Alshain,
I am a life-long sufferer of chronic headaches---migraines, tension headaches, sinus headaches, tmj headaches, stress-induced headaches, too much caffeine headaches, too little caffeine headaches, not enough food headaches, and likely OSA headaches that were simply too subtle to distinguish from all the rest. And at least one or two other kinds that I can't recall right now.
You've mentioned your own chronic headaches now several times. Like many (most?) sufferers of chronic headaches, you tend to minimize them---in terms of the level of pain and, more importantly, in terms of how they affect the quality of your life---even when the pain is "minor." And I say this as someone who has spent years minimizing my own chronic headaches to the outside world, while tending to make my family "suffer" right along with me on my worst days.
A nasty little fact is that
chronic pain---even when it is
mild chronic pain--- takes a significant toll on the quality of our daily life. And even
mild chronic pain can adversely affect the quality of our sleep in multiple ways.
So even though we chronic headache sufferers tend to do our best to "ignore" the pain because it is "just annoying" and "rather minor", it does indeed negatively affect our lives in profound ways. But many (maybe most) chronic headache sufferers suffer in silence. They'll either not report the headaches at all when seeing the doctor or they'll dismiss them and defer if the doc suggests seeing a specialist to find out what's really going on.
Because the nasty little secret about chronic headaches is that our culture tries to pretend they don't exist. Or they are a sign of "weakness". There's a real cultural perception that "I have a headache" is just a little white lie meaning "I just don't want to do x, y, or z". And culturally it's OK to use that "excuse" once in a while,but when someone says "I have a headache" too frequently, he/she is perceived as a "whiner."
About your own headaches you write:
My headaches haven't been too bad ever really, just annoying. I classify them as migraines only because the symptomatic location of the pain (usually the right side of the head above the ear). But the level of pain has never been really bad, no ocular or auditory problems when they occur either.
and
Chronic migraines are the same. They fade in and out and I usually go to bed when they stop and they come back the next day, but late in the afternoon. Sometimes they are "ice pick" style.
In my own humble opinion as a chronic headache sufferer who also has had a really tough time adjusting to CPAP, I think that getting the headaches under control is critical for getting to the point where CPAP will seem like either a
neutral influence on the quality of your day-to-day life or a
positive influence. Because the headache pain, as minor and annoying as it seems to be, is likely sucking right back out of you the positives the CPAP is pumping into you----in terms of how you feel each day.
Have you ever consulted a headache specialist to get a formal diagnosis of migraine headache?
Yes, they sound like migraines to me (but be aware, I'm only a migraineur, not a doctor.) It's a myth that all migraines or even most migraines come with some kind of "aura"---i.e. ocular or auditory symptoms. But that "ice pick" description is a common description of
acute migraine pain. Which can be debilitating---for some people (including myself), it's only debilitating for a short period, but then what I refer to as
the grumpies starts. After I'm over the "ice pick" pain, I'm usually very, very irritable, fussy, short-tempered, shrewish, and all-in-all not much fun to be around. My family hates it when I get stuck in the grumpies for hours (or days) on end because of headache pain. And your description of the more chronic headaches (one side of head and fades in and out for days at a time) is a pretty classic description of
chronic migraines
What's the point of getting diagnosed with chronic migraines?
Well, first of all, there are some effective treatments---some life-style and supplement oriented, and others pharmaceutical in nature.
For the life style and supplement approaches to managing migraines: Learning triggers is key so that you can avoid the triggers where possible. And some migraineurs respond (and respond well) to rather large doses of Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and magnesium and a herb called feverfew. There's another herb called butterbur that can help. For me, I've got a gene mutation on my MTHFR gene, and that gene mutation is likely part of why I'm a migraneur. Hence being put on a prescription form of the metabolized version of folate has helped reduce the intensity and number of my migraines and has started to give me migraine free days. (But tmj, tension, and sinus headaches remain problematic for me.)
As for prescription drugs: There are both prophylactic medication designed to prevent the headaches in the first place (useful for chronic migraines) and medication for acute attaches that you take at that first "ice pick" stab of pain.
The acute meds usually work far, far better than OTC pain medicine like ibuprofen, naproxin, or tylenol in treating migraine pain. The Maxalt I now take for acute migraines stops them dead in the tracks most of the time: As in I'm fully functional and
completely free of the migraine pain within a few minutes---as in less than 30. And I don't develop the grumpies after the pain goes away.
Searching for a prophylactic med to deal with chronic migraines is challenging for many migraineurs and their doctors. The commonly used prophylactics were originally developed to treat other conditions and doctors simply noticed that their migraine patients being treated with the drug for the other condition frequently reported a significant drop in both the number and severity of the headaches. Now, it's true that I had intolerable effects to three different prophylactics this spring. But---the brief period between starting each medicine and the side effects becoming intolerable were absolutely gloriously free of headache pain. I was deeply disappointed each time when the side effects started and became more severe instead of less. But those tastes of what life is like without a day long headache fading in and out on the vast majority of days has made me very GREEDY. I want
NO HEADACHE PAIN even more (at this point) than I want
xPAP FINALLY MAKES ME FEEL GOOD. In part because I know that "xPAP finally makes me feel good" will NEVER happen until I'm free of the headache pain.
Finally, there are some pretty serious comorbidities of migraines, including
depression, anxiety, stroke, irritable bowel syndrome, epilepsy, hypertension. The connections between migraines and these comorbidities is not understood at all. But they are there nonetheless.
So if you've never consulted a doctor about those headaches, do it NOW: An effective way to manage the headache pain will be a powerful ally in your effort to make CPAP work for you.
