A neurologist is an option for cases of chronic headaches, tension headaches or myofascial pain that one can not get rid of, or is unable to determine the cause.
A neurologist is a doctor specializing in neurology and neurology is the medical discipline that studies all nervous system diseases, particularly brain disease, diseases of the spinal cord, peripheral nerves and muscle diseases.
As part of a first consultation for chronic headaches, a neurologist will try to get an idea of the situation by asking a series of questions about your lifestyle.
So the neurologist asked me the following questions:
- Do you smoke? Nope, I quit smoking in 2007
- Do you drink alcohol on a daily base, in what quantities and how often? I drink without excess during the weekend: just wine, no hard liquor.
- Are you under particular pressure in your work, or experiencing stress from your employer or your boss? No pressure, no stress at work.
- Are you bothered by noise ? Yes, noise disturbs me but I don’t think it is the cause of my chronic headaches: chronic headaches are the reason why noise is bothering me
- Are you bothered by light? Yes, when there is too much sun, I pull out my sunglasses fast, but I put it down to the lasik eye surgery to correct nearsightedness which I had a few years ago and by the way, I already had these headaches at the time of the surgery.
- Are you prone to memory loss? It happens fairly frequently, at least once a day I tell myself that I will do this or that, and 5 minutes later, here I am wondering what was it I told myself that I had to do. It worries me a little but not too much.
After the questions, the neurologist performs a physical examination.The neurologist tests the reflexes with his little hammer.
The he tests the sensitivity mainly at the feet (he vigorously rubbed soles with an instrument that I could not identify: he wants to make sure you feel the tickling, proof that no sensitive nerve is damaged in this area (which was the case for me a few years ago: the sciatic nerve was so damaged that I could not feel anything in my right foot.
Then, the neurologist tests the ability to keep the balance while remaining on one foot, then the other, then on tiptoes and on the heels and then while walking on a straight line.
The neurologist finally asks to look at his fingers: he comes and goes with his fingers from right to left in front of you and asks you to follow his fingers with your eyes but without moving your head.
The neurologist also performs other neurological tests exactly as documented in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgwN1P5PDaA
The first part of this video documents perfectly what’s going on during a neurological examination aimed at to detecting a serious neurological disease that could be the cause of chronic headaches.
In the video, the subject passes the tests carefree and then the neurologist explains the purpose of each test and demonstrates what can happen when some individuals fail to pass a test.
In short, I came out of the neurologist consultation with a prescription for an MRI of the head, a prescription for 9 sessions Mezieres physiotherapy and prescription for Redomex which was used an anti depressant, but if using very low doses will act as a painkiller and muscle relaxant.
And I have to say that Redomex is quite effective to reduce pain but it doesn’t reduce the feeling of constant tension in my head.
But Redomex does help for sleeping a couple of hours more at night or sleep without waking up from the headaches, and that is helping.
As for the drawbacks, Redomex induces dry mouth and some weight gain, but I can live with that, as long as it helps me for my headaches.
Anyway, back to the neurologist:
Although I had repeatedly insisted on the fact that massaging the throat and in particular the area of the carotid artery, I managed to get some relief from my chronic headaches, the doctor just limited himself to pat the prescription of Redomex saying, “Try this”
And this is quite disturbing…
If I have learned anything in all these years, is that few doctors admit it when they don’t know and not many will send you to a colleague, see if they can help.
So I took myself an appointment with a vascular surgeon, for an examination of the carotid artery.