You'd be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't suffered from one, a headache. But for some headaches can be debilitating. Tomorrow OSF St. Anthony is holding a special seminar on headache types, triggers, and treatment. It's something patients of the new Headache Clinic at St. Anthony say helped them find relief.

"I was having at least about five a week." Debilitating headaches that at times kept Elizabeth Groth from work, let alone living a normal life.

"From having trouble focusing, to vomiting, to just being in an atrocious amount of pain.. sometimes debilitating to where you can't even get out of bed," says Groth. She tried for more than a year to kill the pain with Excedrin, Tylenol, you name it. But after months of that the over the counter meds stopped working. So Groth came to the Headache Clinic at OSF St. Anthony's.

Dr. Monica Simionescu, Neurologist says, "there are different types of headaches and you address them in a different way and there are different triggers for different types of headaches." Migraines are most common that's what Groth has. They affect 11-percent of us, most often younger generations ages 20 to 40. They can be triggered by red wine, aged cheese, chocolate, too much sleep or lack of sleep.

One of the things patients are asked to do to help figure out those triggers is keep a headache diary. Logging headaches and keeping track of patterns like what you ate or how you slept it helps with the diagnosis, and not just for the doctor.

"It's helpful certainly for us as providers, but I think it's equally as helpful to the patients because they're actually identifying then what's triggering their headaches and being able to change behavior patterns related to that," says Lynete Gisel, Nurse Practitioner.

Groth has targeted her triggers and she's also taking medication to prevent her migraines. She's now back at work and down to three headaches a month, instead of nearly daily. The best part she says is being a normal 25 year old who can finally rock out with friends at the weekly poker match.
"Of course when you play poker, you've got to have music and I'm finally, for the first couple weeks, Ike oh you can turn that up it's okay now," said Groth.

There are certainly headaches far more severe than just a migraine ones caused by tumors, and meningitis. So doctors say that's why it is so important to see a physician if you're having chronic headaches.

"A Comprehensive Approach to Treating Headaches" will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23, at the OSF Saint Anthony Illinois Neuroscience Institute, 535 Roxbury Road, Rockford.

Light refreshments will be served. Reservation are required by calling 815.395.5493.