I have a disease called 'Daily Chronic Headaches' - the short explanation is that I've had the same headache since August 2003.

I think my ordeal since August 2003 started with a trip to Michigan's Adventure. It's an amusement park in Muskegon, MI, that has a water park and a regular amusement park (their slogan is 2 parks for the price of one).

My best friend at the time and I went there on a very hot August Saturday, and spent nearly all day in the water park.

It was fun, but I'm positive that it lead to an ear infection.

I started feeling sick not long after this, and I went to the doctor several times, only to be told it's a virus (aka they have no clue what's wrong).

I was sick for a month, and so sick that it got to the point that I had to go to the hospital and miss a week's worth of work. At the hospital, I was told I had strep throat and an ear infection. Because my regular doctor never diagnosed the ear infection, my ear was permently damaged.

This is also when my headaches started. My doctor gave me FMLA for my headaches, otherwise I would have been fired for missing the weeks worth of work. It was good that I did get it, because I ended up using nearly all of it up.

The next 9 months, I spent in and out of the hospital with the headaches. My regular doctor put me on every known headache / migraine medicine he knew of, and none of them worked.

I went to a neurologist (he thought I was crazy), and other specialists - no-one could help me and my life was falling apart.

One of my co-workers convinced me to try chiropractic, and it ended up being a Godsend to me. I could return to some degree of normalcy.

Even though, I don't miss work anymore, and I don't usually miss social things, and the fact that I don't look sick, doesn't change the fact that I'm in constant pain.

I have to watch what I eat, how active I am, make sure I get extra sleep, and I still have my bad days.

Today is a bad day - thunderstorms are moving into the area, which always sets off my headaches, and getting upset yesterday didn't help.

So, I'm trying to make it through work, and then I'll go home and go to bed.