I embarked on this little project in a moment of desperate groping for some way to feel in control of something, and now I'm having second thoughts.
It's this feeling of dwelling on the negative. Focusing on the problem instead of the solution. Something like that, anyway.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but was it really?
Or am I saying this because I've had a pretty good week and my head is behaving?
I don't know.
Anyway, I started using progesterone cream and between that and saline nasal washes, it seems to be keeping things at a manageable level.
I don't really want to think about what's going to happen when pollen season starts.
But why worry about that now?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Anxiety
I just left work without finishing the story I was working on for tomorrow.
It was -- well it just wasn't my day.
I wasn't sure what I was going to do on the inauguraton, but when I joked to my editor that I didn't think Obama would share with me the note Bush left for him, as per presidential tradition, Dan's ears perked up.
He wanted me to write about the tradition, suggested I call the LBJ library, etc.
Well, it turned out the tradition only goes back to Reagan, but in looking for more information on it, I came across a bunch of other inagural traditions started by various presidents, so I thought I could put together a nifty little story on that.
I even thought I could bring "real people" (which is what journalists call people who aren't elected officials, bureaucrats or other expert types) into it by asking random people if they had any inaugural traditions of their own (getting trashed, eating seafood, whatever...).
But from the start, it went nowhere. I looked up the names of a bunch of presidential historians, and tried to call and/or email them.
I called our local university, was referred to a particular professor who was not available. So I left a message.
In the meantime, as I said in my last post, an off-key big brass band started playing in my head.
I did everything I could think of to get my story together before everything went south, but I couldn't seem to get any sources.
I guess I could have tried to do it all off the Internet and see if it would fly, but they seem to frown on that sort of thing.
In any case, my ablity to make progress deteriorated as the pain advanced.
I knew I really just needed to go home, but I hated to go to Dan and beg off my story.
HATE IT.
HATE IT.
HATE IT.
I always feel like people think I'm making it up anyway, when I say I have a headache.
I decided to keep trying though, and I finally managed to get a Washington D.C. presidential historian on the phone live and in person.
He immediately cut me off. He was tired and chilled to the bone, he'd been up since before dawn blah blah blah.
I couldn't even bring myself to beg.
I hung up and went to Dan and told him I'd tried, and my head was killing me and I didn't have any more try left in me.
He was pretty nice about it. But he made some comment about seeing a doctor.
Well, I just saw a doctor, who gave me Seasonique, which, after I read about it on the Internet, I was too scared to try.
After giving it some more thought, I decided to give it a try next month after my period.
Of course, I didn't tell Dan all this. I just said I'd been to doctors, and all they ever do is throw drugs at it, and there are all sorts of other issues with drugs, like rebound headaches, which I'd already done and it wasn't pleasant, but then again, nothing was really pleasant anymore, so I'd have to come up with something, then I burst into tears and rushed away.
It's been ages since I cried, and I didn't want to today, because since crying has always been something that's given me a headache, I figured if I already had one, it would make it worse.
I cried half the way home (and thank God didn't get in an accident).
I'm just afraid. I'm afraid the headaches will get worse and I won't be able to work, then I guess I'd have to move in with my mom.
I love my mom, but living with her is another thing entirely.
I feel so stupid.
I'm just in this very unpleasant spot -- not really sick enough to be considered disabled, but not really well enough to function adequately.
I didn't really want to admit it's getting worse, but I think it is.
And I don't know what to do about it.
It was -- well it just wasn't my day.
I wasn't sure what I was going to do on the inauguraton, but when I joked to my editor that I didn't think Obama would share with me the note Bush left for him, as per presidential tradition, Dan's ears perked up.
He wanted me to write about the tradition, suggested I call the LBJ library, etc.
Well, it turned out the tradition only goes back to Reagan, but in looking for more information on it, I came across a bunch of other inagural traditions started by various presidents, so I thought I could put together a nifty little story on that.
I even thought I could bring "real people" (which is what journalists call people who aren't elected officials, bureaucrats or other expert types) into it by asking random people if they had any inaugural traditions of their own (getting trashed, eating seafood, whatever...).
But from the start, it went nowhere. I looked up the names of a bunch of presidential historians, and tried to call and/or email them.
I called our local university, was referred to a particular professor who was not available. So I left a message.
