Brief Answer:
Headaches

Detailed Answer:
Good afternoon. I am an adult neurologist and a headache specialist.

Your complaint of daily headaches is a common one and one for which the best approach is to understand both the type and if possible the reasons for such headaches. In my headache practice both in the office as well as in the hospital if a person is known to have headaches not due to anything INSIDE THEIR HEADS (e.g. tumors, aneurysms, strokes, etc.) then, we have them fill out a HEADACHE DIARY or log. This log takes the form of a 4 week calendar of details which I provide to them to keep so that we can later analyze what's going on and make the best diagnosis and choice of treatment possible.

I notice that you are taking Tylenol and Advil. One extremely frequent problem we see in people complaining of your kind of headaches is the OVERUSE of OTC medications (prescription as well). We have seen through many studies of patients with occasional or intermittent tension types of headaches that there is a direct correlation between severity of the headache, frequency, and symptoms associated with the headache and frequency of use of analgesic medications.

For example, when using things such as Motrin, Naprosyn, Tylenol, or aspirin we know that taking more than 15 doses of these medications per month can result in something called MEDICATION OVERUSE HEADACHE. So this could be a potential problem in your case. I just treated a person in my clinic who admitted to having daily headaches of a severe and bothersome nature. The problem is he was told to take as many pain pills as necessary to get rid of the headaches. So he has been taking, 6-8 Tramadol pills at a time along with 8-10 promethazine tablets at a time FOR THE SAME HEADACHE.

That is a GINORMOUS number of pills to take per headache. And he does that 3-4x/week! That is an example of MEDICATION OVERUSE HEADACHE (MOH).

In your case, I would need much more information about the headaches, the circumstances under which your headaches get better or worse, the amount of medication you use on a day to day basis for your headaches, and any other symptoms you may be having....you've mentioned lightheadedness and dizziness but I also ask patients to track things such as nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, sound, or smell, actual number of analgesic tablets they take per headache, amount of caffeine ingested, family history of headaches such as migraines, clusters, etc., and average duration of headaches in terms of minutes, hrs., or days.

In your case of what appears to be CHRONIC DAILY HEADACHES the best possible treatment is to initially WITHDRAW all MEDICATIONS being given for the headaches and to see over a period of 2-3 weeks how the headaches actually change. You may find that after about 8-15 days there are many LESS and LESS INTENSE HEADACHES than before.

Trying to prescribe an intervention or medication at this time without knowing more specific information about the headaches, their diagnosis, and intervention that we need more data in the format of a 2-4 week log of events.

From what you describe you may be suffering from either chronic tension types of headache or a migraine variant known as migrainous vertigo. Of course, you may certainly also be suffering from chronic tension type headaches or Transformed Migraines.

I hope this answer satisfactorily addresses your question. If so, may I ask your favor of a HIGH STAR RATING with some written feedback? Many thanks.

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All the best.

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