Rumination about my tension headache problem and on suffering

My doctor says that I should avoid thinking about my tension headache, and I concur with that statement to a large extent. Yet, I believe that I need some space to ruminate about the significance of this sensation so that I might garner some perspective to this uncomfortable condition that has been affecting me for a long time now. I just wish for some perspective onto the matter, in the hope that it shall give me some measure of reprief from this malady, which has caused no shortage of trouble to my life.

The condition, which has been called a tension headache by professionals in the medical field, remains a rather enigmatic character, despite my having its acquaintance for about slightly more than one and half year now. It feels like a constriction of nerves, veins, or muscles, within the head. Sometimes it feels like the pressure is from the outer layers of the head compressing inwards, and at other times, like a pressure originating from within the recesses of the brain exerting outwards. It hasn't been too severe in recent months, but nonetheless, discomforting. Just this afternoon, it felt like a rather strong pressure concentrated atop my head, which was moderately painful. The sensation now feels like it has dissipated, and is stretching along a strip running middle across the vertical direction of my head. The outermost muscle within the head feels rather taut, and if I shall move my neck, I can feel the stretch exerted by the tautness within the head. It feels like the muscles within the head are so strained all the time, as if they had just completed a workout at the gym and are sore from the lactic acid build-up. From time to time, I get this strange muscle spasm sensation in the head, which feels like a wave of tingling sensation coursing through the head muscle.

This condition remains as mysterious to me as it ever was when it first began. I had gone for an MRI brain scan a few months after this sensation started, but the results revealed no abnormalities. The measures that I have resorted to so far includes going for massages, trying out meditation, and consuming the anti-depressant Prozac. Painkillers don’t work, and furthermore, are not safe for consumption over a long-term as they can cause liver failure. I am hoping that that there is some natural way that the body can heal itself.

This condition has made me think quite a lot about the subject of suffering. I don’t think I can ever exempt myself from being troubled from personal pain or suffering. The tenets of Buddhism with its notion of the denial of the self in order to renounce suffering strikes me as not relating to the reality of human physical existence. I think that people should take steps in preventing the occurrence of suffering, either to themselves or to others

Yet, I do think that it is good for one to learn how to cope with various problems or suffering in as best a manner as possible. It is not practically possible to totally take all sort of precautions to prevent suffering to oneself. Despite one’s best efforts, one can still encounter the woes of uncontrollable forces that has repercussions on one’ quality of life. There are indeed many forms of suffering that occurs to various people without any fault that can be ascribed to them for their afflictions.

It would be good to be able to put things in perspective, and not let one’s perception of one’s suffering be more than what it actually is. I don’t discount the possibility that a person’s suffering can still indeed be very grave, and that ‘putting things in perspective’ might not necessary be helpful because such suffering may indeed be very troubling if you indeed appraise it for what it is. If it is possible to be alleviated, I think steps should be made to alleviate it. But if there truly isn’t, then it may be necessary for the sufferer to try to cope despite his suffering as best as possible. I won’t say that this is easy. Sometimes, it might be good to put away even the attempt to try to understand or appraise the suffering, and simply take it as it is and live on, because any attempts to understand it is futile. The presence of pain, in my opinion, is like the existence of material objects, an objective fact. It might be artificial to try to impute a rationale for it, as much as it would be artificial to try to impute the rationale of the existence of objective matters. Thus, I think that such questions such as “Why am I suffering?” or “What can I hope to gain from suffering?” can be somewhat quite artificial if one presuppose that necessarily an answer.

I am hoping to recover from this condition, and will try to take as best a measure as possible to facilitate my recovery from it. But I figure that I must learn to cope with it, even if this condition does not go away. I must ‘put some perspective’ about this problem in my life and not let it be more than what it actually is.