New Daily Persistent Headaches

[OhBeAFineGuyKissMe]

My son (18) has had an incredibly tough year. The headache started in March last year (!) and hasn’t ever gone away. After lots of false starts and investigations (including eye surgery on both eyes) he has been diagnosed with New a daily Persistent Headaches.

Which is exactly what it says in the tin. A headache that starts suddenly and then never goes away, it is there constantly. Initially it was 8/10 but medication brought it down to 3/10 which was brilliant. He was able to return to school and social life,

However, it has crept back upto 5or 6/10 and painkillers really don’t do much, Naproxen does take it down a notch but not enough to function normally.

He has already missed a year of school and will do his Alevels next year rather than this year, but if he can’t settle back into school full time (he hasn’t managed a full half term yet!) it will have a big impact on his life. He already can’t join the navy due to his eye surgery.

Anyone any experience with this condition or advise on how to support someone (teenager in particular) with chronic severe pain?

No experience but it appears to be common with anxiety. I would have thought he’s at the perfect age for plenty of anxiety with school work/exams, unfortunately.

Have they suggested a beta blocker?

I would also imagine due to his age, sleep could be a problem? I’d recommend melatonin is help.

It sounds awful for him.

Is it just headache or back and neck aches too?

Headache which then cause fatigue. No anxiety (or symptoms of) he has lots of people who have offered to speak to him.

He is on beta blockers at the moment 80mg propranolol twice a day and 500mg naproxen as needed. I think the next steps involve Botox injections.

Anyone any advise on how to support a teen with chronic pain?

Hi there, my daughter going through the exact same thing (except her eyes were never affected by it). She got it in Jan 2020 when she was 11 she is now going on 16 in May. It’s awful! Can I ask did the Botox injections help him? And did he actually ever recover from it?

This is a post I put up this morning and got a few responses:

Constant Headache for 4 years that has never gone away
5 replies

Chappelll · Today 08:32
My now 15 year old daughter got headache 4 years ago when she was 11 years old. It has never gone away. She wake up with it and goes to sleep with it. The day she got it she also had a pain in her right side of her abdomen and fatigue. The pain in her abdomen went after 3 weeks but the fatigue and headache have never gone away, not even for 1 day. The G.P. at the time covered us with 2 Antibiotics over the first 4 weeks.
She describes the headache as 2 headaches - one all over her head and another on one side of her head. It’s about 6 out of 10 bad. But they can also turn 10 out of 10 bad. I notice not enough sleep or stress can make it very bad. Paracetamols and nurofen don’t help much.
She has had 2 CT scans on head over the 4 years which have come back clear. Numerous blood tests which have also always been clear.
We are seeing a neurologist and were told she picked up a virus or viral infection and it just never went away, apparently this can happen. She has taken Amitriptyline in the past and is now taking Topamax. The Topamax doesn’t help with the daily headache but does help with the headache spiking bad.
Has this happened to anyone else? If so has the headache/fatigue ever gone away?? Do you know how you got this?? Any advice??
Thanks!

Still ongoing for us. Propananol worked but not very well, Amitriptyline worse than useless so now on Candesartan. Which is helping, not perfect but a lot better.

He isn’t keen on Botox so haven’t tried that yet. It is notoriously hard to treat and is a long process. I hope your daughter gets some relief soon.

Thanks for that, I’ll look into Candesartan next! Best of luck for you son also!