So, Jennette, how is that book going?
The book exists…as a Word file!

It’s currently a 262K word file, which seems ridiculously small since I’ve worked on it intermittently for almost two years now. I finished a draft at the beginning of the year and I’m currently working on revisions that are due at the end of June…right when I’m moving out of state! Because I am an excellent planner that way.

I’ve already finished the majority of the revisions, most of which fixed pacing issues or clarified things that were confusing or cut out brilliantly written bits that didn’t advance the story or were results of my compulsive need to constantly edit everything I’ve ever written, including this blog entry. All of which is to say, it’s in a really good place. When I reread it after several months, I didn’t remember every microscopic detail like I did when I was immersed in the thing. So I’ve found myself laughing in several places and thinking, “Ha, that’s clever! Hey, *I* wrote that! Look how clever I am! I even amuse myself!”

Awesome! When does it come out?
It’s currently slated for release in February of 2011.

Are you going on a book tour?
I have absolutely no idea. I haven’t talked to the marketing department yet, but I probably will within the next few months. Once we have a game plan, I’ll let you know when/if any book events are happening.

Wait, did you change the subtitle?
Yeah, the official title of the book is now “CHOCOLATE AND VICODIN: My quest for relief from the headache that wouldn’t go away.”

I can’t wait to buy a copy!
Thanks! I really, truly, sincerely appreciate that. I’ve worked really hard on the book and I’m glad to know I’ve presold some copies. I’d forgotten how much work it is to write a book, but let me tell you, it’s a shitload of work. Think of how much work you think it is and then triple that and then double it again for good measure. Then add a smidge more work and that’s how much work it is. Work, work, work, work, work. Work that is fun, but still work. So if you’re writing a memoir, you’d better damn like yourself because you’re going to get sick of yourself regardless, even when you’re already sick!

And that covers just about everything I know at this point. So if you have a question I didn’t answer, there’s a 90% chance I don’t have the answer yet either. I will let you know when anything else noteworthy happens on the book front. Thanks for asking!

Here’s where I stand with my 2009 goals:

1) Continue to pursue headache treatments

I first went to the headache clinic in January of 2009. Within a few months, we were managing my headache much better, though not ridding me of it completely. We’re still tweaking meds, but overall this goal was pretty much met.

2) Work to become full-time freelancer

I chucked my job in July of 2009 and haven’t looked back. I don’t know how I ever coped with working in an office in the first place. I still don’t have a long-term health insurance solution, but I’ll deal with that at the end of 2010. Another goal accomplished!

3) Maintain my weight with regular fitness and health eating

I’m going to give myself a C+ on this one. I continued to gain weight at the beginning of the year, but I’ve been maintaining for the past several months. I could do better, but managing the headache comes before weight loss, even in this list.

4) Secret goal I will not reveal because I like driving you crazy

Also, I did absolutely nothing to work on this goal, so major FAIL on my part.

5) Travel outside the country

Done. I saw London, I saw France! I only packed four pairs of underpants! (Travel light, and do laundry in the sink.)

Overall, pretty good job, but there is room for improvement. After some thought, here are my goals for 2010:

1) Secret goal I will not reveal to preserve an air of mystery

2) Lose at least 20 pounds by July.

3) Travel to at least 3 new places.

4) Finish and promote headache memoir

5) Another secret goal, in case I hadn’t driven you mad already.

I’ve printed my goals and taped them to my desk. Now I just have to achieve them!

By the way, have you been able to lose any of the weight you regained when you were attacked by the Killer Headache? Do you think you’ll ever talk about the subject? Since many (if not most) of us were drawn to this site by your book and or diet adventures, I think you’d have an eager and receptive audience. And, as a long-time maintainer of an 85 pound loss (more than five years, and holding…) I’d be interested in what you have to say about “rebounding.”

Weight loss? Oh, right, weight loss. I would still like to lose my headache weight, and I do think about losing weight every day, but lately my thoughts have been more preoccupied with figuring out how to live with my constant headache. I have a chronic illness. I will probably always have a chronic illness. I have good days. I have bad days. When I wake up in the morning I don’t know what kind of day it will be, but I soon find out.

