   IrvHello, my name is Irv. I have 4 children from before Patty and I married. Patty had 2 children ,who I think of as mine, Michael and Melissa and they have 3 children, Blake, Haley and Jonathan. I have Kim, Shawn and Vyckie. I had another daughter name Shelly who was killed in a plane crash when she was just 17. The only child that wants to have a relationship with me is Vyckie. She lives in Nebraska( a long way ). We visit on the phone and I have made the trip there one time. Vyckie has 7 children. Please visit her page. I have violent headaches and have had for the last 20 years. No one has ever been able to tell me what the cause is. They don't fit into any catagory of headaches that anybody has ever seen. I wanted to tell my story about living every day with pain that would be unbearable if I didn't have something to take to ease the headaches. Patty and I married in January of 1977 and I had a job on a survey crew. In April 1977, I went to work for AVA Vending Co, driving a truck and running a route. In 1980, I was laid off from AVA and for several months I drew unemployment, worked on church buses and traded cars to make us a living. Then in Sept of 1980 , I got a job at Great Lakes Chemical Plant. In 1985 I started to have really bad headaches that always were right in the middle of my forehead. The doctor gave me some Tylenol #3 which didn't touch the pain. He ran tests that didn't show up anything and in a while he gave me Tylenol #4, which also didn't help much. He sent me to the Oshners Clinic in New Orleans which was supposed to be so good and they looked and said they couldn't help me. I continued in pain everyday. Our son, Michael, had moved to Fort Worth and said there was a headache clinic there and so we had the doctor send us there. They ran more tests and still NOTHING. We came home disappointed again. Then we were sent to Little Rock headaches specialist, three of them and they found nothing and then to a pain specialist and was put on Stadol nose spray. When the headache would hit, I would spray it in my nose and got almost instant relief. For a while I thought it was the greatest stuff and started out at a bottle a month but before long I was using a bottle a day of the stuff. I almost overdosed on it and it scared me. We started looking again. I went to see the chiropractor, two of them, and then went to the accupuncturist. I was pulled and stuck over and over and nothing helped. Then we went to Little Rock again and this time they decided to deaden my head ,first on one side and then the next week I would come back and they would deaden the other side. Both sides at once and I wouldn't be able to breathe. This was done and I lay on the table with my head dead and still had the headache in the middle of my forehead. This looking went on and on for years. I was put on duragesic pain patches and wore them all the time. They helped for a while and like everything else, I wore them out. Then I went to the dentist to see about TMJ. I didn't have that either. Then I went to a ear ,nose and throat doctor who saw nothing and had to go out of the room when he saw me have a violent headache in his office. It isn't a pleasent thing to watch me have these fits . I rub the skin right off my forehead and make it bleed. Then I went to another ear, nose and throat guy who said he just knew he could cure my headaches with sinus surgery. So I had sinus surgery and the only thing that came out of that ordeal was that I developed sinus trouble that I had never had before but still had the headaches. I just couldn't do my job and the guys covered for me a long time before I went on total disability in 1993. I was put on oxycontine 30mgs and when they got up to 320 mgs a day and I still hurt, morphine was added to them.I got to where I was so full of dope that I couldn't function. Then the doctor said we needed to go to the Mayo Clinic in Minnasota and surely they could help. We took our last dime and drove all that way and went in and that doctor walked in and said" well, I have looked at your records and you have had all the tests we know about and we can't help you", and he turned and walked out. A 2000 mile trip and nothing and this was our last hope. We both started to cry and I called up my doctor and told him what happened and he was shocked that they didn't do anything and just said well come on home. I decided to kick the oxy because it scared me and I dropped it a little at a time but in doing so, I had to increase the morphine. I take morphine pills on a as needed basis and I need them Alot. Well, this is my story. I have the same headache I had 20 years ago and they are in the same place, right in the middle of my forehead. The only difference is today they are harder and the pain is worse. It goes on all day and all night. I never get any sleep and just keep taking morphine and trying my best to keep going. They hit suddenly and without any warning and I never know who I will be in front of or where I will be when they hit. I always have something to drink with me at every minute of the day and night to take a pill with. It's a hard thing to live each day in pain but I know there are other people that have it worse than me. I thank God for each day I have and hope that one day, they will leave as quickly as they started. Thank you for coming and reading my story. Irv   |