Hey comrades, a lot of you saw that post i made yesterday about my terrible headache. i was doing a lot better today, but out of a sudden the pain is back to a 9.8/10 and it’s spread to my face as well. i phoned my doctor a while ago and he said it was just one of my usual migraines, which makes sense based on the type and intensity of the pain but they have NEVER lasted this long, it’s literally been a little under 36 hours. what if it never goes away? What if its actually brain cancer?
Help me i cant stop crying, i hate to sound like such an attention-seeker, but please send virtual hugs as on top of it all im home alone and i dont have anyone to talk to :((
Hey thank you so much for taking the time to write that out, ur right migraines are incredibly poorly understood by medical professionals and there are so little resources available, unfortunately i cant take triptans bc of some other medication i take so that really restricts my options. i had a clear brain scan in may, do you think a tumor could’ve developed since then?
no worries.
have you looked at what other treatment options there are other than triptans? also for some people weed works, for me it sort of dulls the pain a bit but doesn't really take it away tho.
ok, about brain scans. I'm not a doctor nor have i studied the subject. But afaik, doctors will not diagnose a brain scan for migraines because migraines don't damage your brain, and you'd need some other symptoms to make a brain tumour a possible or likely diagnoses.
brain tumours (again afaik) will usually have other symptoms as well caused by the pressure where the tumour is. headaches from a tumour would be different depending on the position of your head, and they also wouldn't necessarily develop straight away, it'd take time for the tumor to grow & it'd have to put enough pressure on the right area.
doctors would want another symptom like (persistant & worsening, not temporary - migraines can have temporary visual effects) loss of vision (due to pressure again) a thing they call papilledema. Or other effects i guess like effects on your other senses or memory/cognition/mood swings in some way.
if you already get migraines, and you're not getting other unusual symptoms, even if the migraine has changed a bit in where it is, it's vastly likely that it's a migraine. Especially if you already had a scan, it'd be amazingly unlucky to develop one since, and if you did it won't have grown much by now so you've got plenty of time in the worse case scenario anyway.
the reason they won't give you a scan (i guess) is because at least some types of brain scan have the potential to cause issues (including cancer) because to scan you they have to beam particles/waves through your brain. plus those machines are really expensive.
if you're really worried, it's not as good as a scan but it's safer/less of a hassle, get a blood test i think they can detect some cancers or at least an indication of cancer from those.