On good days, I make my oatmeal and drink my coffee and go to my office. I work happily on my projects, either designing webs or writing words. I probably go for a run before lunch and come back refreshed and think, “I can do this! I can beat this thing! The headache won’t get the best of me!” and I eat something healthy, like a nectarine or carrot sticks. Then I go back to work and by the evening I feel a sense of accomplishment, though my head probably hurts a lot by now from working on the computer all day. Then I watch some TV and when I weigh in the next day I think, “I’m doing so much better. I can really lose the weight now!”

On bad days, I make my oatmeal and drink my coffee and go to my office. I stare at the monitor for a few seconds, then turn on the TV to watch the end of Good Morning America and the beginning of Regis and Kelly. I might read stuff in my Google Feed Reader. I read my emails but don’t have the energy to put together a proper line of thought to reply to anyone. I sigh. I slump. The act of getting out of my chair and walking outside to check the mailbox feels like I am walking through the deep end of a pool, expending all my energy to travel oh, so, so, so, slooooowly, when all I want to do is collapse and float to the top. I tell myself I should exercise because that will release endorphins and make me feel better, just like the doctors have told me. But I don’t want to exercise. I want to lie down on the couch, or my bed, so I do. I’m not really tired enough to nap, but being unconscious sounds really appealing. I feel guilty because if I don’t work, I won’t get paid, and I won’t be able to afford food to eat.

Eating sounds really, good actually, and I’ll start to fixate on something delicious that could momentarily make me feel better, like a Mint Cookie Milkshake from Steak N’ Shake or the Pumpkin Spice Frappucino from Starbucks that just came into season. I tell myself, “No, you shouldn’t eat that. You want to lose weight.” Then I disagree with myself and say, “Who the fuck cares? Life is a ball of shit and I want some fucking ice cream.” I go back and forth with myself for an indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes I’m good and don’t eat the milkshake, if only because the thought of driving half a mile to Steak N’ Shake seems impossible. Sometimes I find the energy and purchase some ill-gotten goods at the grocery via the self-checkout line so no one judges my purchase. By the end of the day, I’m thinking that if a meteor were to hit the planet and cause all life to go extinct, I would be ok with that.

Then I go to bed and wake up the next day, which is either a good day or a bad day. Who knows which it will be? There is only so much I can do to control it. I take my pills. I try to exercise. I try to eat healthy. I drive past the Krispy Kreme and don’t’ stop (except when I do). I’m still fighting it (except when I’m not). On good days, losing 30 pounds seems easy and natural and completely achievable. On bad days, I don’t care about my weight at all, and I’ll take being fat if it means I can have some cookies.

I spend most of my energy trying to maintain an equilibrium. I’m happy if I simply feel ok during the day, not necessarily happy or energized, but not depressed and miserable. That’s how it is with chronic illness. You’re never cured, you just manage it the best you can.

So, yeah, weight loss. Weight loss is great. Woo-hoo, weight loss! To those of you losing weight, I salute you, but it’s not the focus of my life right now. I am just trying to get by, an hour at a time.

“So, why are you leaving us?” she asked.

“Well, I just got an offer on my book proposal!” This was also the point at which I expected to ride home on a unicorn via a rainbow, because that is another thing that only happens in dreams. I was probably the happiest exit interview the HR lady ever had the pleasure of conducting. I smiled and laughed and bounced around happily in my seat before dancing back down to my desk to reread the email I had just gotten. Then I told my boss and my coworkers about the offer and they were happy for me, and slightly stunned, but I’m sure the “I’m quitting to pursue writing!” speech I’d given last week suddenly seemed a lot less flimsy.

So yes, I have been all sneaky-like and wrote a book proposal, which I sent to agents, and one of them liked it, so we joined forces and she suggested revisions, and I made them, and then the other agents at her agency suggested more revisions, so I made those too, and then she sent it out to publishers, and I waited, and then one of those editors liked it and offered me money to sit at home and write it, which means I can afford to buy food, which will make the experience all the better because writing is easier with chocolate pudding on hand.

