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Migraine Headache
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Posted 8/18/2007 3:37 PM (GMT -8)
i have had headaches for almost a year. I have been admitted to Thomas Jefferson University Headache  Clinic for two weeks. they say I have cervical headaches. They give you lidocaine drips for the two weeks, along with depacon. Helped just alittle bit. Went home with med called lyrica and mexilitine. Helped alittle. But bad side effects. Lyrica made me gain tons of weight, and the mexilitine gave me tremors. My neck hurts,my face hurts,my head feels like its in a vice grip. lots of pressure. But the worst part is that I have the feeling all the time that my entire head,face,and nose are ice cold. Comming from the inside out. Has anybody with headaches have this cold feeling? Please let me know. Im off to see the doctor on tuesday 21st.
Posted 8/19/2007 4:29 AM (GMT -8)
Hi givenup,

Welcome to Healing Well. Sorry to hear that you are suffering so!! Make sure you tell your Doctor when you see him about the cold feeling, I wonder if this has to do with a trapped nerve or similar - this may be a part of the diagnosis you have had.

I am only speculating here you need to discuss this fully with your Doctor.

Wishing you all the best with this, please let us know how you get on?

take care

Ann
Posted 8/19/2007 12:22 PM (GMT -8)

Your symptoms sound SO much like mine!  I've had pressure in my head and the pains that you described in my head, neck, and face since Nov. 1.  I've had MRIs and all sorts of other tests, and no one, not even a neurologist, could tell me what was wrong.  I spent several hours every day on the internet, trying to find anything that would tell me what was wrong with me!  Finally, after 4 months, I found Occipital Neuralgia.  A man on this website told me he was given Cymbalta (an antidepressant) for it, and it really helped him.  So I told my dr. about it, and she thought it was worth a try.  I had said many times that it felt like my head was being blown up like a balloon, and within 30 min. after taking the first Cymbalta, it felt like someone had opened up the end of the balloon and let just a little bit of air out!  I've been taking Cymbalta for 5 months now, and I still have some head pressure and still have to be careful what I do (I can't lift anything heavy, can't wear 1" heels...) but I can live with my condition now - I couldn't before!  But I don't want to just live with it - I'm hoping to find out what's wrong and fix it so that I can go off the medication some day.

I've had a lot of different symptoms during the last 9 months, but one of the strangest has been my freezing cold nose!  It only started about one or two months ago, and I didn't know if it was from the nerve problem or the Cymbalta.  But it sounds like you're experiencing the same thing!  Sometimes I walk around with a tissue or cloth on my nose, just to try to get it warm.  What a weird symptom!  I just hope it's not a dangerous one!

Please let us know what happens after your visit with the dr.  This board has been so helpful to me, just knowing that other people are going through the same thing.  I had never heard of anything like this before I had it, and I thought I must be the only one in the world to have it!  Even the neurosurgeon looked at me like I had either lost my mind or I was terribly depressed.  (When I described how my head would hurt on the left, then in the back, then on the right, etc., he said, "A headache doesn't move - it stays in one place."  Someone needs to tell my head that, because it obviously doesn't know!)

Hope you get some answers soon!

Nancy

Posted 8/21/2007 5:18 PM (GMT -8)
When you have a migraine, the blood vessels in your head dialate, and most of the blod flow leaves your limbs/face and goes to your head, litterally. My nose gets cold when i have h/a's.
I was wondering, did the Lidocane Drip help?? That may be a good ER option for some of us, I dunno though.
I can't really explain the cold symptom, other than the vessel dialation. Migraines and h/a are just so weird.

Oh, and headaches do move. Usually a migraine is on one side or the other, but not always. nerve/blood vessels travel all throughout the head, so I would assume, so could the pain. I wonder how many of the Doctors who think they know everything have actually had a migraine?? I would love to give them all at least One that wouldn't go away....oh what i would give to do that!

Ang
Posted 8/22/2007 5:04 AM (GMT -8)

Ang - I second the thought that I wish every doctor who treats patients with headaches would have just one bad migraine.  I bet our treatment would get faster and better if the doctor had to suffer like we do.  I am lucky  in the fact that my neurologist's wife has migraines so he is understanding a little more than others.

Hope you are all having a headache free day.  The barometric pressure is rising here in Georgia so I am sure that means a migraine sometime in my near future!  Oh well, on the bright side, I didn't wake up with one.  You start looking for the little things to celebrate when you suffer with migraines!

Posted 8/22/2007 9:26 AM (GMT -8)

I don't know if "givenup" is having migraines, but that's not what I've experienced.  As far as I know, I've never had a migraine.  There are LOTS of different sensations going on - feeling of getting hit in the back of the head with a hammer, sharp pains all over my head, feeling like I ran into a door with my nose, feeling like my head was being blown up like a balloon especially when I lie down, sudden pain whenever I bend over or cough or sneeze or laugh out loud....the list goes on and on!  But you're right - I wish my dr. could experience this feeling for just 5 minutes, and then I don't think he would be so quick to diagnose it as depression!!!