In the meantime, as I said in my last post, an off-key big brass band started playing in my head.
I did everything I could think of to get my story together before everything went south, but I couldn't seem to get any sources.
I guess I could have tried to do it all off the Internet and see if it would fly, but they seem to frown on that sort of thing.
In any case, my ablity to make progress deteriorated as the pain advanced.
I knew I really just needed to go home, but I hated to go to Dan and beg off my story.
HATE IT.
HATE IT.
HATE IT.
I always feel like people think I'm making it up anyway, when I say I have a headache.
I decided to keep trying though, and I finally managed to get a Washington D.C. presidential historian on the phone live and in person.
He immediately cut me off. He was tired and chilled to the bone, he'd been up since before dawn blah blah blah.
I couldn't even bring myself to beg.
I hung up and went to Dan and told him I'd tried, and my head was killing me and I didn't have any more try left in me.
He was pretty nice about it. But he made some comment about seeing a doctor.
Well, I just saw a doctor, who gave me Seasonique, which, after I read about it on the Internet, I was too scared to try.
After giving it some more thought, I decided to give it a try next month after my period.
Of course, I didn't tell Dan all this. I just said I'd been to doctors, and all they ever do is throw drugs at it, and there are all sorts of other issues with drugs, like rebound headaches, which I'd already done and it wasn't pleasant, but then again, nothing was really pleasant anymore, so I'd have to come up with something, then I burst into tears and rushed away.
It's been ages since I cried, and I didn't want to today, because since crying has always been something that's given me a headache, I figured if I already had one, it would make it worse.
I cried half the way home (and thank God didn't get in an accident).
I'm just afraid. I'm afraid the headaches will get worse and I won't be able to work, then I guess I'd have to move in with my mom.
I love my mom, but living with her is another thing entirely.
I feel so stupid.
I'm just in this very unpleasant spot -- not really sick enough to be considered disabled, but not really well enough to function adequately.
I didn't really want to admit it's getting worse, but I think it is.
And I don't know what to do about it.
Fuck this
I'm angry.
I know it's useless to scream and yell and wave my arms, but it feels so unfair.
I eat right; exercise; go to bed early; I don't smoke or drink, and my caffiene intake is limited to a couple of cups of green tea per day -- and if I'm getting really crazy, a cup of black tea. I've cut my chocolate consumption down to almost nothing and I avoid all artificial flavor and colorings in my diet.
I've tried so many things over the past four years.
But I still have these miserable, wretched headaches.
I feel like I drew the short straw when they were handing out heads.
I feel like I'm being punished for surviving past child bearing age. If I'd lived in another era, maybe I'd have died in childbirth long before I got to this point.
I'm trying hard not to whine and wallow in self pity, but these headaches are getting me down. They affect my job, my social life, my sense of well-being.
"This too shall pass," I mutter through gritted teeth.
But even after it passes, I worry about when the next one will hit.
Well, life is unfair. I knew that.
I'm just not coping with it very well today.
I took Relpax yesterday for a headache -- it worked, but it makes me so tired and spacy and kind of achy, as well.
This morning, before I even got out of bed I felt an ominous twinge.
By the time Obama had begun his inaugural speech, I was sitting with my head in my hands, pressing into the hollows above my eyes. So much for stirring historic moments.
I'm not sure I'm going to be able to complete my work without taking Relpax, but I'm afraid I'm just setting off a chain reaction of rebound headaches by taking it two days in a row.
I just don't think I should take it today.
I know it's useless to scream and yell and wave my arms, but it feels so unfair.
I eat right; exercise; go to bed early; I don't smoke or drink, and my caffiene intake is limited to a couple of cups of green tea per day -- and if I'm getting really crazy, a cup of black tea. I've cut my chocolate consumption down to almost nothing and I avoid all artificial flavor and colorings in my diet.
I've tried so many things over the past four years.
But I still have these miserable, wretched headaches.
I feel like I drew the short straw when they were handing out heads.
I feel like I'm being punished for surviving past child bearing age. If I'd lived in another era, maybe I'd have died in childbirth long before I got to this point.
I'm trying hard not to whine and wallow in self pity, but these headaches are getting me down. They affect my job, my social life, my sense of well-being.
