Found Some Headache Relief

I went to go see the pain specialist for my continuous headache. She prescribed Gabapentin  - a drug for relief of neuropathic pain. She also said that I should consider acupuncture.

The Gabapentin trial did not go well. I was only taking 1/3 of the prescribed dose (100 or the 300mg/day) as a ramp up for a couple days and I developed severe gastro-intestinal problems...and still had the headache. I called the Drs office and the nurse said to stop taking it. It was a miserable week.

There was some fruit from this episode. The doctors suggestion about acupuncture got me thinking. Being an engineer, I have a very analytical mind. The idea of acupuncture and qi in general, in my opinion, is a mind over matter mechanism. So I thought to myself, can I skip the needles (and save lots $$$) and just train my mind to overcome the headaches? So I set off on a quest to convince myself that my head does not hurt.

I have a pretty intense mental process that has server me well in my career, being able to concentrate for very long periods, and continuously dissecting problems has made me a successful engineer. When I 'got sick' a few people said that I would have to slow down and take it easy. I have recently realized that I don't even know how to do that. My mind is constantly running.

Now this might sound weird, but note I am not a normal person. In the spirit of talking myself out of my headaches, I would drop everything I was thinking about and 'confront' the pain. I clear out all my thoughts and gently focus on the pain. I look inside myself and isolate where it hurts.  Without my mind churning on the problems of the day I am able to only feel the headache as if it were separate from my body. In this state, I would take the positive sensation of deep breaths and direct it to the pain. I have to keep my mind very quite while doing this - no other thoughts. With each deep breath I can feel the pain subsiding. After about 5 minutes the pain is gone and I can move on with my day.

Some might say, well, this is what 'taking a break' means, duh. Up till now, this has been a foreign concept to me. Its working great for me, and I am further pleased that I am taking less medicine.