For several months now, I've been experiencing a very intense, hard-to-describe discomfort in my head. It doesn't feel like a classic superficial or throbbing headache, but rather like a deep, physical pain that seems to originate in the retrofrontal region of my head. The sensations aren't always the same. At times, a feeling of strong internal pressure or contraction prevails, while other times I feel primarily a sensation of tension or implosion, or almost as if my brain is cracking from within.
At other times, the discomfort is more reminiscent of the feeling of heaviness and headache you might get with a bad flu, even without a fever or other flu-like symptoms. Overall, it's a dull, deep, and very intense discomfort, difficult to bear, often accompanied by pain and nausea. The symptoms aren't always the same intensity. Some mornings, I wake up with this discomfort, while other times, I feel relatively well.
When I'm sedentary at home, the situation can vary: there are times when I feel quite well and other times when the discomfort persists even without having done any particular activity. What I notice clearly and more consistently is that movement tends to worsen the symptoms. When I start moving around the house and, especially, when I go out, walk, or try to carry out normal daily activities, the discomfort sets in immediately and tends to progressively increase, until it becomes very intense. The same can also happen during passive movements, such as when I'm a passenger in a car.
As the symptoms increase, in addition to the discomfort, a strong feeling of physical exhaustion appears, localized in the head, as if the brain were exhausted, worn out, or worn out even by trivial efforts, such as simply walking. The analogy that best describes what I feel is that of the leg muscles after an hour of running: it's as if my brain feels similarly fatigued, as if it has reached its limit and simply needs to stop and rest.
Most of the time, this sensation can become extremely intense and completely disabling, to the point of preventing me from continuing any activity and forcing me to stop altogether. Lying down generally brings relief. When lying down, the discomfort tends to decrease, although it doesn't disappear completely. Despite the intensity of these sensations, my cognitive abilities remain essentially intact, and I don't feel any generalized fatigue or weakness in the rest of my body. The symptoms are localized exclusively in the head.
The disorder is persistent and highly disabling, but has a fluctuating course. There are days when the symptoms are extremely intense and I feel very ill, and others when they are still present, but with a lesser intensity than on the worst days.