"This too shall pass," I mutter through gritted teeth.
But even after it passes, I worry about when the next one will hit.
Well, life is unfair. I knew that.
I'm just not coping with it very well today.
I took Relpax yesterday for a headache -- it worked, but it makes me so tired and spacy and kind of achy, as well.
This morning, before I even got out of bed I felt an ominous twinge.
By the time Obama had begun his inaugural speech, I was sitting with my head in my hands, pressing into the hollows above my eyes. So much for stirring historic moments.
I'm not sure I'm going to be able to complete my work without taking Relpax, but I'm afraid I'm just setting off a chain reaction of rebound headaches by taking it two days in a row.
I just don't think I should take it today.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Monday
Monday morning started off well.
I woke without a trace of the sinus pain that bothered me all day yesterday.
I did my usual sinus wash with which I begin each day.
This morning, my assignment was to cover a Neches River tour that a group of volunteers here to help with Hurricane Ike recovery was taking.
I went out to the boat launch and was dismayed when I drove up and the boat was nowhere in sight. I thought I was late and they'd left without me.
But it turned out the boat trip had been cancelled because the boat was stranded by a low tide and wind.
So instead, we went for a walk. It was a bright clear breezy morning.
So when I got back to my car and my head was starting to hurt, I thought perhaps it was from pollen and other stuff blowing around.
I needed to go back by my house to change from boating clothes to office clothes, so when I was there, I did another nasal wash. The warm salt water felt good and it seemed to do the trick. I was pleased.
But later, in the office, the pain started up again.
I sort of knew it was no longer sinus, but hoping it was (because that seems more easily cured) I took a sinus pill.
No effect.
As I felt the searing fingers of migraine wrap around my brain and start to squeeze, I realized to my dismay that I did not have my Relpax with me.
I'd taken it out of my purse and put it in my backpack yesterday when I went for my bike ride and neglected to return it.
Shit.
I thought about driving home to pick it up, but I had two things to write up, and I figured I'd just try to get my work done really fast and rush home early.
That worked okay.
I'm home now. Took the stuff about half an hour ago. So far not feeling the familiar woozy feeling when the stuff starts to work.
It's a little worrisome, because as anyone with migraines knows, if you wait too long, meds don't help. Not really sure why that is.
So now I'm just waiting.
I probably should go lie down. I don't think I'm doing myself any favors by sitting here staring into a computer screen. Usually at the end of the day there's nothing I want more than to lie down on my bed, pet my cat and read a book.
Oddly, right now, I don't really feel like it.
I woke without a trace of the sinus pain that bothered me all day yesterday.
I did my usual sinus wash with which I begin each day.
This morning, my assignment was to cover a Neches River tour that a group of volunteers here to help with Hurricane Ike recovery was taking.
I went out to the boat launch and was dismayed when I drove up and the boat was nowhere in sight. I thought I was late and they'd left without me.
But it turned out the boat trip had been cancelled because the boat was stranded by a low tide and wind.
So instead, we went for a walk. It was a bright clear breezy morning.
So when I got back to my car and my head was starting to hurt, I thought perhaps it was from pollen and other stuff blowing around.
I needed to go back by my house to change from boating clothes to office clothes, so when I was there, I did another nasal wash. The warm salt water felt good and it seemed to do the trick. I was pleased.
But later, in the office, the pain started up again.
I sort of knew it was no longer sinus, but hoping it was (because that seems more easily cured) I took a sinus pill.
No effect.
As I felt the searing fingers of migraine wrap around my brain and start to squeeze, I realized to my dismay that I did not have my Relpax with me.
I'd taken it out of my purse and put it in my backpack yesterday when I went for my bike ride and neglected to return it.
Shit.
I thought about driving home to pick it up, but I had two things to write up, and I figured I'd just try to get my work done really fast and rush home early.
That worked okay.
I'm home now. Took the stuff about half an hour ago. So far not feeling the familiar woozy feeling when the stuff starts to work.
It's a little worrisome, because as anyone with migraines knows, if you wait too long, meds don't help. Not really sure why that is.
So now I'm just waiting.
I probably should go lie down. I don't think I'm doing myself any favors by sitting here staring into a computer screen. Usually at the end of the day there's nothing I want more than to lie down on my bed, pet my cat and read a book.
