You Be the Doctor: What's Causing Horrible Headaches?

Aug. 11, 2008 — -- Sean Murphy has always had allergy symptoms. He's always had a feeling of vertigo, or dizziness, but never thought much about it.

And then the 33-year-old woke up with a headache -- one that didn't go away for weeks.

"I began noticing headaches that were always in the same area in the back of my head. And primarily, they got worse as the day went on," Murphy said. "They were constant."

When he told wife Natasha Murphy about the persistent pain that had lasted for a couple of weeks, she was shocked.

"I've had migraines in the past," she said, but noted that "none of his symptoms were coming out as anything so benign as a migraine."

Sean described the feeling as having something inside his head, something that "wants to get out more than anything else."

He began having trouble turning his head and any movement that caused pressure inside his head, such as a sneeze, a cough, a laugh or a yawn, was excruciating. And he was having a hard time keeping up with his kids.

At his wife's insistence, Murphy went to see a doctor.

"He didn't have any signs or symptoms of anything like meningitis," which can cause persistent, severe headaches, Dr. John Bjorklund said.

But what he didn't rule out was something structural, possibly a tumor or some kind of mass growing in Murphy's head.

Initial brain scans showed a minor abnormality, something the radiologist couldn't define. But Murphy was starting to have difficulty swallowing, tingling sensations in his extremities and memory loss. He was also having a hard time telling the difference between hot and cold in his fingers and toes.

So Bjorklund referred Murphy to a specialist.

The doctors then noticed what might have been a small lesion on the inside of his skull, a type of tumor known as a meningioma.

"I just couldn't believe that that little speck could be causing the amount of pain that I had been feeling," Murphy said.

Eventually, Murphy saw a neurosurgeon. The doctor walked in and told the Murphys, who had been expecting surgery, that he wasn't a good surgical candidate. Murphy was sent back to his neurologist.