I do not have a release date yet, but I would guess my book will come out in 2010, perhaps 2011. It’s tentatively called Chocolate and Vicodin: And Other Failed Cures for the Headache that Wouldn’t Go Away and you can pretty much guess what it is about. As the announcement in Publisher’s Lunch said yesterday, “[Jennette Fulda] humorously explores the twisted maze of eastern and western medicine as she visits doctors, acupuncturists, and chiropractors, and ingests pills, pot, and obscene amounts of ice cream, all in search of the elusive cure for her chronic pain.” It’ll be released by Pocket Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Look! They have a cute little kangaroo for a logo:

Big thanks to everyone who helped make this possible with their advice and support, especially the fabulous Miss Holly, Rachel, Jen, Erin, Wendy and Jennifer (who I don’t have a link for). I did not simply skip into the lobby of the publishing house and pick up a book contract at the receptionist’s desk. I’m truly grateful this deal happened and I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to write another memoir. Just because you write one book does not mean you necessarily get to write another. But really, if you’re going to have a headache for over a year, you may as well get a book deal out of it. There was a TON of work that went into making this happen, and the process only reminded me of how much toil and trouble goes into putting out those bound sets of pages.

I also wanted to thank you, my readers, for sending me crazy emails. They really made the proposal pop. Don’t worry, I won’t include your email addresses.

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Oh, you want me to say something else about this? All right.

After spending most of 2008 in pain, I began to bottom out in September, eventually started yelling at my readers, and went on anti-depressants because life was a meaningless pit of shit with no drain. I also stopped exercising and started eating more, like those chocolate covered nuts from Fresh Market and the Dove ice cream pints with a solid layer of chocolate on top and an entire Papa John’s pizza and a box of breadsticks on Oscar night.

I didn’t mention any of this because 1) Duh, it sucks to talk about and 2) The times I did start to write about it I had to mention my headache and I wasn’t going to do that again, so I never hit “Publish.”

Regardless of your views on obesity and what a healthy weight is, gaining a pound a week for months on end is not a good thing unless you’re recovering from anorexia. I kept weighing in everyday and marked it on my calendar, as depressing as that was, but I was depressed anyway, so who could tell the difference? I would tell myself, “This really needs to stop,” but then my pain would say, “LOOK AT ME!!” and punch me in the face and I’d add another ice cream pint to the bill.

Thankfully, the medications have tuned down the pain level so it does not envelope my whole life anymore. I can drive past the Fresh Market, think of the vanilla chocolate covered crunch bin, and keep on driving without remorse. Which just shows it’s easier to deal with an addiction when you are not facing a trigger 24 hours a day. As a result, I’ve been maintaining my weight for the last few months and haven’t had to buy any new pants since December.

You are free to think what you want about all this. You can say it is proof that people cannot lose weight and keep it off. You can say it shows I am a human being and you like me even more because of it. You can say I got what I deserved for writing a blog and a book about weight loss and how happy I was. You can say you are proud that I am talking about it and you think I’m inspirational because of it. All I think it proves is that my head hurt and I needed the ice cream.

I know I should be horribly devastated by this, that I should be weeping that my weight starts with the number two, that I am such a horrible disappointment to everyone who called me an inspiration and blah, blah, blah, but really? Honestly? I’m fine. It is not the worst thing to happen to me. A chronic headache that would not go away for over a year is the worst thing that ever happened to me, and if someone said I had to gain another 20 pounds to make the headache go away completely I would say, “Hand me the Ho-Ho’s!”

You know all that stuff I said in my blog and my book about how my life had changed, but it wasn’t just because of my weight? The stuff I said about how it was doing things I was proud of and liking myself as a person? You know, all that bullshit thin people say when they’re not fat anymore? Well, what do you know? It’s true! I actually meant it! I am as full of myself as ever, but even more so because there’s more to be full of! I am flying off to Europe on two month’s notice even if I am up two jean sizes. I am running a blog and doing freelance design work on the side and earning book royalties like a real business woman. I am doing other stuff that I am proud of but can’t talk about on the blog because it’s private. Feel free to call me an arrogant narcissist in denial. I’ll call you back collect from Paris!