Oddly, right now, I don't really feel like it.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Sunday night
I went for the bike ride. Rode only about 10 miles, but since I haven't been riding much and half of it was riding into the wind, I think it was a decent workout.
My head feels pretty much the way it did before I left, but hey, at least it's not worse! So, you know, thanks for small blessings.
Anyway, I'm glad I got off my ass and did something.
Now if I could just get started on my novel...
My head feels pretty much the way it did before I left, but hey, at least it's not worse! So, you know, thanks for small blessings.
Anyway, I'm glad I got off my ass and did something.
Now if I could just get started on my novel...
Sunday
It's Sunday and as usual I have a long to-do list, a lot of distractions -- and pain behind my eyes.
It isn't bad. Just bad enough to keep me at home, frittering away my day with not-too-demanding tasks like laundry and paying my bills, between rest breaks mostly spent laying on my bed reading one thing or another.
Is the pain going to get worse? Or will it go away?
I don't know.
I think maybe exercising would help, but I feel just crappy enough that the effort to get dressed and get out on my bicycle is uninviting. Because of course, if it doesn't help, the exertion will be unpleasant to my achy-breaky head. It's also a very bright, slightly breezy day. A pretty day really, but one that seems a little abrasive, someone.
So I'm in limbo. Can't decide what to do.
I've spent too many weekends like this and it depresses me. That doesn't help anything. Being depressed only makes it harder to make an effort.
I know.
Poor me.
I have a load of wash in the drier, just about done and a couple of bills that need to be paid, then I will get dressed and get on my bike and go for a ride.
If it doesn't help -- at least I tried. And it's not a bad thing to get a little exercise, after all.
It isn't bad. Just bad enough to keep me at home, frittering away my day with not-too-demanding tasks like laundry and paying my bills, between rest breaks mostly spent laying on my bed reading one thing or another.
Is the pain going to get worse? Or will it go away?
I don't know.
I think maybe exercising would help, but I feel just crappy enough that the effort to get dressed and get out on my bicycle is uninviting. Because of course, if it doesn't help, the exertion will be unpleasant to my achy-breaky head. It's also a very bright, slightly breezy day. A pretty day really, but one that seems a little abrasive, someone.
So I'm in limbo. Can't decide what to do.
I've spent too many weekends like this and it depresses me. That doesn't help anything. Being depressed only makes it harder to make an effort.
I know.
Poor me.
I have a load of wash in the drier, just about done and a couple of bills that need to be paid, then I will get dressed and get on my bike and go for a ride.
If it doesn't help -- at least I tried. And it's not a bad thing to get a little exercise, after all.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Managing
So far this week, my head has been manageable.
On Monday I had some pain and took some sinus stuff.
After work, I was sitting on the couch reading and my head was hurting and I felt a little nauseated. I was thinking exercising would probably help, but it was too dark to walk or bike and I don't have a gym membership.
I keep thinking I should get one, but I already feel swamped with bills. It's hard to add another one. And in a couple months it will be light after work so I'll be able to get the kind of exercise I like best anyway -- outdoor.
Anyway, my instinct to go outside appeared to have been spot on. Before I went to bed that night, I stepped outside to take out the trash and the cold night air cleared my head instantly.
It's always so mysterious to me how sometimes the simplest little thing can cure a headache -- other times, it doesn't seem to matter what I do.
Yesterday I had a slight pain in my head that didn't get worse but didn't go away either.
I had a social obligation last night that I went to and was able to fulfill my responsibilities cheerfully. That helps.
This morning I got up and was still feeling some pain. I took sinus meds and that appears to have helped.
I really try to keep the medication at a minimum. For one thing, I worry about rebound headaches -- for another, my experience has been that medications seem to lose their effectiveness over time, so I try to use them sparingly.
One thing that really bothers me is that I've gotten to the point where I'm pretty happy if the pain is mild enough to work or do household chores or socialize -- even if I don't enjoy those things much because of the pain.
Another thing I don't like is that it's always there in the back of my mind -- the worry that I'll have a bad headache on a day I have something special planned or an important assignment at work. I've had weekends that I've spent languishing around the house, not because of a severe headache or migraine, but because of mild pain and malaise that I feared would flare up into something worse if I try to do anything.
