nailed it! He

diagnosed it as " occiptal (something)myalgia " , and that is was,

indeed, from the trigger point in my neck (the specific muscle was

the upper scalena, I think). He was noticably upset that the ER did

not prescribe steriods, or inject them while I was there,because the

condition usually gets much worse before it clears up. But he was

very pleased that the massage work had given me relief. I only had

one further brain pain episode the next day, and none since. So I

am very happy to continue with the massage therapy and stay off the

steriods. Today, after seeing the doctor, I was pleased that my

*assumption* that this was somehow fibro related {ie, trigger point

caused pain, pain caused BP to rise}was right on. BTW, today my BP

taken while resting, standing and sitting was all within normal

limits! And then I went back to see my daughter-in-law, and she did

some more release work on my neck and upper arms...feels like a mack

truck ran me over right now, but I know it will feel so much better

in the morning!

I don't have any questions, and therefore don't expect any answers

LOL, but I just felt like I needed to vent about this,to a group

that would understand.

Thanks for listening,

Ginger