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What could be causing this persistent pain in the top right side of my head?

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alijah17262
alijah17262

It has happened in the past but usually goes away so I never worried about it. But it's these brief sharp pains that occur in about the same spot at intervals of a couple minutes or so. I also have experience eye pain in my right eye that usually lasts about a second or two. This pain is above my ear at the top right side of my skull. What could this be?

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  • bill03062
    bill03062 alijah17262

    Posted

    I am a 62 yo male living in Sacramento. My health history: i have type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure. Both are under control. I have had two Tia's. One back in 2000 and one recently in 2017. Both Tia's were minor,as Tia's go. I am relatively in good health, I am not obese but am over weight, and walk daily.

    Reading your symptoms and find they are very similar to mine. My symptoms are sharp jabbing pain at the top right side of my head above my ear and slightly towards the back. My scalp is very sensitive to touch. It can be so sensitive that all i need to do is just slightly touch my hair and i can feel a burning pressure on my scalp! The jabbing pain can go from a 7-8 to a 3-4 on a scale of 10.

    Before i went to Neurologist and received medication, i was getting these symptoms daily 24 hours and at its worse was continuous, one after another sometimes every 5-6 seconds, to maybe 1-2 per minute. They started on a Sat late afternoon after spending the day working in my backyard. It was in the 90's and i was sweating quite a bit and overworked my self.

    Its now Friday, now the 7th day.

    Like you i have also had this before but only lasted a day so i did not worry to much about this at first. But when Monday arrived and i was still in a lot of pain, i called in sick to work and hoped that it would go away by Tuesday. Did not go away. Tried to get appointment with my doctor for Tuesday but could not, tried to get appointment with any doctor at Kaiser but could not. On Wed when the pain had not subsided, I finally went to the ER after my wife urging me to. (hate going to ER)

    I was given a CT scan which was clear. ( i was worried that this could be related to 2 TIA's that i have had in the past.) I was given a shot of Imitrix (did not help) So then i was also given ibuprofen(Motrin) intravenously. (that worked!)

    The ibuprofen did work and my symptoms were gone. I was to take the ibuprofen 3 times daily.

    But that night i awoke at 2 am suddenly with terrible pain and took one pill and waited 10 minute and still no relief, so i took another and the pain went away.

    The next day, Wed, I saw the Neurologist and he concluded that what i had was

    Occipital neuralgia (look it up) I won't explain what it is, but what was prescribed was ,

    Gabapentin 300 mg and Ibuprofen 800 mg.

    I am pain free if i take more than the prescribed dosage, which i found out later, and even then I

    still will get an occasional jolt. So I am still not positive that this will disappear as it did in the past several years ago, but I am glad its not related to past strokes. Hope this information

    helps you with your problem.

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