Maybe that's the wrong response. Maybe I should make more of an effort to get out when I'm feeling poopy.
On Monday I had some pain and took some sinus stuff.
After work, I was sitting on the couch reading and my head was hurting and I felt a little nauseated. I was thinking exercising would probably help, but it was too dark to walk or bike and I don't have a gym membership.
I keep thinking I should get one, but I already feel swamped with bills. It's hard to add another one. And in a couple months it will be light after work so I'll be able to get the kind of exercise I like best anyway -- outdoor.
Anyway, my instinct to go outside appeared to have been spot on. Before I went to bed that night, I stepped outside to take out the trash and the cold night air cleared my head instantly.
It's always so mysterious to me how sometimes the simplest little thing can cure a headache -- other times, it doesn't seem to matter what I do.
Yesterday I had a slight pain in my head that didn't get worse but didn't go away either.
I had a social obligation last night that I went to and was able to fulfill my responsibilities cheerfully. That helps.
This morning I got up and was still feeling some pain. I took sinus meds and that appears to have helped.
I really try to keep the medication at a minimum. For one thing, I worry about rebound headaches -- for another, my experience has been that medications seem to lose their effectiveness over time, so I try to use them sparingly.
One thing that really bothers me is that I've gotten to the point where I'm pretty happy if the pain is mild enough to work or do household chores or socialize -- even if I don't enjoy those things much because of the pain.
Another thing I don't like is that it's always there in the back of my mind -- the worry that I'll have a bad headache on a day I have something special planned or an important assignment at work. I've had weekends that I've spent languishing around the house, not because of a severe headache or migraine, but because of mild pain and malaise that I feared would flare up into something worse if I try to do anything.
Maybe that's the wrong response. Maybe I should make more of an effort to get out when I'm feeling poopy.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Hormones or sinuses?
Well, it's both.
I think.
Five years ago when all this really started becoming a problem, I remember a female friend about my age (41 then) saying something about declining hormone levels.
I didn't want to hear that.
I'm not ready to think about menopause.
But over the years, it's been there in the back of my mind, lurking.
So in December, when the pain was starting to interfere with my job and my life, I decided to go see my gynecologist.
We talked and she suggested I try birth control pills to help even out my hormones.
I left with a six month supply of Seasonale.
But then I started thinking about some of the questions she had asked me.
I'd been making all these assumptions about hormones, but when I considered the pattern of my headaches, it didn't make complete sense.
Sure, I usually got a headache or two or three around my period, but I also did the week after that and the week after that.
Was I overlooking the sinus aspect of it?
I had been taking Tylenol sinus medicine when I thought it might be sinus pain (sometime a tricky call) but it hadn't been working lately.
Maybe I needed to try something different.
So I went to the drugstore and looked around. I got some nasal spray for sinus pressure.
The next day (Dec. 31) when my head started to hurt right on schedule, I hit it with that.
The pain stopped, and I didn't have another headache for several days.
I noticed that the stuff said not to use it more than three days in a row (or something like that) so I picked up some pills for sinus pressure relief.
Those got me through last week with minimal amounts of pain.
So, the moral of the story is, don't let your fears blind you to your options.
But -- the hormones are still a factor.
My period started yesterday and with it came a nasty headache.
It started in slow, and I took a sinus pill even though I could tell right away it wasn't a sinus headache -- just wishful thinking, something I'm all too prone to fall into.
I took a nap, hoping I could head it off by relaxing.
There was no stopping it.
By nightfall, there it was.
Not the worst migraine, just bad enough to keep me in the house in my robe all day -- in bed most of the day.
I try to avoid taking the Relpax I've been prescribed because I know from past experience taking it too much leads to rebound headaches -- also, sometimes the Relpax makes me so tired and spaced out I end up just laying around in bed all day anyway.
When I was younger I never had a headache that lasted longer than a day, but in recent years that's changed.
So when I awoke at 5 a.m. and my head was still pounding, hoping to have a slightly more productive day Sunday than I did Saturday, I popped a Relpax.
I suppose it helped.
The pain dulled to a low-grade ache.
Anyway, I didn't mean to drone on this way. My point is, now I'm thinking about the hormonal aspect of it again.
