Blog

Beginning of my own story

My name is Martynas, I’m 33, I’ve spent more than 1/3 of my life without a single second without pain. I was a healthy guy during my school days, I founded my own company, programmed an interesting product, and after finishing school I entered Vilnius University to study information systems. After moving to Vilnius, things went well, I continued to develop my IT product. It seemed like it couldn’t get any better. 

However, after my first year at university, I suddenly felt dizzy, my eyes started to hurt, I felt sick, and I hoped that I would feel better soon, as people usually do when they have a casual cold. After a week the headache started, and I thought I would simply have a good sleep and it would go away. When I woke up the pain didn’t go away, which was very unusual and strange to me back then. During the day, the headache was gone for a few hours, I thought - it was finally gone and would not return. 

I was wrong. In the evening, the pain started again and did not disappear anywhere. Unfortunately, the pain started right in the middle of the exam session, I thought that somehow I would have to pass the rest of the exams. In 2010 June 14 I went to take the data structures and algorithms exam at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics. When I arrived at the building, I felt so bad (heavy headache, weakness) that I sat on the stairs in the yard, and my fellow students did not hesitate to call the ambulance - that was the day my acquaintance with the medical system as a patient began.‍

First year of the suffering

Upon arrival at VUL SK hospital for emergency care, due to severe headaches, a CT scan of the head was quickly performed, several other blood tests were done, which did not detect any significant changes, the doctors calmed me by saying that the pain should pass within a few weeks, and prescribed medication to relieve the headache. 

I was really waiting for the promised recovery, counting the days, but there was no change in my well-being. Because I was high-performing student (I received an increased scholarship for good study results at the university), the lecturers took an empathetic view of my situation and excused me from the exams due to my health problems (since I had accumulated a sufficient cumulative score for the best mark of the exam already). I had the whole summer to recover. 

I couldn’t look at any screen due to the pain in my eyes, the intensity of the headache made it difficult to move, the sensitivity to sounds, light, smells was almost unbearable. Hence, I could no longer work or take care of myself, so I spent the summer with my parents, who also tried to contribute to my recovery in every possible way. That summer I visited best-known neurologists and psychiatrists in Lithuania, I visited the most famous private clinics, but the neurologists shrugged their shoulders and sent me to psychiatrists, then they sent me back, suggesting that I rest, sleep, take a vacation, but my well-being did not improve at all. 

So the summer went by, I had to go back to my studies, but because of my condition, I could only lie in bed in agony. When I returned to Vilnius, I tried to make an agreement with the university staff so that I could study remotely and participate only in exams. It was truly disappointing, but the university didn’t believe me, they thought I was just trying to create better conditions for myself. It was painful to realize that I would no longer be able to study. I took a gap year from the studies (which the university thought was just an attempt to avoid studying for a year) and went back to my parents.

‍

Finding the answers

Eventually, I realized that if no one knows what I am sick with, why I feel this way, I must find out for myself. I started reading literature on neurology and psychiatry, specialized books on headaches. I realized that I probably have NDPH. Although rare, NDPH is important because it is one of the most treatment refractory primary headache disorders and can be highly disabling to the individuals. 

Saying it simpler, it is a daily constant extremely severe headache that cannot be relieved by any treatment methods or medications in most of the cases. I thought, maybe now at least the people around me and the doctors will understand me better. But I was wrong again. Some doctors were insulted by my attempt to provide information about this disease, while others were not interested enough to read the medical literature on the subject.

‍

Willingness to help the others

I learned that there are many people with a similar fate and I have to come up with a way to help everyone. I started with the idea of contributing to the spreading of information about pain clinics where people could get proper help. I offered several pain clinics in Lithuania to update their websites free of charge, to spread medical news there, share patient stories. Only one clinic was interested, but that’s how I met an empathetic and competent doctor from VUL SK hospital, who was motivated to bring changes in pain treatment. We have created a new website on pain treatment. 

The head of the clinic recommended a headache specialist who, after 5-6 years of searching and being referred from doctor to doctor, was the first to know my diagnosis and understand how difficult it may be to live with it. That was a great relief to me. Nevertheless, it was some help to me, but not to others. I realized how difficult it can be to get that help, how difficult it is to listen to doctors’ advice “maybe go somewhere, take a rest and everything will be fine”, when you can only sleep for a year trying not to wake up for as long as possible, so that you have to suffer as few days as possible with an unbearable headache. 

This is how the idea of establishing Olm Clinic - a clinic where medical science could properly develop and improve in order to provide next-level medical care - was born.

‍