Morning headaches...did I find a cure?

I am 41 years old and have suffered from headaches most of my life. At times,they have improved, and I have tried lots of different preventatives.

For the last couple years,they have progressively gotten worse, like almost daily. I have always had a problem with waking up in the morning with a bad headache. In fact, probably 90% of my headaches start that way. For the past year, I have been waking up in the middle of the night with them also.

I was googling nighttime headaches, and came across hypnic headaches. The more I read, the more I was certain this is what I have. It describes me exactly. I wake up at about the same time every night, sometimes several times in pain, sometimes very bad pain. I wake up with the same pain in the morning or once in a while, it is gone.

This describes a hypnic headache, which can be cured with taking caffiene at night right before bed. They think the nighttime headaches are triggered by REM sleep. If caffiene doesn't work, lithium, and a few other drugs can work. This is a very rare headache. I have been telling my neurologist for a long time that I keep waking up in pain during the night, but he never mentioned this.

Anyway, I tried 50mg of a caffiene pill at night 8 days ago, and I have not woken up once during the night with pain. I take the caffiene every night. And I have only had one migraine during the day in that period. I know it could just be coincidence, but I dont think so. I also take pamelor every day, but now I wonder if the caffiene at night could affect my day hedaches since I wake up with them so often.

Does anyone else here often wake up during the night, at least once, with terrible pain? If so, I encourage you to research hypnic headache. I am going to discuss this with my neurologist at my next appt, in a month.

I am really excited to possibly have found an easy cure for them. I am hoping to be able to help someone else reading this.

Jane

I frequently wake up in the early morning (around 4 - 5am) to find that I've got a migraine. It's usually just me shifting or rolling in bed that wakes me up and then I feel the pain (not the pain waking me). I discussed this with my Neurologist and she suggested Melatonin.

I was VERY againest the suggestion until about 3 weeks ago. Purchased a bottle and am currently taking 6mg at bedtime along with Topamax, B2 and Magnesium Citrate - HUGE difference. The odd time I'll wake up to one, I'll wrap my heating pad around my head and fall back to sleep, wake up a few hours later and I'm good to go. I mentioned the improvement the other day at my appt and she credits the melatonin.