But I'm leery of the Seasonale. So I got online and started doing some research. I promptly found a Web site with literally hundreds of posts from women on problems associated with Seasonale: excessive bleeding; severe cramps; weight gain; nausea; hair loss; sexual side effects; depression -- and migraine headaches!
Today would be the day I'm supposed to start the stuff if I'm going to, but now I'm scared.
I think I'm just going to have to wait another month and see how it goes.
I think.
Five years ago when all this really started becoming a problem, I remember a female friend about my age (41 then) saying something about declining hormone levels.
I didn't want to hear that.
I'm not ready to think about menopause.
But over the years, it's been there in the back of my mind, lurking.
So in December, when the pain was starting to interfere with my job and my life, I decided to go see my gynecologist.
We talked and she suggested I try birth control pills to help even out my hormones.
I left with a six month supply of Seasonale.
But then I started thinking about some of the questions she had asked me.
I'd been making all these assumptions about hormones, but when I considered the pattern of my headaches, it didn't make complete sense.
Sure, I usually got a headache or two or three around my period, but I also did the week after that and the week after that.
Was I overlooking the sinus aspect of it?
I had been taking Tylenol sinus medicine when I thought it might be sinus pain (sometime a tricky call) but it hadn't been working lately.
Maybe I needed to try something different.
So I went to the drugstore and looked around. I got some nasal spray for sinus pressure.
The next day (Dec. 31) when my head started to hurt right on schedule, I hit it with that.
The pain stopped, and I didn't have another headache for several days.
I noticed that the stuff said not to use it more than three days in a row (or something like that) so I picked up some pills for sinus pressure relief.
Those got me through last week with minimal amounts of pain.
So, the moral of the story is, don't let your fears blind you to your options.
But -- the hormones are still a factor.
My period started yesterday and with it came a nasty headache.
It started in slow, and I took a sinus pill even though I could tell right away it wasn't a sinus headache -- just wishful thinking, something I'm all too prone to fall into.
I took a nap, hoping I could head it off by relaxing.
There was no stopping it.
By nightfall, there it was.
Not the worst migraine, just bad enough to keep me in the house in my robe all day -- in bed most of the day.
I try to avoid taking the Relpax I've been prescribed because I know from past experience taking it too much leads to rebound headaches -- also, sometimes the Relpax makes me so tired and spaced out I end up just laying around in bed all day anyway.
When I was younger I never had a headache that lasted longer than a day, but in recent years that's changed.
So when I awoke at 5 a.m. and my head was still pounding, hoping to have a slightly more productive day Sunday than I did Saturday, I popped a Relpax.
I suppose it helped.
The pain dulled to a low-grade ache.
Anyway, I didn't mean to drone on this way. My point is, now I'm thinking about the hormonal aspect of it again.
But I'm leery of the Seasonale. So I got online and started doing some research. I promptly found a Web site with literally hundreds of posts from women on problems associated with Seasonale: excessive bleeding; severe cramps; weight gain; nausea; hair loss; sexual side effects; depression -- and migraine headaches!
Today would be the day I'm supposed to start the stuff if I'm going to, but now I'm scared.
I think I'm just going to have to wait another month and see how it goes.
What they are like
In the beginning...
I don't really know what an "aura" is, in the migrainous sense, so I'm pretty sure I don't have it.
I don't find myself particularly light sensitive, but at time I know a migraine is in the offering because I become painfully sensitive to noise and odors.
One time, riding in a male friend's car, his personal odor became so overwhelming I could hardly stand it. I had to breath through my mouth to keep from gagging (this was a very fastidious and clean person, who normally did not smell bad to me).
I also notice that a lot of colors and things moving around cause distress -- during the opening sequence of the movie "Twilight" there's some kind of chase sequence I actually had to close my eyes during because it made my head hurt.
The Pain:
I get very frustrated when doctors ask questions about the pain: where is it? what does it feel like? Does it throb? Pulsate? Is it sharp? Dull?
I don't know! It hurts, okay!!
However, after going through this a few times, I've tried to pay more attention to the specific qualities of the pain, when I'm laying there hoping for a merciful death.