Kirstie Alley was on Oprah this week, and I tried very hard to avoid the show, but even though I don’t have cable I still saw a dozen ads for it and saw clips of it on of the nightly entertainment news magazines. Kirstie Alley is an American actress who got fat a few years ago, lost a lot of weight as the Jenny Craig spokeswoman, appeared in a bikini on Oprah, and then got fat again. She was on the show talking about all this and all I could think while watching the clips were, “I do not give a shit.” If Kirstie Alley wants to sit at home and eat nothing but Twinkies, more power to her. And if Kirstie Alley wants to set up a home gym in her dining room and pose on the cover of health magazines, more power to her. Neither situation makes her better or worse as a human being, it just means she’s making different life choices, and they’re her choices to make, so could everyone get over it already? It shouldn’t have to be “brave” to tell people that working out sucks and you like chocolate. It just makes you human. It shouldn’t be a story to be discussed on multiple news outlets, not when we could be talking about how cute the Obama’s new dog is.

All that said, Kirstie Alley seemed pissed that she hadn’t been taking care of herself, which brings up this question:

“But PQ, what about your health? Aren’t you concerned about your health?”

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Sorry, give me a minute to – ha, ha, ha! In the past year I’ve had two MRI’s, two CTs, and more blood tests than I can count. My blood pressure has been taken. My pulse has been counted. Literally dozens of medical professionals have examined me and all they can do is rave over how healthy I am. They say, “PastaQueen, you are a paradigm of good health!” and I tell them, “No, I’m not!” and then I go see another doctor and the cycle continues. So please, do not stare at your bedroom ceiling at night worried about my health.

That said, I am not 100% comfortable with my weight gain. I still get called to do book-related interviews from time to time and if I have to meet someone in person I worry if they will think I’m too fat to do a story about my book. No one has said anything to me, but I’m not sure if that’s because their mommas taught them manners or if they just look at the “before” photo like I do and think, “Yeah, she’s lost a lot of weight.” I’m still down 160 pounds, which is an entire person, which is another reason I’m not weeping into a spinach salad right now. It all depends on your perspective

Now that my headache is momentarily contained, I’ve been eating better and I’ve started walking during my lunch breaks. I’m getting back into it and I wouldn’t mind dropping 20 pounds. But…weight loss is not the most important thing in my life. It certainly was the most important thing in my life for the first two years when I was dropping dress sizes every few months. When I told people, “I want to be thin,” what I was really saying was, “I want to lead the life I want to live.” Losing all the weight has made me confident and taught me to believe in myself and has allowed me to live my life in ways that I never could before, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m living my life. That has less to do with being fat or thin than most people think.

I still weigh every day. I’m still mindful of what I eat. I still think, “I need to exercise today” and sometimes I do. But even if I weren’t doing those things, I would still be me and like I said in my book, the fat PastaQueen was a funny, kind, person too. I am still me no matter how inflated or deflated my fat cells are and I’d hope you guys will remember that about yourselves too.

You can judge me as you will, fat or thin or somewhere in between. If I got to change one thing about my body I’d fix my headaches first, give myself normal feet second, and attend to the weight thing third, because it doesn’t bother me that much. I’m so tired of writing about my body, but I’ve written about my weight so much in this place I felt an obligation to put it out there. And hey, how cute is the Obama’s new dog?

Last month I was standing in line at Kroger, just like I’ve spent days of my life standing in line at Kroger. I was tired, I didn’t want to be there, and the lady in front of me was paying with a check.

As I shifted my weight from foot to foot, I was surprised, not by Jessica Simpson’s weight gain flashed on the tabloid covers, but by how I felt. My headache isn’t that bad right now. Weird. The same constant pressure was in my skull as it has been 24 hours a day since February 2008. Normally a long line at the grocery store and a bad mood would make it scream, but it was just holding steady at its normal background hum.

The headache clinic I have been going to since January (and not blogging about for my sanity and yours) makes me keep a headache diary. I record the level of my headache in the morning, noon, evening and night. They use a 1-5 scale where the numbers mean:

1 – Low level headache which enters awareness only at times when attention is devoted to it

2 – Headache pain level that can be ignored at times

3 – Painful headache, but can continue to function

4 – Very severe headache, concentration difficult by can perform tasks of an undemanding nature

5 – Intense, incapacitating headache.

When I started keeping the diary my days ranged from 2 to 4, most days being 3, the really bad days being 4, and the occasional “good” day where I had a 2. My neurologist adjusted my meds in January and there were no results. He adjusted it again in February and slowly I started to have mostly 2’s. Just as I was gaining hope of having a, you know, LIFE, again, my brain ratcheted back up to a 4 for a whole day, making me want to flush my seemingly worthless pills down the toilet. Then I went back to 2’s most of the time, except for a rainy day, which knocked me back up to a 3.

