Headaches

   Have any of you ever gotten headaches related to writing? I've heard of people getting headaches due to writer's block, but mine go beyond that. If I go too long without writing, I get migraine-type headaches, and nothing seems to cure them: nothing save writing. I've tried everything from aspirin to sleeping in a dark room with a warm compress on my forehead.
   I've been getting these headaches for years and I know they aren't normal. I've often wondered if other writers experience these things or if I should get my head examined. Of course, whenever I think about mentioning it to my doctor, I worry that she'll just consider me crazy or ignore my complaint, so I just don't say anything. I think I'm just too embarrassed to mention it to a professional. Until now, I've been too embarrassed to mention it to anyone other than my husband and my best friend.
   When a headache strikes, the pressure builds like soda in a shaken bottle, only my head doesn't explode. I end up spending one sleepless night after another until I write something. It doesn't matter what I write. It can be a letter to my sister-in-law, a journal entry or a couple of pages in a novel. All I need is to relieve the pressure in my head and the pain subsides. Then, I crash.
   I usually don't dream and I wake feeling like I just closed my eyes. It's never enough sleep. It's barely enough to keep me functioning. I have to say, the headaches were really bad when I was in college. Between work, school and parenthood, I almost never had time to write. And scholarly assignments for class did not count toward headache relief. For years I felt crazy. Sometimes I still do. In school we studied great writers. Some died at early ages for no reason at all and I began to wonder if they suffered from headaches too. Or if what killed them was something else and medical science just wasn't advanced enough to figure it out back then.
   As long as I write, I can keep the problem under control, but I feel like I'm just putting a band-aid on a bleeding gash. It could all be nothing or they could be the sign of some greater problem. Who knows? Maybe I'll one day get the courage to look a doctor in the eye and say, "I'm not crazy. I just want to make sure my brain's not going to explode", or something like that. Even if I didn't get headaches, I think I would write just as much, if not more than I do. I love writing. It's the most natural thing I've ever done. I define myself by it and I don't ever want to give it up. Headaches or not, I think I'd go crazy without good stories in my head.