D@mn Headaches from long sessions.

jh3rron

The Beard
Okay I want to know what you guys do to possibly getting horrible headcase for days after play 5 hours straight. It's messing up my game and it takes 2 days to recover. No medication reduces the pain.Hell I'll get in the car to drive home and it'll ease up a bit till I have to turn my head and watch for traffic. Hope my necks not screwed up. I'm 30 145lbs and yes I exercise everyday so I doubt exercise is gonna work. I'll post some photos if I can of my stance
 
This may sound weird but two questions about your long sessions. First are you eating anything? If not you are expending more physical and mental energy playing pool than you realize, even something as small as a pack of peanuts can be enough to keep you "fueled" for the grind. The second one is are you a caffeine drinker? If you only have occasionally, caffeine will actually help with the headache, as well as dial in your focus, as it does help with some vision. Both points may sound stupid, but I've found them to be things I need to think about during long sessions to avoid issues.
 
Okay I want to know what you guys do to possibly getting horrible headcase for days after play 5 hours straight. It's messing up my game and it takes 2 days to recover. No medication reduces the pain.Hell I'll get in the car to drive home and it'll ease up a bit till I have to turn my head and watch for traffic. Hope my necks not screwed up. I'm 30 145lbs and yes I exercise everyday so I doubt exercise is gonna work. I'll post some photos if I can of my stance

You did mention, "(I) Hope my necks not screwed up."....have you suffered any sort of head/neck trauma in the past? Specifically, something like whiplash from a car accident or something similar? When I was in my 20's, had a big 150 lb Rottweiller and I kept in good shape walking and running him. One winter, running, we hit an ice patch and I went down hard and he broke my fall...snapping my head against his muscular ass. Then in my early 30's, I was rear-ended full speed while I was sitting at a red light. Had my seat belt on but when you are sitting still and someone smacks into you at somewhere between 40 and 50 mph, it's a pretty good jolt, seat belt or no. When I was about 40, I started to get migraines to the point of vomiting. Not too often, maybe once every couple months, but "normal" headaches basically everyday of my life. I carried a bottle of aspirin with me and refilled it often, even though it didn't help much. I slept poorly as a result and once went four days unable to sleep. Not a wink for four long days. Felt like I wanted to die, my head pounding most of that time.
I finally went to see a doctor. He told me I was in good shape, but my legs weren't aligned, probably had an issue with my spine and/or neck. I should go see the chiropractor next door like he had told me 5 or 6 years ago after my car accident.
I had forgotten he had told me that because I just blew him off at the time. I figured chiropractors are a bunch of quacks that just set you up to keep you coming back for life.

Boy, was I wrong! I finally saw the chiro (actually, he is a naprapath...there is a difference but most people don't know the word "naprapath" so I usually just say "chiropractor"), and he did an entire analysis with spinal x-rays and the works. Because of the head trauma of the past, my skull rests on my spine cocked at an angle and continuously pinching the spinal chord. Voila! Explains everything! Even my vision is blurry when the effect is real bad. So it took about six weeks of two sessions a week but he got me straightened out. My headaches disappeared! Unfortunately, I still had a bad taste in my mouth because I thought if I don't want headaches anymore, I am going to be seeing this guy twice a week for the rest of my life. Of course, insurance doesn't cover squat and I am not independently wealthy.
So one day after my session the doc says, "Okay, you should be all set. Just pay attention to it and let us know if you want follow up." and I say, "What do you mean?" He says, "You ought to be good for a while now, we don't need to schedule anything further until you see how it goes. Some people are set and their alignment holds indefinitely. Some people need to come in every week or two. Some people make appointments a few times a year."

Incredible! I have been virtually headache free for over a decade now. My chiro is my best medical buddy and I see him about once every two months or so to get straightened out. They are not quacks. Money well invested.

If your situation may be similar, look up a naprapath and make an appointment.
 
Good responses so far. Could be an underlying condition. You might want to see a Doctor just to make sure.
The last thing you want to do is pass out beside the table. My buddies told me that if I did, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was out of the question. I said c'mon guys, just no tongue, okay? :smile:
 
Not for nothin' Tramp...but chiropractors ARE doctors! They just don't write prescriptions. The good chiros are ones like described in the OP's post. The quacks are the ones who say you have to come in 3x/week for the next 6 months. MD's are no different...good ones and quacks out there...do your homework!

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

You might want to see a Doctor just to make sure.
 
Okay I want to know what you guys do to possibly getting horrible headcase for days after play 5 hours straight. It's messing up my game and it takes 2 days to recover. No medication reduces the pain.Hell I'll get in the car to drive home and it'll ease up a bit till I have to turn my head and watch for traffic. Hope my necks not screwed up. I'm 30 145lbs and yes I exercise everyday so I doubt exercise is gonna work. I'll post some photos if I can of my stance
Have your eyes checked by an opthalmologist...NOT an optometrist.
Hidden eye troubles can sometimes cause this...even in a younger person.
A full exam from a doctor, a REAL doctor, will find it if it is there.
If nothing else, you will eliminate one of the possibilities.
 
