I know this post is very long, but I would really appreciate people reading it and giving me any suggestions you can think of. We're hitting a brick wall here.

My mom is in her 50's and periodically has extremely sharp, stabbing pain in her head. When she was a child (possibly a teenager), she would have 1 or 2 pains at a time but never more than that, and it only happened a handful of times. Then, they went away and she cannot remember having any pain until probably about 6 years or so ago. At the time, she was working in a stressful position, and was under the impression that was causing the pain. The doctor at the time claimed it was a migraine and put her on Fiorcet. It took care of the pain perfectly. Later (a year or more), she was prescribed the same thing (Fiorcet) by another doctor, and that time, it had no effect at all. She was then put on Trileptal, which worked great also, but was later taken off due to kidney problems. She was on Imitrex for a short period of time, when doctors thought it was a migraine, but that never worked at all. She DOES NOT have any typical migraine symptoms, such as nausea, dizziness, sensitivity to light or sound. There's also not a specific setting that seems to trigger the pain. It has come during stressful times, but not always (less than 20% of the time). It's woken her up in the middle of the night. We can be having a great day doing basically anything and the pain will start. There doesn't seem to be a specific trigger. We've thought about food or drink reactions, but she eats and drinks pretty much the same things, and we haven't been able to find a pattern with the pain. I've looked up different types of migraines and headaches tonight and haven't been able to find anything that fits perfectly. The one thing that comes closest is Trigeminal Neuralgia, however, her pain is NEVER in her face. It never affects her face at all. She describes it as feeling like electricity running in a nerve along the side of her head, I think the general area is *usually* 1 to 2 inches above her ear, roughly. She's had it on both sides of her head, but I don't believe it's ever changed positions during an attack. She's currently having an attack which has lasted about 36 hours so far, and this time it's behind her right ear, where it's never been before. At one point today, she touched behind her ear, applied very slight pressure, and it caused a pain to shoot through. However, when she tried to repeat it later this evening, pain did not shoot through when she was applying pressure. At one point, she bent her ear forward and that caused the pain to go through, but later when she did the same thing, the pain did not appear. At times, coughing can cause the pain to shoot through. Sometimes she can lay down and nap, and when she wakes up it's gone. This time, the attack has lasted 36 hours, through sleep, rest and regular activities, and the longest during this time that she's been pain free was about 30 minutes today. Other than that, it's been constant. The most her other attacks have lasted have been 12 hours, and usually they are much shorter. Other times, she'll get 1 or 2 pains, and then it goes away and won't develop into a bigger attack. She can go months without getting one, and other times, for no apparent reason, she can get a few a month. Like I said, she describes the pain as stabbing or as if you are being electrocuted. It's never dull, throbbing, band-like, or anything besides a stabbing/electrocution sensation. She's taken Percocet and Vicodin, neither of which have been much help, especially this time. Ice packs usually take care of the pain, and that's been the ONLY relief she's had for this attack. This time, when the ice comes off, the pain immediately returns.

She's convinced it's not a migraine, and she's been unable to get any satisfactory help from several doctors. Several said it was migraines, without doing testing to support the theory or rule out other things, and a neurologist said he wasn't sure and maybe she was "just wired wrong." Her last insurance was Kaiser, and she was unable to get far with testing she wanted because they are the provider and the insurance, so if they don't see fit for the test, they won't approve it. She's currently without insurance (just changed jobs), but she will be covered the first of July and will continue trying to get a diagnosis from yet another new doctor.

I'm hoping someone out there might have some ideas. Doctors have been no help and we've been brainstorming and researching on Google, but have come up empty handed. Thank you so much in advance!