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This is kinda personal and if you know me it might make you worry. Soz for that. I’m generally very healthy, relatively fit and always have a normal Blood pressure.

I’m writing this because I feel like the doctors don’t have a clue (Actual words from the doctor when I asked “So you don’t know then?” and got the answer “No”, she went to ask a friend. The usual questions, No I’m not having a stroke! Is anything stressing you out? Yes, its the fucking pain in my head, that’s whats stressing me out! I Joked about boring a hole in my head to let the Demons out, she didn’t really get the joke! Though if it helps, get the hole saw out!
I currently feel like I’m waiting for a referral *I am waiting for a referral* but I don’t know when it will come, and all the time think it would be better / quicker just to scan my head ‘cos if there is a Drumming Monkey or Alien inside, maybe a snorted an Apple pip as a child and there is a Tree inside, then I’d rather know about it.

In 2019 I had a good 3 months of Headaches, the only thing that shifted it was having a massively snotty cold and blowing loads of thick crap out of my left sinus…. no more headaches after that until approx a year later in 2020. In the meantime had a head scan to check out why I was having LH side Tinnitus, this didn’t find anything. The Pandemic situation in 2020 hasn’t allowed me to have a cold that may / or may not shift on these headaches.

Current status:
Have now had headaches for over 9 months, always the LH side, it can feel like a festering scab in the front of my sinus area in forehead, it can feel like a cold / scalded area from front to side of head, it can be a shooting pain around side of head, it can be almost like earache, it can be a pain in the back of my Skull where neck ends and skull begins, always LH side. Makes me want to jab my fingers into the back of my skull or the shooting pain can make me puff and blow like I’ve just burnt my hand, like that sharp intake of breath you make…. but the burn is in my head!

Multiple conversations with Doctors, at least 2 courses of Antibiotics the first of which seemed to clear up some of it and I got down from taking the max doses of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen (alternated through the day so i can load up on the max amounts).
Had a couple of different blood tests, nothing found (That includes a test for Arterial Arthritis in my head).
Kept a pain Diary for 2 weeks after 3rd or 4th conversation with doctor, currently waiting for a referral to a neurologist, whenever that might be!
I have been experimenting with pain killers as I don’t like taking pills, and I can get by with 1 dose of pain killers a day most of the time.

Things that I think can effect the pain, level of pain, etc?:
My state of Hunger
Waking up (Its only woke me up in the night once)
Ambient air temperature
Bright light / the brighter light coming from the LH side
Dust / Vapor (I have to be careful to wear dust masks if doing something dusty as my sinuses get effected and I’ll cough and be snotty for a few days)
Sometimes I feel I can control it by actively concentrating on relaxing every muscle in my head (makes me look like a right dumbass and its mega hard to do while driving!)

Headaches can happen in any and all scenarios, sat relaxing, working, driving, doing manual work.

Headaches don’t normally effect me going to sleep but waking up they begin to creep in as I start to wake up, though without pain killers the headache can dissipate and I can get through almost an entire day without taking anything.

Making music or being fully occupied with something is a good distraction from the Tinnitus, whether its connected to the Headaches, who knows, again this does not stop me sleeping.

Answers on a postcard please, comments on here are open, shares on social media appreciated, know a Doctor please pass this on, Know a Neurologist show them this.

Thanks

Bored of this pain.

Green Hop Home-Grown – OK this was almost an impromptu brewday, I tossed a fair few ideas around before coming to my senses and sticking to the program… These hops were picked and Vac-packed / frozen back in early September and its high time I got them used.
So… this is hopefully a solidly English Bitter, no frills, no in yer-face American hops, a good dash of sweet toffee-like Crystal malts, using a single addition of Goldings for the bittering.

Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 70%
Wheat Malt – 20%
Caramalt – 5%
Crystal Malt – 2%
Amber Malt – 2%
Crystal Malt, ExtraDark – 1%

Regular Dried Hops:
Golding – 5.1 % @ 60 mins – 74g

Green Hops:
Mix of Fuggles & Challenger 520g @ 10mins
Mix of Fuggles & Challenger 520g @ 5mins

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.4% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 37 EBU
Colour: 17 EBC
Yeast: Safale us-05
Mash: 60mins @ 68°c

The Vacuum packed and frozen hops from back here:

Trying some Crisps Maltings Lager Malt:

The malts:

First Wort Goldings Hops:

Other than being a bit squashed, these look and smell just as they did before I packed ’em:

In go the 10min Green Hops:

Protafloc plopped @ 10mins, break material settling out nicely:

Some rather clear wort running to the FV:

Used a bit of the wort to wake up some Brettanomyces, Whitelabs WLP 650, for doing a secondary ferment of whatever I brew on New Years Day (Split the Beer, Bottle half and then Brett the other half):

All in all a pretty easy brewday, not the earliest start but it is my only ‘lazy’ day this week!
I keep forgetting to take a Hydrometer shot, but rest assured it was 1049 and I liquored back 1.7L to 1045, ending up with 21.5L in the FV.
There were some pretty vegetative smells coming from the copper with over 1kg of Green Hops going in but the wort ended up tasting solidly like it had been hopped with Fuggles & Challenger rather than Lettuce and Sprouts!

*Bottled 12th Jan ’13 – with 85g White sugar, still tastes green vegetative, like snapped green plant stems… didn’t bottle it all left some for cleaning the plug hole! (Thats a first for me).

*14th Jun ’13 – some months later, the green vegetative has mellowed and I’m actually having a pint of this! The Malt body is pretty much what I was aiming for and its clear as a bell.