I suffered gladly from tension headaches for many years. Why gladly? Because I was grateful they weren’t migraines. My headaches, by comparison, were pretty mild, and I always assumed they were the price I had to pay for being a writer — a kind of “background noise” to my life.
As I noted in a previous post, I write all day long in my role as a marketing consultant and, after work, I spend a substantial percentage of my time researching and writing books and book proposals; literary essays; and art, film, and book reviews (most of which are collected here.)
Not to mention the odd blog post.
All of this requires a great deal of reading and sitting in front of a computer. This, of course, was at the root of my problems — or so I assumed.
But recently, my headaches had been getting worse.
This despite years of consultations and treatments with a physician, physical therapist, craniosacral therapist, chiropractor, dentist, acupuncturist, two optometrists, and many, many massage therapists.
I’d adjusted my computer display, raised the level of the monitor, lowererd the level of the monitor, changed my glasses, changed the lighting, raised my chair, lowered my chair, bought firmer pillows, bought softer pillows, did stretches, went for walks, got massages, exercised.
I spent a good part of every evening kneading my shoulder and the base of my neck, and, especially, my left temple, where the pain and muscle-knotting was the worst.
I sometimes wore heat wraps during the day, and often used ice packs at night.
I also cycled through various combinations of Tylenol, Excedrin, Advil, Aleve, aspirin, Xanax, muscle relaxants and more. The only drug that ever seemed to work was Excedrin Extra Strength, but the caffeine in it made it feel like I was jumping out of my skin.
The odd thing about my headaches was that they were at their worst in the early morning hours, as I was gradually arising from sleep (sometimes, they’d awaken me at 4:30 in the morning, but never any earlier than that.) And as bad as they were, they often would disappear immediately upon awakening, or as soon as I’d stepped into the shower, only to gradually creep up on me again in the late afternoon or early evening.
I knew there was some significance to this, but never could quite understand what it was — nor could any of my doctors. Instead, it took an outre alternative medical practitioner who calls himself an “energy worker” to finally diagnose my condition, after all these years.
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Tags: health & medical by Michael Antman
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