Nancy

Posted 8/22/2007 10:56 PM (GMT -8)
Hi Nancy,

Sorry to hear that you are suffering so. It maybe that you have more than one type of headache!!! Have you ever seen a Neurologist? It sounds like you need to see a Neurologist who is a Headache Specialist!!!!

Unfortunately you may be depressed as well as the headaches and your Doc cannot see beyond the depression!!!!! Do you keep a diary of your head pain? If not it may be a good idea to start one logging date and time and duration and the level of severity, and any other symptoms that come with it!! If you logged the level of severity as numbers 0 -10, zero being no pain at all and 10 being screaming I want to die sort of pain the worst you can ever imagine!!!

Once I started a headache diary and took that to my Doc it was then that he started to take me seriously about what I was going through!!!!!

I hope this helps, take care

Ann
Posted 8/24/2007 3:23 PM (GMT -8)
Good luck with Thomas Jefferson... they give up on ya if they aren't sucessful..
Posted 8/25/2007 9:19 AM (GMT -8)
Hi Went back to Thomas Jefferson Headache Center on Tues 21st. Saw my Dr. Gave me naproxen sodium 550 mg . Take 2 per day along with nausea med. I have to take it for 10 days. This is to try to bring the inflammation down. So far helped alittle. Now my lower back is killing me. My mom wants me to go get checked out for fibromyalgia. I have to go back to Phila. in two weeks. I might have to be admitted again. I am also going to see a chiro on Monday 27th. What did you mean when you said they give up on you if they are not successful. Have you been there?

                                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                 Ashley

 

                                      

Posted 9/1/2007 5:24 PM (GMT -8)
 Right now i am trying a chiropractor. Had two sessions. i will  see how it goes. Going back to Thomas Jefferson Headache Center on Sept 6th. The naproxen sodium did nothing at all.Just bloated me up with about 7 lbs of water retention. Lets see what happens on my next visit                                                                              

                                                       ashley   givenup

Posted 9/4/2007 10:16 PM (GMT -8)

Has the chiropractor helped at all so far?

Nancy

Posted 11/6/2008 12:59 PM (GMT -8)
I found these comments while searching for "cold nose."  Do any of you have a follow-up?  Did you find answers to the problem?

I have a cold face and nose which is so intense at night that I can't fall asleep.  Sometimes holding a heating pad to my face helps.  I always worry about the safety of that, but don't have any other options.  I have had lymes for several years and am caught in the "we won't give more than one month of antibiotics" policy.  That means I deal with other pains also, but the worst one is having a nose so cold that pain is unbearable.

Please reply and let me know what answers you found.

Ginnia

 

Posted 11/6/2008 8:13 PM (GMT -8)

Ginnia, I wish I could help you, but I never did find out why my nose is cold.  I guess I pretty much got used to it.  It bothers me occasionally, but usually I just don't thnk about it.

Keep looking til you find some answers!

Nancy

Posted 11/10/2008 7:27 AM (GMT -8)

giannia  all the neurologists say its all part og the headaches. its the nerve endings. some people get the cold and some get hot feelings. its awful

                                                 ashley

Posted 11/10/2008 9:19 AM (GMT -8)
Thank you for your replies. You are right. The feelings are awful. I'd just like to find a way to ease the pain.
Blessings, Ginnia
Posted 11/11/2008 9:44 AM (GMT -8)

hi ginnia i assume you have headaches. where are you going for them

                               ashley

Posted 11/11/2008 11:01 AM (GMT -8)
Ashley,
Life is complicated for me. And trying to explain lymes disease is almost impossible. There are two points of view - one is to give antibiotics and keep checking the patient no matter how long it takes. The other is to say the patient can have one month of intravenous antibiotics, period. Too bad if symptoms don't go away. Taking antibiotics is worse than having the disease. Unfortunately my doctors are of the second variety and will do nothing more for anything related to lymes. When you get lyme - everything is related to it - and since I tested positive for lymes in the central nervous system headaches are an awful problem. But in the end, there is nothing the doctors will do for me. The answer is I can't go anywhere (insurance edicts). I keep looking for herbal substitutes.

That's probably a whole lot more than you wanted to know. It's just the only way I know to answer.
Blessings, Ginnia
Posted 11/11/2008 1:00 PM (GMT -8)

hi ginnia. i thought you had constant headaches. i have them for three years. new daily persistent headaches. when you just said you had lyme, i couldnt believe it. back in jan 2008 i complained to my primary that my joint hurt. so he tested me for lyme and it came back positive. went on doxycicline for 3 weeks. felt better. then i went to see and infectious disease doctor because i started to hurt again and it came back negative. then was in the emergency room for my headaches and my mom asked them to check for lyme again, and it came back neg again.  just this month my primary did the test again and it came back positive. the anti bodies were neg. i was never in a place where i could have been bitten. what test did they do to let you know it was in your central nervous system. i really dont understand whats going on.

