Comment by cthalupa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cthalupa | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I recently started suffering from chronic headaches that usually start in the morning when I wake up, and come and go throughout the day. After getting an MRI and ruling out a brain tumor, we've been trying a variety of medications to take care of it.

The most successful so far is an anti-depressant. Duloxetine. SNRI. I do have some of the side effects - my libido is markedly decreased, but it was fairly high to begin with, so I'm probably at about low-average now. I can still get in the mood on demand, and still want to initiate several times a week, so I'm more than happy to make the trade off to not have a basically constant headache 80% of my waking hours.

Off label prescription is a pretty common thing. Personally, I'm glad for it.

This may interest you: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/08/curing-the-incurable/

Thankfully, mine are more of a mild annoyance than cripplingly painful.

I'll check out Curable though, thank you!

Have you looked into teeth grinding during the night/throughout the day? I know, it seems like an obvious thing to look into (your dentist can tell if you've been grinding your teeth within the first couple minutes of an appt), but this unconscious behavior can cause low dull headaches throughout the day. An oral appliance (i.e. night guard) can have a tremendous positive impact on preventing daily headaches.

When I started taking duloxetine, I've experienced most or all of the side effects in the first ~4 weeks. After that they all went away. A friend of mine also had the same experience.

This is a small data point but who knows, not sure how recently you started taking the meds but there is a chance all the side effects will vanish :)

Glad to hear they went away!

The side effects are pretty mild, though if I miss a dose the headache I get after is usually amplified.

I’m curious if you’re tracking your blood pressure? Both before and after starting the medication. Did you see any change? I’ve wondered if there’s a relationship between blood pressure and headaches.

No change - sits right around 120/80

There's definitely a relationship, though - high blood pressure can cause headaches

Reply on news.ycombinator.com