Headaches and alcohol

Hi!

I am a 38yo male, 10 and a half stone (147lbs), good physical health generally (apart from headaches, anxiety and depression).

I tend to suffer from bad headaches. I first suffered when I was about 15/16yo at school, and had a lot of time off. Then after I left school they stopped. They were migraines I think, I had to take 2 paracetemol and go lye down in a dark room and I'd always wake an hour or so later with the headache gone. From what my doctor said at the time, I put it down to hormones or stress, due to not liking school and having a bit of mild bullying.

Since then (up until the past 7yrs) I only ever, had a headache (apart from once in a blue moon) the morning after I drank, and they were always pretty bad. I then drifted onto drugs and onto hard drugs like heroin in my early 20's. I never had a headache at all. Then bam, after being clean off heroin for 6months, I smoked some in the morning (after about 6 weeks of being back on it again) and about an hour later, I felt sick, and got an excruciating headache. I had to go lye down and took a paracetamol. I woke up and projectile vomited. Everytime since then, if I took heroin, I had a bad headache. I don't know what happened, but think I have damaged my brain somehow. I eventually in 2007 got off heroin, had a 2yr relapse in 2008-2010, but only dabbling on it from time to time and smoking only (as used to inject it also) but since Oct 2010, have stopped completely and never looked back.

I have since though, been getting a bad headache off drinking. I don't want to go mad, I would just like to have a normal night out, just have 5 or 6 pints on a night, but I can't. It's killed my social life. So I have subsequently stopped drinking, didn't have a drink for about a year, till about 9 days ago. I had 3 cans of lager in the fridge, and I like a cold can of lager, so I decided to have one. It was ok, and I woke up the next day fine. A couple of nights after, I had the other can of lager (same brand), and again, woke up the next day fine. The third time though, a couple of nights after, I drank the third can (different band, same strength, about 5%), and woke the next day with a headache. I must say, I always tend to wake with the headache these days. I never develop one during the day. I either wake with a bad headache straight off, or wake with a bit of a headache, and it progressively gets worse and worse during the day. Anyway, after that third can, and waking with the bad head the next day, I took a paracetamol, and as the day progressed (took ibruprofen and more paracetamol during the day too) it just go worse and worse. The strange thing is, is the kind of headache. It's hard to describe it. The one I got the other day, was kind of like, this is the only way to describe it, like a burning kind of sensation almost. Well it wasn't a dull ache, wasn't a pulsing or throbbing headache and wasn't a pressure or band headache, which I have had before.

Forgetting the previous history build up though, and sticking to the alcohol related headache, and the type of headache I had the other day, has anyone had a headache like this, or know kind of headache it is? it lasted 4 days off and on too, but I was taking paracetamol and ibuprofen periodically. It went yesterday evening (Tuesday) but started on the Saturday morning, after drinking that can of lager the night before. I mean 1 can of lager is hardly much, and to have 4 days of feeling like crap with an off and on headache. These headaches I get just make me sad and depressed and a bit moody also. I want to find out why, what's causing them, and how (I know not drinking) but how to eradicate them. I think it's some kind of chemical imbalance, something I've altered drug wise, in my honest opinion. I've asked my doctor to refer me to a headache specialist but doesn't seem like he wants to. Just sent me to see a therapist for my anxiety and depression. He seems to think they're anxiety related which could be a possibility but that wouldn't explain why alcohol affects me so bad would it.

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