General Extreme Fatigue And Headaches

[Foreva Faithful]

Does your sufferer get bad headaches and fatigues when they are having a harder day? I notice the cycle when there is a specific transition trigger that he gets a bad headache.

Is there anything to help with this vicious cycle of headaches and fatigue?

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I get cluster migraines before recovering memory fragments, it's different to a migraine in some ways and almost exactly the same in any way I could describe it. Pain killers won't work, I know to go straight to bed and I usually either pass out from the pain or the flashback(s) come. I usually get several days to a week at once, then it subsides for a while. It's so exhausting and draining, sleep is the only escape from it (if you can get to sleep through the pain).

I also get normal headaches and migraines on rough days, they are usually persistent and though pain killers take the edge off, I'm better finding somewhere safe to hide, so know one sees me till it's all over - even if that's for several days/weeks straight. Unfortunately even though my Mum is relatively understanding, she won't let this extend past a few days and then it just drags on.

Intense sleep 15+ hours a day (usually 20+) for up to a week, after that it's best to try and stay awake, and either take it easy or just break the cycle - a walk in a quiet place, or something that is unavoidably nice! My mum took for a walk along the river side and then to a country inn for dinner recently and whilst it was more than a little nerve wracking, I didn't really feel up for it and afterwards I was exhausted again - the next day started fresh and with a better attitude. It forced me happier even if only to be polite but it spreads.

This is just me though.

AJ
xx

 

[Foreva Faithful]

Thank you AJ for sharing this! It makes more sense to me about the cluster headaches. I can never comprehend how tired he is when he isn't even working. I am glad to know that there can be a correlation, and it's not depression causing him to sleep so much!

I feel the example you gave me about the cluster headaches could help me to communicate with him better about what he is truly going through, not just a migraine. Another physical reminder of when to give more space.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

Most recently I had them about 8 times a day for a week and a half. I was sleeping so much I was worried, everyone thinks I'm depressed, but I'm genuinely not. My anxiety is too much, I'm not down, but anything other than nothing - literally - I can't watch my favourite TV show in bed with out 3-5 minute breaks, it's too much.

Having headaches is just as you said, a physical reminder, for him and you, it's taken me a while to realise that and he might believe they are just headaches. When I've tried lots of painkillers and working through this I've got chilled and cold sweats, a fever, been violently sick, in extreme pain somewhere, dizzy, partially blind, partially deaf, collapsed/fainted and suddenly come down with cold - as a child I was despite very real symptoms I was assured I was trying to get off of school, but when my head cannot cope any more it won't stop sending me very clear signals until I have to stop.

As relation to not working, I'm only 23, but I've never been able to hold down a job more than two months. When I'm not working, I wonder how I managed to get work and home stuff done, most recently, looking after my little sister (4) for a few hours a week and just getting up each day seems to keep me busy enough to be exhausted come the evening, I can't seem to do anything, it's not intentional, I just am exhausted permanently by my brain. Doing nothing is exhausting so I try to do things, but they are exhausting to the point of significant distress and in the long run are simply too much.