Headaches when I wake up/lay down

[Rosa_333]

Hello! So I get pretty bad headaches when I wake up in the mornings. It's not all the time, but when it does happen it's really bad. The light hurts and my brain feels like it's about to explode. The pain is concentrated on the lower back of my brain; what I associate to be near the cerebellum. Once I get up and move around I'm fine, but if I try to lay down again, it'll hurt again. I've read about brain tumors, and I know that might be a stretch, but it's still concerning none the less. When I was very young I did have a CT scan because of the unusually bad headaches I would have. They didn't find anything and I eventually grew out of the painful headaches, but now they're back. What do you think? Should I worry/go see a doctor, or are these kinds of headaches normal?

[Paulma2010]

I cut out all artificial sweeteners. You MUST do this. I believe that they sensitize and dilate blood vessels to the point of creating instant sensory overload be it from light or sound or movement or just touching my head against a pillow. Things significantly improved but the headaches were still a daily thing. Then I realized that my mouthwash contained a variant of saccharin(worst of all the fake sugars) in it. I stopped using it and all symptoms finally stopped.

[Ball123]

Everybody with these symptoms should check them up because if it is too high pressure in the skull, the first thing that gets hurt is usually the optical nerve, and this causes blindness.

So check it up. Better safe than sorry in this case!

[Ball123]

Hi Rosa!

Headaches that get worse when lying down can be a sign of too high pressure in the skull, called intracranial hypertension. Not blood pressure, but pressure in and around the brain. It can be caused by a number of things. Chiari malformation is the statistically most common cause and brain tumor is the least common cause. There are a whole lot of other causes in between. There is also a state where the pressure is too high but no cause for it can be found, this is called idiopathic intracranial hypertension, meaning high-pressure-in-skull-for-no-known-reason.

There are some ways to check for high pressure: The doctor can check your nerve functions and vision field. Sometimes the high pressure causes a nerve to dysfunction. Your doctor can also check your blood pressure, because sometimes the body increases the blood pressure to overcome the high pressure in the skull (otherwise your brain wouldn't get the blood it needs). Then your doctor should examine your eyes, because sometimes the optical nerve in the back of the eyes swell a bit when the pressure is to high. Then we have the brain scans, preferably a MRI, signs of high pressure are usually visible on a MRI scan as well as the cause for the high pressure. So the MRI is great. The doctor can also order a spinal tap where they measure the opening pressure in your spine but this is more invasive of coarse.

To sum up: go to the doctor. And remember that a MRI is usually really good as a diagnostical tool for these kind of things.

Good luck!

[AKC_75]

Hi and welcome to the Migraines & Headaches Community.

The first thing you should do is change your pillow. I had the exact same problem for like a year and I switched to a memory foam pillow and it got drastically better!
If you don't want a memory foam what you are looking for is a pillow that keeps your head aligned with your body. You don't want the pillow to be so thin it drops your head downward or so thick that it props your head at an upward angle. Start there and if things don't get better in a couple of weeks let me know and I can give you some more tips.

P.S. It is HIGHLY UNLIKELY you have a brain tumor.