So the point of me spewing out more numbers than a bingo caller is this – my headache is currently dampened. It’s not gone. I still have pain. But I can do stuff now. I can come home and work on my blog without wanting to stab my eyes out with a ballpoint pen. I can go shopping on the weekends and not collapse on the couch in amazement that I’ve completed my tasks. When I drive to work, I do not spend 80% of my drive thinking about my headache and why did this happen and will anyone be able to fix me and oh my god when will this pain end? I think about what podcasts I should download and should I renew my lease and how much should I spend on my spring wardrobe and hey, I haven’t been thinking about my headache, how weird!

Out it goes, not with a bang, but a whimper. It slowly retreats, but does not completely give up ground. And gradually I have begun to get my life back, piece by piece, gluing it back together like that shattered oatmeal bowl that got broken in the mail.

I have been very hesitant to mention any of this for three reasons. First, I didn’t want to jinx myself. I’d hate to tell y’all I felt better and then get a level 4 headache the next day. Second, the pills could stop working at any time. For six years prior to the start of all this I took a pill everyday and it kept the headache away. Then it stopped working. Kapoot! And that could happen again. I am not cured. They still cannot tell me why I have this ridiculous, meaningless pain in my brain. Third, I made a vow to NEVER mention the headache on the blog again. I didn’t even mention the fact that I’d decided not to mention it because that would require me to mention it. Occasionally I have gotten emails that said, “Hey, you haven’t mentioned the headache lately. Are you better?” No, I was not better, I simply learned life was better if we didn’t bring it up anymore. But, I’ve been mostly all right for about a month now, so I’m going to take the risk and announce it publicly. I’ll cross my fingers that posting this won’t make the headache worse.

And since I know you will ask, the answer is 75mg of Nortriptyline and 40mg of Nadolol taken once at bedtime. My abortive of choice is 550mg of Anaprox, which is essentially industrial strength Aleve. If anyone has a time machine, please write down that information, travel back in time to February 17th, 2008 and slip it into my PO Box, will you? It will save me from having the WORST YEAR OF MY LIFE.

Yeah, sure, I’ve grown and learned a lot from this experience. I understand depression in a way I never did before. I have greater empathy for the old and disabled and the suicidal. I appreciate little things like a bright cloudless day without pain in a way I never did before. But seriously, screw that. It’s been fucking awful and no one should have to suffer like I’ve suffered. I’ll just hope the worst is over and savor ever second until that hope is proved wrong.

As I was lying in bed last night, the normal tension in my head became particularly intense. I tossed and turned as the pain became unbearable. I got out of bed to plod to the bathroom when suddenly I fell to the floor in agony and heard a loud popping sound. I blacked out, but when I regained consciousness, lying there on my chest was…a rare Portuguese tree frog!

“Hello, my name is Bob,” he said in Portuguese, a language I speak fluently after my year abroad as a Brazilian tango instructor. “Sorry to have been such a pain this past year,” Bob said. He then explained that he had dropped onto my head when he was only a little seedling, and had spent the past year incubating in my nasal passages until he was ready to spring forth out of my head like Athena, bursting forth from Zeus’s head. As it is commonly known, Portuguese tree frogs eat boogers for sustenance.

“But why didn’t you show up in the MRI or the CT?” I asked him. Bob laughed, mocking humans for their inability to fluctuate between dimensions and avoid detection by traditional scans. Then Bob made me a tasty breakfast omelet with extra feta as a way of apology. As he headed out the door in search of his fortune, he turned around and said to me, “April Fools!”

Sorry, y’all! I couldn’t help myself. You may proceed to throw virtual tomatoes at me. I usually hate April Fool’s tricks, but couldn’t resist making fun of my stupid headache today. Try not to get fooled again, k?

If you live outside the US, your concern is appreciated, however since you don’t get to vote here or pay taxes here, Congress doesn’t care what you think. You may as well write them and request research into how to make more pink dolphins.

