I’ve described the sensation to coworkers and they all seemed to know what I was talking about (or they were just humoring me), so I don’t think I’m alone in this.
Why do I sometimes feel the urge to hit myself in the head when my head hurts?
Uh, putting this in writing makes it look completely insane.
Same reason you want to kick your TV when it’s broken?
On an episode of House, he cut himself while suffering from Vicodin withdrawals. His reasoning was that the pain released endorphines that made him feel better, and more able to cope with the symptoms.
WAG alert:
We tend to automatically apply pressure to anything that hurts - in the case of the head though, applying pressure doesn’t get to the bit that seems to be hurting(I don’t think the pain is necessarily actually there in the same sense as it is for a stubbed toe), because of the skull, so how do you transmit more force to something that is rigidly encased? Hit it.
I do the same, I figured that the strike or blow from my hand takes my mind off the headache. But you know what really helps me when I get a pressure headache? I put on a bandanna and tie it off really tight. Works like a charm.
Well, dang it, why isn’t my headache releasing those same endorphins?
A coworker suggested that pain we are in control of is more tolerable than pain we aren’t in control of, and that actually makes a lot of sense to me.
I once had a whopper of a 10-day migraine. I was seeing things like red cymbal crashes with each pound of my head. I was self-medicating with so many different things, I’m surprised I survived. At one point, around day 8, I resorted to pounding my head against a wall, just because it was the only thing I hadn’t tried. All I remember is that I felt a little better, because it was a *different *kind of pain (and possibly because it was self-induced.)
I know a doctor who hates that show - not for the ridiculous plotlines or characters, but because of all the medical misinformation that it has propagated. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were another one of those - though I am most certainly not a doc myself.
I can’t believe you survived a 10 day migraine either. Mine have only ever lasted a day with maybe a headachey aura lasting another day. I think I’d have gone to the hospital by Day 3. Not Day 2 because I’d still be thinking “it will go away any minute now”.
I don’t want to hit my head but I usually want to put pressure on it. Yesterday I had a sinus headache but I had to go to the store and I realized as I was shopping that I was keeping my hand on my head so that I was putting pressure between my eyes since that’s where my head hurt. After I realized I was doing this I still couldn’t stop, I don’t think it helped at all but my body seemed to want me to do it.
10-day Migraine? Try a 6-month migraine!
It could have been a migraine (they are apparently very under-diagnosed). Throbbing pain is part of a migraine, even when it gets so bad that you really don’t feel the throbbing any more. Migraines have to do with blood vessels in your head. Some inside your skull, some outside your skull, according to my Neurologist, as of last week.
I get the feeling of wanting to beat my head as well - could be reaction to the throbbing that’s caused by the heart beat that’s felt in the blood vessel? Never thought about it that way before. I go from wanting to beat my head to wanting to just shoot that part off pretty quickly … I know it’s not a solution, but it seems like such a good idea at the time.