So... normally, I feel the pain behind my eyes. In fact, when it's coming on I can often be seen pressing my fingers into the hollows on either side of the bridge of my nose (sometimes I pull my hair too -- it doesn't make the pain stop, but for a moment it distracts me from it)
If the headache advances, I often notice a sort of center to the pain on one side, just behind my eye -- normally the right side, if I remember correctly. One part of the trouble is that pain can be disorienting and I have trouble remembering things about it.
Yes, it does throb. If that's different than pulsating, I'm at a loss.
Quite a lot of the time it's a dull pain, but dull kind of like a mallet as opposed to a knife or needle.
I can work through a certain amount of pain, but there comes a point at which it is literally impossible to continue to function. And I know that the more I push it, the worse it will be later.
I feel like people might think my headache really isn't that bad because I can continue to talk and even joke when I have one, but it's really just that I'm used to it.
The icky part
I normally get nauseated, but I don't usually vomit unless I try to keep working or driving or doing an activity. Of the handful of times I've vomited (from a migraine), twice I was at work and should have gone home; once I was on a 250 mile drive and really should have stopped and checked into a motel; once I was on a day trip to Houston with a friend and didn't want to disappoint her.
I don't really know what an "aura" is, in the migrainous sense, so I'm pretty sure I don't have it.
I don't find myself particularly light sensitive, but at time I know a migraine is in the offering because I become painfully sensitive to noise and odors.
One time, riding in a male friend's car, his personal odor became so overwhelming I could hardly stand it. I had to breath through my mouth to keep from gagging (this was a very fastidious and clean person, who normally did not smell bad to me).
I also notice that a lot of colors and things moving around cause distress -- during the opening sequence of the movie "Twilight" there's some kind of chase sequence I actually had to close my eyes during because it made my head hurt.
The Pain:
I get very frustrated when doctors ask questions about the pain: where is it? what does it feel like? Does it throb? Pulsate? Is it sharp? Dull?
I don't know! It hurts, okay!!
However, after going through this a few times, I've tried to pay more attention to the specific qualities of the pain, when I'm laying there hoping for a merciful death.
So... normally, I feel the pain behind my eyes. In fact, when it's coming on I can often be seen pressing my fingers into the hollows on either side of the bridge of my nose (sometimes I pull my hair too -- it doesn't make the pain stop, but for a moment it distracts me from it)
If the headache advances, I often notice a sort of center to the pain on one side, just behind my eye -- normally the right side, if I remember correctly. One part of the trouble is that pain can be disorienting and I have trouble remembering things about it.
Yes, it does throb. If that's different than pulsating, I'm at a loss.
Quite a lot of the time it's a dull pain, but dull kind of like a mallet as opposed to a knife or needle.
I can work through a certain amount of pain, but there comes a point at which it is literally impossible to continue to function. And I know that the more I push it, the worse it will be later.
I feel like people might think my headache really isn't that bad because I can continue to talk and even joke when I have one, but it's really just that I'm used to it.
The icky part
I normally get nauseated, but I don't usually vomit unless I try to keep working or driving or doing an activity. Of the handful of times I've vomited (from a migraine), twice I was at work and should have gone home; once I was on a 250 mile drive and really should have stopped and checked into a motel; once I was on a day trip to Houston with a friend and didn't want to disappoint her.
A little background
I've been prone to headaches all my life, but up till the spring of 2004, things were fairly manageable.
In past years, while I had headaches two or three times a month, mostly they were easily managed with ibuprofen.
I learned that regular exercise, riding my bike, yoga, things like that, helped a great deal to keep things under control.
I had what I would have termed a knock-down, drag-out migraine only once every two or three years.
And even those -- they never lasted longer than a day, I could usually sleep through the worst of them, and when I woke up they were gone.
Then, early in 2004, things started to change.
I began having headaches that ibuprofen wouldn't cure, and they started progressing with greater frequency into intense migraines.
I got my first prescription for a migraine medication -- Relpax -- that spring.
I only took it once that spring -- I was at work and it made me feel very strange. Kind of fatigued and spacey. It noticeably affected my ability to do my job.
Things settled down in the summer. I didn't feel the need to take Relpax again until perhaps late August or early September.
It wasn't uncommon for me to have a headache or two while I was on my period, but I started having more and more of them.
One month I would have them three or four days in a row.
The next month it would be six or seven.
Then, by November, I was having them every day.