I attended a free seminar last Wednesday at the IUPUI student center called “Myths and Facts of Pain: Is it all in your head?” that is part of the IU Mini Medical School 2009. I heard about the series on a local radio show, Sound Medicine, after they did a segment about chronic pain. The lecture was free, and I work downtown anyway, so I decided to stop by. Plus, they had free snacks! The caterers were even considerate and included a veggie tray along with the brownies and cookies, a true rarity in modern society.

The first speaker was Dr. Palmer MacKie, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine in the IU Department of Internal Medicine with clinical interests in treating those with persistent pain. I learned several new things about chronic pain from his talk and his multiple PowerPoint slides, and even more of it went flying over my head splatting into the wall behind me.

First, as I’m sure it’s made absolutely crystal clear by this diagram, chronic pain and acute pain function differently in the central nervous system.

The left half of the diagram shows how the body is supposed to react to pain, and the right side of the diagram shows how screwed up your body’s response becomes during chronic pain. Even more depressing is the fact that the brain changes after you’ve been in pain a long time, a phenomena called neuroplasticity. “Plasticity” refers to the ability to change and “Neuro” refers to your brain. Your body learns how to be in pain. The common English translation of this is, “Jennette, you are totally fucked.”

Other interesting things I learned:

• Portions of your brain start to shrink over time if you’re in chronic pain. (I doubt this will make the feeling of constant pressure in my head go away, but maybe I’ll get lucky!)
• Our brains contain mu receptors which bind to morphine to make you feel better and combat pain. Men have a lot more mu receptors than women, the bastards. Seriously, a lot more. I don’t have the slide to show you, but it was like the difference between a blizzard and a few flakes of snow.
• Not only do men have more mu receptors, but women’s mu receptor response varies during the menstrual cycle, making your body’s ability to gobble up feel-good morphine vary depending on the time of the month. Again, the bastards!
• Dr. MacKai spoke about the difference between pain and suffering, which is probably worthy of a whole entry in itself. Basically, even if you are constantly in pain, how much you suffer from the pain depends on your emotional state, your attitude, your environment, and how much the ACC (anterior cingulate cortex) portion of your brain is lighting up to tell you to PAY ATTENTION! to the pain. This was driven home by the fact that listening to all this talk about pain made my headache seem worse.

There was another speaker after Dr. MacKai, but he was an OBGYN who was talking about pelvic pain. Thankfully I do not have pelvic pain, at least not yet, so I decided to grab a cookie and drove home in a windstorm that knocked out several traffic lights instead. After all, I had a headache, and there was only so long I could concentrate before I had to lie under the table.

During the lecture, Dr. MacKai asked the question, “How many people have been in pain for over…” and I started to raise my hand, “…10 years.” Then I put down my hand, turned around and saw several people with their limbs raised. At that moment I wanted to get up and give them all a hug and tell them, “I am so, so, so incredibly sorry.” Because I am so sorry for those people. Now when I see a man walking slowly with a cane in front of me, I don’t think, “I wish he’d walk faster,” I think, “He must be in a lot of pain.” At least I know there are a lot of us.

* BTW, I am not a doctor. I related this information as I best understood and remembered it, but it’s possible I made some errors because I do not fully understand the processes I wrote about.

I’ve decided to post a list of all the suggested causes and cures people have sent me over the past year, from the serious to the absurd. Why? First, if you are someone who is googling the phrase “headache that doesn’t go away” or “never ending headache” or “chronic daily headache” this entry will give you a lengthy to-do list. Second, I’m going to link to this post on my contact page and if you don’t see your piece of advice listed here, then and only then may you email me about it. If someone has a good suggestion, I don’t want to turn them away, but if you’re the tenth person to tell me to go off artificial sweeteners, you’re just being annoying no matter how good your intentions were.

I suppose a secret third reason is to try to make you understand why I feel like smacking most people who give me advice over the head with my laptop. I know you guys mean well and just want me to get better. But when you tell me I have a tiny hole in my heart, not only are you the fifth person to suggest it, it’s also the 30th suggestion I’ve received, most of which I’ve also heard 5 times each. So, even if I do decide to have a device stuck down my throat to detect whether I have a holy heart, I’ll only do it after I’ve rearranged my work station, had the dentist poke my teeth, had my eye doctor shine lights in my eyes, had the chiropractor crack my neck, let the Chinese doctor stick some needles in me and a zillion other things I’m supposed to squeeze in between my job and episodes of Battlestar Galactica, all while not consuming coffee, dairy, wheat or artificial sweeteners.

