evening all
I had a bit of a headache yesterday and, as I'm sure you're all familiar, this might be something to be concerned about on the back of a cancer diagnosis ...
I was a bit busy so I figured I'd give it 24 hours to see if it settled, it was slightly weird in that it felt like there was fluid moving around behind my right ear.
It also only hurt when I stood up and felt better when I went outside to rest in the sun (doesn't everything)
Good old dr Google suggested it might be a 'positional headache', in fact it predicted as much as I started to type headache that gets worse when I stand up ...
https://www.healthline.com/health/positional-headache
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3104917/
I read up on it and although it does say it requires specific diagnoses to rule our anything more sinister, there's hope that it can be treated with fluids and rest.
That's funny, I thought, I've never heard of this, it must be an American thing, I wonder what we refer to it as?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_cerebrospinal_fluid_leak
Turns out we don't have such a condition in the UK and yet it's clearly describing something very, very similar to what I'd experienced.
Eventually I identified what is probably our closest match
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/intracranial-hypertension/
I did pop into see the GP as it bothered me that it was accompanied by a stiff neck, which i'd had for about a week.
She did blood pressure, ears, eyes, back of eyes for brain and temp. Then looked at bloods and realised she'd got no up to date readings since 2012 since the hospitals don't 'share'.
We talked about stroke risk, we have that in our family, aunt and grandmother but she didn't suggest, and I forgot to mention, CSF leaks, although I did mention the advice re being vigilant to secondaries.
I said I'd compared notes with several in different parts of the world and that even our close neighbours in Ireland have better follow up care than we do in the UK. She defended our NHS advice.
I also said I couldn't put my chin on my chest and that movement of my head/neck was a bit restricted.
She said it didn't look like I'd got meningitis and i had to agree, it didn't really match that set of symptoms.
I suppose I'll have to go back if it doesn't resolve itself and I really hope this isn't going to be another roundabout / merry-go-round with GPs tutting about Google.
Our lives do still appear to be in our hands.
hugs to all
Carolyn
xx
