I have a friend visiting from England at the moment, and wound up dragging him through two separate ERs yesterday. So we have seen doctors and he’s receiving treatment, I’m just wondering if I should still be worried.
The short(ish) version: Thursday night, he developed a headache. It wasn’t too bad, but it persisted through Friday. Ibuprofen seemed to be enough to keep it under control. Saturday it came and went. Sunday it got worse. Monday it got a lot worse. Monday night it kept him from sleeping, and by Tuesday he was occasionally moaning in pain from it and looking peaked and in pain. This was when I took him to urgent care.
He reported the pain as being focused “between his eyes” and covering the area around his temples, nose, and cheekbone area. Urgent care did some neurological checks (all fine) and looked at his ears and nose. Apart from a deviated septum, his sinuses looked pretty much okay. They suggested we go to the ER to rule out any kind of brain bleed.
Went to the ER, got a CT scan, no signs of brain bleeding (phew), but there was a nasal cyst that the doctor felt shouldn’t be causing this amount of pain but that might be a contributing factor “somehow.” At the ER he got an IV drip with a liter of saline, compazine, and Benadryl in it. This didn’t seem to help his headache much. He also got hydrocodone cough syrup and Flonase nasal spray to take home.
He took the Flonase before bed and went to sleep. This morning he is still reporting that his head hurts, although less, and he is sleeping better.
My concern is that after all the medication pumped into him yesterday, he still has a headache. Should I be worried about this? He has no history of migraines, FYI, and the headache didn’t seem to be particularly sensitive to light or noise. He keeps telling me he’s sure it will be fine, but I think he’s just worried that he’s being too much of a hassle for me. I’m still kinda worried. The ER doctor didn’t seem really confident that he knew what was causing the head pain. Anyone with experience or expertise with this kind of thing have any ideas?
This won’t help, but some years back my nephew was complaining of a really, really bad headache for a few days. One morning he didn’t show up for work. His sister went to his apartment and found him, dead, dressed to go to work.
There was an autopsy but my sister did not share the results with me.
MLS, that could have been anything. Ruptured aneurysm, stroke, drug overdose (trying to treat the headache, not saying the guy was a junkie or anything), or nothing at all to do with his recent complaints.
MsWhatsit, you ruled out my guesses. I hope your friend feels better.
He’s visiting from England. Headache possibly related to dietary changes while he’s here?
In 2006 I switched coffee brands. A few days later I developed a severe headache that wouldn’t go away. Eventually (a few weeks later) I figured out that the new coffee was the problem; got rid of it, and my headache went away.
Is he drinking tea or coffee, or eating any foods on a regular basis that might be different from what he gets back in England?
I had a headache that lasted for about a month. Varied in intensity from time to time, but never fully went away. Tests all came up negative, doctor put me on some sort of medication that was originally designed for epilepsy but apparently is supposed to help with migranes as well–may have helped some, but didn’t eliminate them.
Final solution? The mattress. Nothing obviously wrong or broken with it from looking at it, but I moved to my guest bedroom and it cleared up. Then I bought a new mattress for my regular bed and I’ve been OK since (I’ll get an occasional one if I sleep in, an ENT doc also recommended slightly elevating the head end, which helped some with that)
Given that he’s visiting, and thus on a different bed, it seems at least possible.
Two positive things I see from the post: CAT scan and no previous migraines.
A friend of mine was treated for migraines for years. One day she died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. Never had a CT scan or MRI on her brain.
My wife woke up one morning and her left arm was asleep and would not work. She’d been treated for migraines and ‘stress’ for years. She also never hand a CT scan or MRI on her brain. Well that day she did and they found that she’d been suffering from Hydrocephalus (AKA water on the brain) probably for decades.
So as I said earlier, having a CT scan done, assuming it was read properly, is a very good thing.
Was the CT done with contrast? (It’s an IV injection, makes you feel flushed and uncomfortably burny and hot as hell for about 10-15 seconds, so he’d know if he did.) I had two CTs before they discovered my tumors. The first one was done without contrast dye – I don’t know why.
People with iodine allergies will have issues with contrast, but otherwise if the headaches persist and the first scan was done without contrast, it might be worth a follow-up scan with dye.
I would suggest first trying a simple fix: Get your friend some Excedrin. Ibuprofen is not very effective for many headaches because its action is anti-inflammatory. Excedrin is a combination of aspirin, acetaminophen and caffeine. The caffeine is especially helpful because it causes vasoconstriction, and a lot of headaches have a vascular component.
The headaches could be due to pressure changes (from the flight over or from altitude) and/or humidity changes. It’s high pollen season here in Minnesota (and in most temperate climates), so that could be causing some allergic reaction. Even though his sinuses look generally okay there could be some level of congestion; the location of the pain sure points to a sinus issue. I’m not a big fan of Flonase and its kindred; maybe just have your friend try some Claritin to see if that helps.
Thanks, everyone. He seems a little better today, though still not completely better. We did get some off-brand Excedrin (same ingredients as Excedrin, just cheaper) and that seems to have worked well. This really seems like a sinus problem to me, too, even though the MD didn’t see any infection in there.
I guess it could be related to change in location, but he’s been here since late July (he spent the whole summer here, between his undergrad and graduate school) so it seems weird that something would manifest now, when he’s about to go home.
You don’t happen to live in a high altitude, do you? His symptoms sound a lot like my neighbor who suffers from altitude sickness. Flying doesn’t affect him, but if he visits a place where he’s required to change altitude quickly, i.e driving from Sedona (4500 ft) to the Grand Canyon (7000 ft) and he gets splitting migraines. I was with him when this happened and he was in serious pain. The only thing that helped was driving to a lower elevation.