BTW, I did not make any of these up. These are all REAL suggestions people have given me. I’ve investigated probably 70-80% of this list and I’m working my way through the rest of it.

Suggested causes

Pseudotumor Cerebri aka idiopathic intracranial hypertension

Teeth grinding

Holes in the teeth

Tiny sinus blockages

Sinus infection

Poor work station that needs to be made more ergonomic

Fluorescent lights

Eye strain

LASIK

Muscle tension, jaw clenching

Artificial sweeteners (Splenda, Aspartame, etc.)

Allergies to food (both IGg and IGe antibodies)

Celiac disease (gluten intolerance)

Patent foramen ovale (PFO), a hole in the heart (acting as a migraine trigger)

Saints possessing my brain

Voodoo doll

Brain tumor

Drinking from aluminum cans

Thyroid

The thing the guy on Grey’s Anatomy had

Teratoma of the ovary

Twin living in my brain

Deviated septum

Migraine disease

Allergic to new work area

HPV vaccine

Slipping on the ice a month earlier

Slight scalp burn during haircut

Lack of sunlight

Weight loss – dumping toxins into my blood

Weight loss – causing hormone imbalance

Menstrual cycle

Birth control pills (suggestions both to go on and off them)

Disturbances in my body’s electromagnetic field caused by electronics

Sleep apnea

Dairy intolerance

New Daily Persistent Headache

Chronic Daily Headache

The weather

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Depression

Polycystic Ovary Disease (PCOD)

Too much salt

Forward neck curve

Mold

Lupus

Lyme disease

Dehydration

Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis

Cerebrospinal fluid leak

Trigeminal Neuralgia

Epilepsy

Occult Cancer of the Facial Bones

Multiple Sclerosis

Spiritual crisis

Irregularity

Colloid cyst

Suggested cures & tests

MRI (with and without contrast)

Sinus CT

Acupuncture

Chiropractor

Neti pot

Aspirin, Ibuprofen, aecetominophen, Naproxin (Common OTC pain relievers)

Imitrex, Treximet, Midrin (migraine abortives)

Massage

Craniosacral massage therapy (CST)

Mouth guard from dentist to prevent grinding

Vitamin D

Melatonin

Allergy medication (Allegra-D, Singulair)

Botox

IV drugs (Keppra, Depakote)

Topamax (headache preventative)

Toradol injection (migraine abortive)

Antibiotics (Azithromicin)

Detox diet

Visit eye doctor

Visit dentist

Allergy scratch test

Allergy blood test

Muscle relaxants

Hydrocodone (Vicodin)

Percocet

Marijuana

Drink more water

Avoid caffeine

Lavendar oil, peppermint oil, melissa, ginseng and rosemary

Avoid trigger foods (wine, chocolate, cheese, etc.)

Nerve blocks

Biofeedback

Meditation

Yoga

Inderal LA, Corgard (Beta blockers)

Head On

No Pain Spray

Carry a magnet in my pocket

Neck stretches

Copper bracelet

Metal balls stuck on my ear that I’m supposed to pinch 20 times

Deep breathing

Magnesium

EKG

EEG

Neurological exam

Exercise more

Tricyclic anti-depressants (amitriptyline, nortriptyline)

SSRI anti-depressants (Celexa, Zoloft, etc.)

Spinal tap

Physical therapy

Stop working on computers all day

Altitude change, visit other parts of country

In-patient hospital stay at headache clinic

Menopause

Avoid various food products (milk, gluten, Splenda, etc.)

Eat only organic foods

Pet a cat

Calcium

Klonapin

Witchcraft, counter spells (for the voodoo doll)

Sex

Eat poorly and stop exercising

Banana peel on the forehead

Trepanation

Hit self over head with heavy and blunt object

Hot pepper under the tongue (“Tincture of Capsaicin” or “Tincture of Cayenne”)

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

Tension Relief Balm (with feverfew)

Aromatherapy

Hyperbaric therapy

Tiger balm

Reiki healing

Fung shui

Reflexology

3 day induced semi-coma (to reboot the brain)

Other stuff I found out I had while investigating the headache

Venous angioma

Heart murmur

Scoliosis