by Andrea Montack

Created on: February 24, 2009

If you have never had one of these headaches, then you have no idea what I am talking about. These headaches cannot be explained by mere words.

I have been having really bad headaches for over twenty years; I am not referring to those that can be helped by two migraine capsules these are relieved by going to the emergency room and being injected.

The headaches started when I was eleven years old, I had them on and off for about three years, then nothing again until I was eighteen. The headaches can last for two to three weeks without a day's break. When I explain to my friends and family that I have had a headache everyday for the last twenty years, they think I am crazy. It's funny the pain doesn't bother me much anymore. I just go on with life, and my headaches have become another part of my everyday activities.

I remember one of the attacks; arguably this could be considered the worst headache I have ever felt. I was at a function with my mother and some friends and I felt the pain increasing. Like all the other times I just ignored it, thinking it was just like all the others. The next two hours can only be described as a visit to hell. I felt a sharp pain starting from the nape of my neck working its way up to my forehead. If you could imagine being held in a vice grip by both sides of your head, while at the same time being drilled in the centre of the head. It's a graphic imagery, but that's the best way to describe it. I knew I started crying; bad mistake. This only makes the pain worst. My Mother came towards me, and I could see tears forming in her eyes. As a mother it is very hard to see your child in pain, and not be able to do anything about it. I don't remember much that happened after, except that the feeling I described lasted for about two hours. I must have fallen asleep some time after, because when I woke up I was at home and the pain was not as excruciating.

A few years after that incident I got a call from my mom, she explained that she had a headache that lasted for about an hour, and she was not able to do anything for the entire day. She thought it was unbelievable that I could carry on a normal life, with a headache every single day, especially one that cannot be relieved with an over the counter drug.

It's amazing how you can tell the side effects of drugs just by hearing the name, how you can list the latest migraine drugs and not have a pharmacist certification. This is just the result of being misdiagnosed for migraine, being tested with all the latest drugs available, several CAT Scans and alternate medicines and after twenty year still suffering from chronic headaches.

For those who have never felt one of these killer headaches, I say consider yourself lucky, this is one of those things that you would never wish on an enemy. For all the strides they have made in the field of medicine, the cure for these headaches is still a mystery. We can just hold on to the hope that knowledge is being increased daily, and somewhere in a lab a smart scientist is working on the cure, so that one day like Dinosaurs the killer headaches will be extinct. Until that breakthrough come we will continue to suffer through the pain, but life goes on and we must live life to the fullest, despite the pain.

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