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A few years before my first attack (Optic Neuritis), I experienced sharp excruciating pain in my head. Now that I'm taking Avonex I've noticed within a few hours of taking the medication, it magnifies the same pain I had been experiencing for years. The pain is not headaches or migraines and the best way I can describe it, is like having sharp intermittent contractions in my head that makes me stop whatever I'm doing until the pain passes. Has anyone experienced the same pain or know of someone who has?

yes i had had sharp stabbing pains inexplicably for a good chunk of my life. they are gone now. although i have made a wide variety of changes i personally consider prior poor magnesium status as a likely culprit where these sharp pains are concerned.

YES I have! Sometimes the stabbing pain is coupled with a MAJOR headache that makes migraines I have had in the past (before being diagnosed with MS) seem tame. Sometimes the stabbing pain is without a headache. I don't understand it. I just know it happens.

Oh yes I have had that stabbing pain in my head. Only last week as a matter of fact I had it in conjunction with headaches that I got upon waking. The headache would pass and then I'd have the stabbing pain in my head/scalp at intervals throughout the day.
I had that sort of thing last summer along with a stabbing pain in between my ribs and in my back. I went to emergency where I told the emerg doctor that I thought it might be MS hug related since I had tightness in my chest as well.
He gave me a "deer in the headlights" look and told me he had never heard of MS hug. Sent me for xrays, told me the pain appeared to be muscoskeletal then finally prescribed a muscle relaxant which I took and to my amazement all the pain and tighness went away.
So that is what I did last week when I got the stabbing pain and it went away.
Now I'm taking extra zinc a la jimmylegs and haven't had anymore pain.
I don;t have a GP so I have to go to a walkin clinic or emergeny when stuff like this happens so I'm prepared to try any supplements that help.

glad to hear you got some relief azalea!

clarification - since you were prescribed a muscle relaxant, after experiencing symptoms such as chest tightness, headaches in addition to pain, that ties in with my leaning toward magnesium in the post above.

but, you mention getting relief via zinc. that is interesting - can you confirm you did in fact mean you are taking zinc for the pain, and not magnesium? or are you taking both?

either way, really awesome that you have relief from pain yay!

ps never heard of the ms hug - what a newb lol ;)

Hmmm ..I've been taking a long Christmas snooze and having woken, have now perused TIMS and see a query that I need to address.

Yes, Jimmy, I do take both magmesium and zinc as well as a raft of other supplements.
I had been taking magnesium glycinate as well as magnesium oxide and 25mg zinc picolinate. But just around the time that this headache and stabbing started I got a shipment of supplements which included Monomethionine Complex 30 mg tabs. So I decided to add these to what I was taking for a while and the head thing hasn't returned.
So whether it was the muscle relaxants or a combo of those and the added zinc is up for question. But I'm going to start reducing the amount of zinc by taking 30 mg Monomethionine (which includes 300 mcg copper) one day and the 25mg picolinate with 200 mcg copper on the alternate and see what happens.
Also plan on having bloodwork done a variety of levels again as the last time they showed "normal" which apparently is not good enough for ms.

sounds like a plan! first page of my regimen thread has a list of targets for bloodwork. normal is far from good enough. it's a deceptive piece of statistical terminology.