Permanent 24/7 headache as a symptom of ME

Hi, I have post viral/ ME. I'm slowly recovering after 7 months of being ill. I constantly had flu symptoms and headaches. Also I had vision problems. I was told it was optical migraines. I also had lots of other symptoms but I won't bore you with them, lol! I always had sinus pressure and felt totally rubbish all the time. Over the counter meds didn't touch me. I still have days where I feel that way but not constantly like I did in the beginning. I wish you well and hope that you start to recover soon. Take care, Faye x

Hi Robert

In the end I went and spoke to the pharmacist about what I could take within safe parameters.

They gave me a behind the counter strong nurophen 3x daily 2 tablets once every 8 hours and strong parecetimol 2 every 4 hours.

That helped

May help you but worth a chat with your local pharmacy I would have thought

Best wishes

Andy

Do you find that moving from lying/sitting to standing leads to a significant worsening of smptoms? If so, you could look at autonomic issues and whether PoTS would be useful diagnosis for you. Symptoms like this can be caused by lots of different things, including things we currently don't have a good understanding of. It could be that you have an identifiable cause of symptoms that might be hard to find, or it could be that currently the cause of symptoms won't be able to be identified.

I'd stay away from alternative medicine. Mainstream medicine isn't great for this sort of thing, and alternative medicine is even worse I'm afraid.

Ive been tentatively diagnosed with post viral fatigue as only been ill for 3 months but im also having lots of problems with my head. In fact for the most part the other symptoms ive suffered the last 3 months have totally gone- still tired but not to the level I was. What I do have remaining is ovcasional eye pain . Can never tell if it's coming from the eye itself or if it's the muscles around my eye,sides of nose and temple etc. Also have a Dull ache at the back of my head at one side with occasional shooting pains behind my ears and pain going down the back of my neck. Doctor doesn't seem concerned as my eye test was normal and the ache isn't stopping me dojng anything and I don't really need painkillers for it.

dry eyes, are they also symptoms of CFS/ME?

Last night, evey time I blinked it felt like sandpaper.  Luckily being a hayfever suffer I had antihistamines left over, took one and the same as having hayfever cleared up within the hour. 

This is strage as I suffer from Birch trees which dont usually come into force until Mid February.  

still very strange that people are mentioning dry eyes. may be relevant and Antihistamine worked for me. 

Hi Robert

Cant believe I've forgotten about this.  Have you asked your GP to be refered to an Eyes, Ears, Nose and throat specalist, re your headaches?  

Im so stupid at the moment its killing me.  

OK well over 10 years ago, I was treated for a headache which seemed to have lasted about 2-3 years. the cause was down to a Sinus infection which then spread onto my chest, throat, mouth, eyes, ears and nose.  I had to push for a refereal due to the mass fluid substabce which kept seeping out of my ears.

I was shocked when the specalist advised me of a respartory infection. The GP didnt pick it up nor did the opticions.  I've since changed GP's obviously.   

I was given a lot of antibiotics, steriods, inhalers and several creams.  today all I am left with is exma in the left ear which crusts up occasionally.   But rather that then the headaches any day.   

The headaches were almost like something in my head was trying to push out through the eyes and face.  Funny thing is I still never missed a days work :-) 

might be something like that? 

regards 

Andy

i actually like the headache, it is a great indicator for me as to when I am fatigued and need to take it easy for the day. I think of it as my 'baseline fatigue' and then other factors such as difficult to digest food add to the problem, but my baseline is my consistabt symptoms without any other factors. How I feel right when waking up for example.

Think of it this way, if you have a headache it means your blood vessels are constricted and your blood flow is not optimal - which could be due to a lot of reasons.

I would bet money that you have blue under your eyes and also neck pain. Again this is due to impaired blood flow.

There's two ways you can test this.

1; if you are on a high salt (sodium) diet,

then go low and see if your symptoms decrease. And if you are eating low salt eat more and see if your headaches increase.

2; try some intensive exercise thus increasing your blood flow temporarily and your symptoms should subside for a while.

I believe salt makes symptoms worse as it increases blood pressure (making the body work harder than it already is and constricts blood vessels - I know personally if I go over 1g per day, I will have headaches the following day.

Let me know how you get on, I have a lot of advice that could possibly help you.

Oh and by the way do you have droopy eyes like your stoned or something? I know that was another symptoms I used to have.