3 members of our house suddenly have headaches or migraines

10/08/08

Zgirl

Topics:viral or bacterial cause of headaches among a household

It started with myself 3 weeks ago, I had the worst headache of my life for 5 days. I was completely incompasitated. The first day I kept taking motrin, I don't typically get headaches but when I did I could take two and be fine. Later that night I found some leftover Darvocet from a previous surgery and it didn't touch the pain. I contacted my PCP, who gave me Relpax - which also didn't work. He ordered a CT, which was clear and sent me home with percocet. That helped me sleep but did not take away my pain. I typically have low blood pressure (90/60) and when the head pain comes it goes way up (167/115). It will come back down IF we can get the pain to get better. Better... not go away (it has not yet).

After the 5 days I kept a regular headache, which I could function with. I worked and did every other daily task, but it never went away. A week after mine started, my 16 yr old stepdaughter started, 5 days after that my 16 yr old daughter.

I've tested the house and I'm now just waiting on the Radon test. So far the house is clear (we've lived here 10 years). My stepdaughter and myself ended up having all sorts of tests, like a spinal tap, CTs, MRIs, blood work - all normal. I haven't even bothered to take my daughter in because it seems futile.

What would cause us all to suddently have bad headaches? I finally sought out a "headache clinic" and I am now taking lyrica and for headache break throughs, Fenoprofen, which works half the time. My stepdaughter is on a beta-blocker and imatrex. (She went to Children's Hospital).

To me, if it's not the house it has to be viral. What would cause this in a household?

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Answers (1)

Monday, October 13, 2008

Teri Robert

Wow. I have to admit that we've been discussing your plight and what suggestions to make to you.

Before I forget, I need to mention that taking pain medications (including Fenoprofen) more than two or three days a week can make matters worse by causing medication overuse headache (MOH), aka rebound. See Medication Overuse Headache - When the Remedy Backfires for more information on this. If you're in an MOH situation, nothing you take is going work, neither prescription nor "natural" medications. If that's the case, you need to work with your doctor to stop the medications causing the problem.

Checking the house was absolutely something you needed to do. Some other things to check include:

• If any pesticides or other chemicals have been sprayed in your neighborhood or someplace you and the girls go.

• Have you started using any new cleaning products?

• any new laundry products?

• any new perfume or other fragrance products?

• made any major changes to the lighting in your home?

I would also suggest that it makes sense for the three of you to see the same doctor. This is a mystery that really needs to be solved. You didn't say what diagnosis you or your stepdaughter were given, but I don't know if that would shed any light or not.

Please, DO let us know how things turn out?

Good luck,

Teri