                                                                ashley

Posted 11/11/2008 6:16 PM (GMT -8)
Ashley -
You need to go to the lymes section of this forum and read a lot. What you just said is common. Many people test negative and then finally get a positive. I can't remember the name of the test - just the procedure. I'd had the doxycicline, 3 weeks, like you, a year earlier, but the pain and strange feelings in my skin, were intolerable.
They did some sort of nerve reaction test and that doctor said I didn't have a lymes problem, but they'd also ordered a test similar to a spinal block. They inserted a needle into the spine, withdrew fluid, and sent that for testing. It came back positive. That's when they did one month of IV antibiotics, but I'd had the disease so long (8 years I think), that one month was not enough. Read a lot while you wait to see a doctor. Hopefully, you can do what I've never been able to do - see an LLMD, lymes literate MD. Blessings Ashley. Many people do recover.
Posted 5/19/2009 11:33 AM (GMT -8)
I was recently diagnosed with Cough Headache. Not too bad, right? Bending over, turning over, lifting, exertion of any kind makes my head explode for a second or two, then it calms down. Pain goes away sometimes, other days it hangs in, kind of a burning, hot pain, maybe a 4-5 on the pain scale. I had a negative MRI and MRA, that's great news - no mass or aneurysm. There's no known cause for Cough Headache - they usually go away but it can take years! My neurologist suggested sleeping with the head of the bed elevated (check), no bending or lifting. For me this means no yoga which I use for all around wellness. I've decided to continue my practice and try to avoid my head being lower than my heart. The doctor (who I really, really liked) gave me an occipital nerve block today, which took the edge way down to a 1-2 - yahoo! He doesn't expect it to last, though. Two medicines have been shown to work, one an older anti-inflammatory, the other a beta-blocker. Both are contraindicated for me, so he suggested a spinal tap, also shown to work over time. Strange, strange, strange. One day at a time, and I want to say that for all you headache sufferers out there, I hope you find a sympathetic and understanding doctor who will see you through to an accurate diagnosis and an effective therapy.
I intend to continue to use a myo-fascial therapist and study some homeopathic remedies. Blessings and peace to all.
Posted 6/19/2009 10:30 PM (GMT -8)
I use flax seed packs that I custom made to fit over my nose

when it moves to headache mode I use the one that gets my

nose and temples

Posted 6/19/2009 10:38 PM (GMT -8)
It really helps to know that I am not alone with my frozen nose syndrome. It keeps me awake it make me have headaches. Now I take thyroid it is suppose to help but not so much. In fact not at all! So I would really like to have it stop but so far the only thing that is helping is the flax seed packs that I have custom made to fit my face with plain ole flax seed from the feed store. It is a shame that on such a beautiful evening I have my face wrapped for heat even though the rest of me is just perfect. If I don't get some heat to my nose the migrain will follow and then the vomiting. When it gets to that point I have phenergan suppositories but wow the flax packs really help it not to get there. My perscription suppositories have been lying around in the fridge and not needed since I had the brain storm to make the flax packs. I ended up here hoping for an answer but I guess that everyone here is just groping in the dark to find the one thing that will work too.
Posted 4/27/2011 6:07 AM (GMT -8)
I know exactly what you are experiencing with your "cold" nose from within. I can't stand it. I use heating pads, hot hands, everything I can find. The feeling is horrible. My doctor tells me it's barometric pressure. This does nothing for me. Does anyone's doctors say anything different???
Posted 12/2/2014 7:02 PM (GMT -8)
I am new to the forum and have seen posts about cold nose in various places, but none that were posted recently. Today I spent half the day with my face in a scarf, just trying to get my nose warmed up in hopes of getting rid of the miserable headache that came with it -- for the sixth straight day. Sometimes, my nose feels like an iceberg on my face, but surprisingly normal to the touch. Other times, it's as cold to the touch as it feel on my face. Can't stand it. Any new thoughts or research? Thanks.
Posted 12/9/2014 9:03 AM (GMT -8)
Hi,

I have been suffering with migraines for many years and the frozen nose had always happened to me too! A few months ago I decided to research it on my own, and had found that allergies can triggers migraines. I never thought I had allergies because I don't get a stuffy nose or cough but decided to try taking allegra d on a regular basis. Guess what? My headaches have definitely diminished. I still will get one here and there but not multiple times a month like they were. I'm thinking maybe it is sinus pressure triggering them. When I get lazy and start forgetting to take the allegra they come the back...just figured I'd share what I found works for me :)
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