Help! New to What the Doctors Think Are Migraine
I’m 54 years old and have never had a migraine in my life. Rarely have I gotten headaches. 15 months ago I was at a birthday party and suddenly got very nauseous in my head and told my husband I needed to go home. I thought it was because I had eaten foods that I normally don’t eat. This happened around the same time every day for the next several days. A week later I suddenly felt like someone was blowing up a balloon inside my head and it was going to pop. No pain at all just intense pressure. So much pressure in my temples and so much fullness in my ears. I couldn’t even function when this was happening. Nothing helped, closing my eyes almost made it worse. I should note that for a year or so prior to this I have been getting phantom smells fairly regularly. My dad died of a brain tumor so when I had this horrible episode I ended up going straight to the ER, sure that they were going to tell me I had a brain tumor. They did a CT scan and said it looked fine. By the time I left the hospital, I was feeling much better even though they didn’t treat me with anything. A couple of weeks later the same thing, but during those two weeks, I had the constant fullness and fluttering in my ears. I also get some of the aura and visual disturbances when I have these episodes. I was at a nail salon a block from my mom's house and had to have her come pick me up because I couldn’t even drive when this happened.
Returning to the emergency room
Ended up going back to the ER and they did an MRI. Again said it was clear. Still, I never experienced a headache, just the pressure, the fullness in my ears, the nauseous feeling in my head and some feelings of motion sickness is the best way I could describe it. I could write forever but basically I have been to 18 different doctors, had another MRI with contrast, an MRA, have been to EMTs, neurologist, did physical therapy in which my therapist thought I was having some sort of migraine from tight muscles in my neck.
Conflicting viewpoints from my medical provider
The neurologist did not think it was migraines. I went to the mid-America balance Institute and they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The last doctor I went to at an otologic center is sure it is migraine-related. Usually, when I start feeling this comes on I will take Meclizine and Advil and Zofran and sometimes I think it helps and sometimes it doesn’t. Every single day I don’t feel good, I am incredibly frustrated at this point. I have spent so much time and so much money trying to figure this out and no one can seem to do that. I have gone through menopause and I was taking hormone replacement therapy however I quit taking that just to rule out the possibility that it was causing whatever is going on in my head. As I said I am 54 years old, fairly active, 5’5” and 145 lbs with normal vitals in every other area and normal blood work. So tired of not being able to plan anything or do anything because I don’t feel good. And of course, I look just fine so no one probably believes me half the time. I feel like this is a time in my life where I should feel great.
Does anyone have any suggestions
Does this sound anything like migraines to any of you migraine sufferers? My doctor did prescribe nortriptyline but it was causing numbness in my head so I quit taking it. I am now on atenolol which is a beta-blocker for SVT and I understand that it is sometimes used for migraine treatment so hoping that will help some.
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