Rhudi Baume-Kennedy from Scotland had been suffering from intractable headaches for nearly a year since turning 12. The ruthless headaches hit him in the morning with unfailing regularity, made him nauseous during painful spells and left him jaded and fatigued. For nine months, Rhudi and his father went from pillar to post, meeting doctors and nurses at various hospitals and centres. From tension headaches to migraines, he was dumped with countless diagnoses, but his suffering continued unabated.
Until his father had had enough and literally begged for a CT scan at an emergency centre. A reluctant physician ordered one. An hour later, the doctor came back and informed the family that the CT scan of Rhudi’s head showed a tennis ball-sized brain tumour in his cerebellum. A 14-hour surgery followed, which saved his life, but left him with partial hearing, loss of balance and double vision.
An ambassador for Less Survivable Cancers, a platform uniting charities for greater engagement around healthcare in the UK, Rhudi now goes from pillar to post to raise much-needed awareness about recognising alarming symptoms of a brain tumour.
Rhudi was lucky. But Senator Edward Kennedy (a member of the illustrious Kennedy family in the US) was not. He, too, nursed a gnawing headache. He, too, went through various medical opinions. He, too, did not have a CT scan. Until the day he collapsed from a seizure. The CT scan that followed showed a particularly aggressive form of brain tumour. Despite surgery and radiation from the best of surgeons and oncologists, Kennedy did not make it long.
Signs to watch out for during headaches
Any headache that is associated with nausea, vomiting, teary eyes and blurry vision must be seriously pursued
TT ArchivesEnough of examples. For we get the drift. Any disease allowed to prevail and procrastinate has the potential to be a death knell. To that end, I will never feel that I have overused the word ‘prevention’. After all, 80 per cent of all diseases are curable if prevented early. Let us focus on headaches for now and walk through some of its alarming red flags.
I am a big proponent of closely following the patterns of a headache. Any headache that wakes one from sleep, hits early in the morning or returns diligently warrants a trip to the doctor. Any associations must also be taken seriously. Any headache that is associated with nausea, vomiting, teary eyes and blurry vision must be seriously pursued. Along with any headache that gets worse with head movement. Similarly, loss of balance, dizziness and vertigo are unholy alliances when it comes to recurrent headaches.
Any recurrent headaches after the age of 50 need to be taken seriously. The same holds for headaches displaying new patterns, be it new locations on the head, new onset timings and new durations.
The side effects of painkillers
In terms of combating headaches, taking painkillers like candies is bound to be counterproductive. Not only can they cause rebound headaches and spiral one into a cobweb of relentless suffering, they also mask the symptoms and can suppress a potentially fatal cause.
While panic should not be a primary response, presuming every headache to be benign is risky. Headaches, caught early, can always be nipped in the bud.
Dr Shuvendu Sen, born and brought up in Kolkata, is a US-based physician currently serving as the vice chair, Research, at the Jersey Shore University Medical Center, New Jersey. An award-winning physician and author, his works include The Fight Against Alzheimer’s (Rupa Publications, 2024), Why Buddha Never Had Alzheimer’s (HCI/ Simon & Schuster, 2017) and A Doctor's Diary (Times Group Books, 2014), among others. Dr Sen can be reached at shuvendusen57@gmail.com