Headaches

I agree, have a full physical by a good Dr. ........stress, injury to the spine, problems with your eyes, nutritional deficits, etc.
I suffer from migraines that last days at a time so I can understand your pain.....took me a long time to finally find the cause so good luck and hope all goes well.
 
I don't know why the photos didn't show up I used the attachment uploaded. Anyhow I had one car wreck when I was 18. Went into a drainage ditch and my head hit the roof of the car@ 30mph. Also been hit in the head by a 4 car wide garage door in a service department when I was 19. I try to snack during long sessions I can't play on a full stomach because of a hiatial hernia which is a b!tch to deal with. Yes they smoke in the bar I was playing last night. I don't drink Caffeine or alcohol. Have not drank caffeine in 2 years.
 
Not for nothin' Tramp...but chiropractors ARE doctors! They just don't write prescriptions. The good chiros are ones like described in the OP's post. The quacks are the ones who say you have to come in 3x/week for the next 6 months. MD's are no different...good ones and quacks out there...do your homework!
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

You're absolutely right, my friend. What with the problems I've had over the last couple of years I have used the Internet to try and stay abreast of things, health wise. Doctors don't like that either, oddly enough.
I didn't want to mention this to our young OP, but when he bends over for a shot he may be standing on his beard. :D
 
I don't know why the photos didn't show up I used the attachment uploaded. Anyhow I had one car wreck when I was 18. Went into a drainage ditch and my head hit the roof of the car@ 30mph. Also been hit in the head by a 4 car wide garage door in a service department when I was 19. I try to snack during long sessions I can't play on a full stomach because of a hiatial hernia which is a b!tch to deal with. Yes they smoke in the bar I was playing last night. I don't drink Caffeine or alcohol. Have not drank caffeine in 2 years.

This sounds very familiar. You were a teenager so you just figured you were invincible. For me, the real problem took years before I finally recognized it. I have been seeing my naprapath for maybe about 12 years now. It is funny.... he and I are about the same age so I talk about various things with him. We talk about our kids, our wives, our businesses. And we talk about when we were kids...all kinds of things. This naprapath is brutally honest...says he did ok in school, mostly B's, some B+'s, even some A's, but he got in with the wrong crowd for a while and got in a little trouble back then. He recognized that he needed to grow up and from that point, he did well in school and in life.

Point is, I have every reason in the world to trust this guy. He has been absolutely honest about everything. I believe every word he says. And one of the things he says is that if you walk out in the street, about 70 percent of the people you see would get a benefit from naprapathy. They just don't realize that they had a problem earlier in their life that is causing them trouble now. He has worked on everything from toddlers to pets. I think he said one time he did a pot belly pig!

Getting to dollars and cents....I went in for a consultation: no charge. Just asked questions....symptoms, possible sources of trouble like we already covered, anything else he thinks of. He measured me with this big caliper type device that he sets to checkpoints on my body and also it measures the weight I am putting on each foot (when your neck/spine is screwed up, you tend to stand at an angle in order to relieve the stress and you don't even realize you are doing it; that is why the original doctor said my legs were not aligned....I thought he was crazy). I am a mechanical engineer by occupation so the relevance of these measurements make perfect sense to me. He showed me how my spine was cocked at about a 7 degree angle and I was carrying about 88 lbs on one foot and 110 on the other. This was all free.

I made an appointment for the x-rays which now is going to cost some money. Insurance didn't cover anything. I think the x-rays were maybe $400 or something and then I had the twice weekly sessions to straighten me out at $65 a pop. Like I said, this went on for six, maybe eight weeks tops as in the story I described above. All told, somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000 out of pocket, but my headaches literally vanished! I could sleep through the night! And with the caliper thing, I was standing perfectly straight and even weight on both feet. When you are right, you can just feel it.

So today, it costs me $65 every two months or so, relative pocket change....about $1 a day. You probably spend more money on coffee. And I can tell when my head is not right....when I do a lot of driving or when I have to work underneath machinery, sometimes, I schedule an earlier appointment to get straightened out. And literally, after an adjustment, I walk out the door just feeling better. Like I said, sometimes my vision is blurry. Doc does his thing, and I stand up straight and tall, and my vision is clear! It is amazing! My life is different and obviously much better since seeing this guy.

If you look into naprapath places, and they give you a first consultation no charge, you have no reason not to do it. Your experience should be very similar to what I described. If not, check with another naprapath. It has been and continues to be worth every penny.

Oh, and by the way, I don't play much pool at all, but after an adjustment, my snooker is greatly improved! I wish you the best of luck and best of health.
 
You may be sufering from a condition referred to as nine ball neck which is caused by long sets of playing bent over with your head cocked up stressing your neck muscles and possibly causing a pinched nerve. A chiropractor can get you some relief or a mild muscle relaxer will usually take care of it. I have been using a generic version of norflex as needed for years.
 
Hey I feel for ya. I also get pretty wicked headaches/migraines if I play for anything longer than 2 hrs. I wish I could tell you that I found a way to stop them but I haven't. I always assumed it was either from the awkward stance being that I'm a taller person or the constant concentration that's needed while playing. I usually stop playing once the headache comes on. Hope you find some relief
 
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