Continual headache...

sounds soppy, but try drinking more water each day.I think we should drink at least 2 ltrs a day,& that doesn't include the stuff you use to mix with your scotch.Dehydration can be a source of headaches,yet is easy & cheap to remedy (if a little boring).It may help,if not,then it's off to the quacks with you!
cheers, matt.

Get a doctor's appointment. If it persists after his best efforts - get another doctor's appointment. Any, otherwise minor, symptom that persists is telling you to take it seriously.

Adam
You beat me too it - I would do exactly the same.
Martin
Good luck rod BTW

I'm with Adam too. See a doctor. Don't worry about taking a "mild" complaint to him or her as I'm sure it will be serious enough compared to some of the complaints they hear.

Do you grind your teeth? ... I had very similar symptoms a few years ago and had all manner of blood tests etc. until i isolated nightime grinding as the culprit. My dentist made me a tanner appliance (posh £300 gumshield thingy) which i wear at night - doesn't look very sexy but the headaches disappeared within days ... it's also quite worrying when you look at the grooves that i manage to cut into the thing ... i'm just glad that i'm chewing plastic all night rather than shagging my teeth

anyway you never know ...

andrew

Get yourself down the doctor Rod.

Harry

consider what has changed in the last fortnight.
new glasses or contact lenses? festive season indulgence? any back straining labour?

It is not my place but I wish to be forceful without worrying. Get yourself checked, get rid of the headache. If anyone fails to find a remedy - insist on seeing someone else.
There are many reasons that could cause this and few of them benefit from being left to their own devices.

Rod,

It could be to do with any of the above.

Moreover how much of the so-called 'hard stuff' do you drink, given you're a wine writer? Maybe the old constitution's telling you something?

However, I would echo others here by saying that if it persists, see a doctor. At least that will ease any alarmist ill-feeling that might be there. It might be nothing but anything going on in the vicinity of the brain is not to be taken for granted.

Good luck.

JR

Rod

A couple of annoying weeks (or months or possibly longer) going to a Doctor together with the checks to rule out something serious is well worthwhile. I say longer because some people need the time to reassure themselves that everything is OK.

Just a thought, but as you are into wines, it could be possible that you have an allergy that brings on headaches?

Best to get to a Doctor and have some tests done.

Regards
Mark

A round earth doctor would recommend a lobotomy. A flat earth one would consider your bowels.

But you need to get real medical advice.

Paul

My Granny used to help her migranes cum prolonged headches disolve by prodding her best knitting scissors around in her frozen over Coy carp pond in the middle of winter, though she did live in Hampshire, so it wasn't really so very chilly.

Fritz Von Two Parrysee'sthemall before bed innit. Good Luck John:

Thanks for all the advice and wishes.

I can confirm that two nurofen is enough to alleviate the symptoms. Earlier, in the absence of knowing how to get to see a doctor at the weekend, I tried "nhs direct", which worked... Someone, who seemed to know what they were talking about, phoned me back and talked me through it, she then told me to (as expected) follow much of the common sense advice above - drink more water, lay off the caffeine/alcohol etc (which I have been doing) and see a doctor if it doesn't improve in another five days. I will call the health centre on Monday and make an appointment, but I'm sure if I had the symptoms of something terminal then alarm bells would have been rung.

I hope I haven't overstated this - it is a slight ache. Were it in my arm or something I wouldn't think twice of leaving it alone for longer. In the context of other people's current sufering it really is nothing.

There's just something slightly scary about head-stuff, although I'm sure - based perhaps on spurious hollywood-type info - that there are no nerves in the brain that cause physical pain.

I can't help thinking that anything that a standard dose of nurofen can "cure", albeit it temporarily, can't be particularly serious.

Jon - I don't drink that much - really I don't! And never the really "hard stuff". January is always a detox effort for me. Although I certainly drank a fair bit on new year's eve, it was no more than normal for such a night, I've hardly drunk alcohol since.
Mark, if I get allergic to wine then my career is buggered - I don't think so fortunately (actually it isn't possible to be allergic to "wine", perhaps to sulphur dioxide, or even - heaven-forbid - to alcohol, but I am neither).

Fritz, I have neither fish pond nor knitting needles, so I really hope your granny's patent cure is not unique. Anyway Mick Parry has apparently already tried this method without unbridalled success...

Thanks again

Rod

Rod
My wife who's a GP tells me that you shouldn't even be posting on the Forum with a problem like this. Get yourself down to your GP, it's as straight forward as that! Let them decide what's trivial or not

Clive

Quite right too Mrs C, as has been said afore on many an occassion on 'serious', 'Aches & Pains', 'neurotic', 'hypocondriatic', & 'if Mick, etc can moan about pain's and stuff then so can I threads', innit.

Fritz Von Painintheneck²

So, the headache is still there and I tried, as per the advice above, to get to see a doctor. (Notwithstanding the fact that NHS Direct told me not to yet).

I walked to my local practice, where I am registered although have never attended, to get up to date phone numbers etc. After a chase through two other numbers the final one just rang out. Of course, I never expected to be able to make a routine appointment at the weekend, but I am slightly alarmed that - other than dialling 999 - there was no alternative whatsoever but to wait until tomorrow.

Is this right? I have no wish to be an unnecessary burden on anyone, but if I had a child with these symptoms and was worried, A&E, as the only alternative, is where I would go. Yet this is neither accident nor emergency.

My doctor's "evening" surgery also ends at 5pm I noted. This collides rather with my definition of "evening" and is not realistic for me for the next week as I am working some distance from home.

The "be afraid" thread suddenly comes to life for me!

Rod

GO AND SEE A DOCTOR!

What's more important, your job or your health?

No excuses!

Julian

Go see your GP. Probably easier said than done at the moment; lots of bugs around to keep surgeries busy.
Your GP needs to ask you a few questions, take your BP and examine you, preferably including looking at your retinae to exclude a rise in intra-cerebal pressure. Make an appointment!

Doctor F - in the medical business for 25 years and only once seen a headache with a very serious cause!!

Doctor F - in the medical business for 25 years and only once seen a headache with a very serious cause!!

What about dizziness? While you are on the 'phone. Not for me - just curious what the proper first step would be for someone presenting with this.

Adam, had you just asked them to share a cab with you? Or told them the proposed price of the new super cd player?

Thanks Julian / Doctorf. I will make an appointment tomorrow.
Doc, your last comment is gratifying news and as suspected.

Rod,

Judging from the responses on this thread a lot of people are concerned about you!

I recommend you keep us updated with what happens, regularly and as often as possible!

Cheers,

JR

quote:

---

What about dizziness? While you are on the 'phone. Not for me - just curious what the proper first step would be for someone presenting with this.

---

More detail needed for reasonable idea. Age/sex is a start. Dizziness needs to be separated into lightheadedness or rotational (vertigo), duration of symptoms, whether symptoms are reproducible etc etc.
I presume this is not one of your customers when informed of the cost of some of your high end equipment!!

Simon F

Last November my cousin Andrew died of what started out as 'just a headache'. Turned out to be a brain tumour. Unfortunately his 'headache' wasn't diagnosed as a tumour until it was too late to do anything about it. He was 34 and had 3 young children.

Go and see a doctor and keep seeing him/her till you're properly sorted.

Steve

And tell them of any sleep disturbances you have, for example snoring.
This was the cause of my headaches (and other problems now resolved!).
Get competent medical advice for sure.
David

Laura Brannigan died of an aneurism last year after complaining of headaches for a couple of weeks. It doesn't always happen to somebody else. Get it seen to.