Has anyone heard of treating headaches with a coma?

Hi everyone,

I've heard through the grapevine that there is this treatment where doctors put you into a coma for a couple of days.  A friend of a friend said that she's never had an other headache since.  I know it's dangerous and probably still experimental, but I just want more information about it.  Please let me know if there is a place to read up on it or if someone knows some information.  Thanks for taking the time to read!  I hope everyone is feeling better.

Peace.

Michelle

P.S. I'm reading the Mayo Clinic on Headaches and it's pretty informative.  It's nice to have all the information laid out.  I suggest it for a good simple reference.

In the last month or two I was treated in the hospital with IV Ketamine, a drug successfully used to treat RSD/CRPS. The reason I mention this is that the ketamine treatment protocol for RSD and newer uses with chronic pain is MUCH differently in Europe.

Instead of the continuous low-dose administration that we use in the US, higher ketamine doses are used across the Atlantic (particularly in Germany) to induce medical comas. I understand that this protocol is often more effective. However it's also more dangerous. So much so that the FDA has banned medical induction of comas for more than three (I believe) fays--not enough time to follow the German protocol. However, ketamine and coma treatments for headache are not well understood because of their infrequent use, difficulty in conducting controlled and safe trials, etc.

Hope that provides you with some helpful info. Certainly many drugs can induce coma (or be used at lower doses to achieve similar effectiveness) but doctors and even entire clinics or hospitals are unwilling to provide this type of treatment without an experienced team member. So these are only available in a few different places. But that list is growing.

Personally, I found that the low dose treatment did help a great deal as it put me in a very altered state of consciousness that allowed me to (in some ways) kind of mentally, physically, and emotionally "reset".

Ben

Hey ashley, it's been a while.

So it's been about 3 months since I finished my ketamine hospitalization. I don't have time to write a lot now but I can make a few general comments.

The ketamine treatment was the only treatment that I have tried in six years of never stopping pain that has made a significant impact on my headaches. I was in a state of intoxication for about 5 days. The relief is a little difficult to explain, mainly because I did NOT have any decrease in pain. I went in with a baseline of about 7.5 out of 10 and left with the same. However, I am now living my life closer to "normalcy" than I've been able to in four or five years.

The reason that the ketamine helped is that, while it was being administered, I (much like someone who is drunk from alcohol) was so inebriated that I didn't notice my pain unless I consciously thought about it (most of the time). Unfortunately, this effect went away once they took me off. However, just having a few days of relative peace really just gave me a bit of time to assess my pain as objectively as possible (without hurting so much that I wanted to die, for example) and to really recover the energy that I need to cope with all of this pain, emotionally and physically.

Even now, my headaches are just as bad as they've ever been. But I have an easier time not thinking about them as much, even when the pain is searing. It's almost as if that time in the hospital served as a reminder of what regular life was like. I remembered how it felt to actually WANT to be social and enjoy talking to friends and family. I remembered the joy I used to find in listening to music and reading books (which I was surprisingly able to do in the drunken state, unlike the last few years when I've rarely been able to read at all, not to mention enjoy). Really it was just a brief break from having pain dominate my conscious mind. And in that time I realized that I could do more than I thought that I could, having felt so useless, disabled and defeated from the never ending pain over the years.

Now I am getting close to being able to live by a daily routine and am back to reading for pleasure and many of the other hobbies and activities that I had lost, being so blinded with pain. I'm just learning to be functional again. Though my head still continuously feels like it's been electrocuted, I'm starting to just do everything except for the things that I am truely, unalterably unable to do (as opposed to the things that hurt too much to do). But it's a slow road turning around from not leaving my apartment for weeks at a time. Still, even though I continue to sometimes become disheartened thinking of the things I was capable of before the pain started, more often I am encouraged by how much more I can do now than the little or nothing that filled months and years more recently.

It almost feels strange to be moving forward, however slowly. But a few months ago I never expected to be moving forward at all. So, yeah, the ketamine certainly helped.

hi again ashley,

I'm so sorry to hear about your father. Ya know, we try so hard to just get through the days but the extra pain--a lot of extra pain now I'm sure--turns hope from incredible elusive to totally unfathomable. The problems that devastate me pale in comparison to the loss of a father. Things are just so unrelenting that I sometimes feel not very happily used to the reliable punches in the gut... but then something bigger comes along and... well, I could write all night and not get across how it feels to live this way, but I'm sure that you know exactly what I mean. I almost feel like I'm lucky to have the difficulties that I do as I hear that you've lost your father. But even now I can't make myself feel less down, despite the reaffirmation that you and many others are feeling worse now--this so deeply saddens me, especially knowing that you're suffering this loss, Ashley. I think of how similar our lives have been these past years and, even though I've never believed in Fate or a guiding hand, I'm finding myself yet again asking "WHY?" I've been doing that a lot recently.

My thoughts are with you and your mother Ashley. I'm sorry that my response is so late. If you ever need or want someone to talk to please be in touch. My contact details are in my profile.

I hope that your surgery went well. Please let me know. And thanks for all of the info--I'll check it out.

Take care. Things will get better.