Maybe I should mention here that when they first started, I tended to think the headaches were stress related. I did -- and do -- have a stressful job.
In the past, I'd found exercise was a good prevention and cure for tension headaches, so I began getting up an hour earlier than normal each day and going for a bike ride. Now, I love riding my bike, but even more than that, I love sleep. I hate getting up early, so I want you to appreciate what a sacrifice I was making.
But it didn't work.
Usually by late morning the headache was starting its faint, annoying buzz, which by afternoon reached a crescendo.
I treated the headaches with Relpax -- the only thing I'd found that worked.
I knew it wasn't right for me to be taking the stuff every day, so I trotted on back to the doctor. She put me on another prescription drug, Topamax. It's a seizure medication that is also used as a prophylactic for migraine.
I started out at the minimum dosage, and it worked pretty well at that level for a while. After a couple of months, it stopped working, so the doctor increased the dosage, and it went along that way for a while until about eight months later I was at the maximum dosage, which made me feel kind of sick all the time and eventually stopped working and I was taking it and Relpax every day and honestly, between all the side effects of both of them I don't know how I functioned.
So back I went to the doctor, who prescribed an antidepressant, tofranil.
So I tapered off the Topamax and onto the tofranil which worked, again, for about eight months, then gradually stopped being very effective and I was back to treating the headaches with Relpax every day.
I had this gut feeling that taking the Relpax was part of the problem, but I think I was too scared to put it to the test.
Let me just insert here that I had also been to a neurologist, had an MRI and ruled out brain tumors as a cause.
Also somewhere in there, I'd gone to an allergy doctor, who tested me for allergies. I tested positive for dust mites, some tree and weed pollens. He gave me samples of various allergy drugs that didn't seem to do a damn thing for my headaches.
He wanted me to get allergy shots, but wouldn't let me do the shots on my own, wanted me to pay him $20 a pop to administer the shot. I balked, both at the cost and, well, I was afraid the shots would only make the situation worse... maybe that's wrong.
Anyway.
When the tofranil stopped working, the neurologist (whom I didn't much like) prescribed a blood pressure medication, which promptly made me so sick I couldn't take it at all. She was out of town that week, so I went to my regular doctor, who said a newer, time released version of the drug would solve the problem, but it didn't.
I understand all about adjusting to medicines -- but I knew that something that made me this sick was all wrong for me.
Then a friend emailed me a link to an NPR story about a doctor who had written a book about migraines.
He had compiled a list of all the foods that could trigger migraine, and it was way beyond the usual red wine, chocolate, MSG, etc. migraine sufferers are told to avoid.
He also explained about rebound headaches -- which taking Relpax too often could cause.
So at this point, I realized my gut feeling had probably been right all along.
But instead of just stopping cold turkey, I decided to go to another doctor in search of a cure.
He told me there was no cure for headaches and I left his office with two new prescriptions -- one of them another anti-depressant.
Maybe I needed it, 'cause I drove home totally depressed.
After giving it some serious thought, I decided to get off prescriptions meds.
I did not do it in a smart way.
I stopped taking the tofranil, and after a few days when this didn't seem to be too rough, I thought I'd stop the Relpax.
Well. The reason stopping the tofranil didn't seem too rough at first was possilby because my body didn't realize I'd stopped right away or something.
But about the same day I decided to stop the Relpax, everything hit at once.
I had possibly the worst migraine of my entire life.
I was up half the night and vomited three times.
I lay on the cool tiles of my bathroom floor most of the night moaning, feeling like someone had hit me in the head with an axe.
I wished someone would hit me in the head with an axe.
There's a line from a Joan Didion essay on migraines that comes to mind at moments like these: “That no one dies of migraine seems, to someone deep into an attack, an ambiguous blessing.”
Well. I lived through that night.
And I somehow got through most of the next year free of prescription meds (though not free of headaches, unfortunately)
I tried the NPR doctor's diet, cutting out quite ordinary foods like cheese, nuts, onions and bananas, among other things.
I tried this for about three months, I think.
As far as I can tell, my triggers aren't food-related (however, the one thing I remain skittish about, avoiding like the plague, is MSG -- I always ask if they use it at restaurants)
I've explored many possible explanations for my headaches: allergies, hormones, sinusitis. I've traveled down many a treatment avenue: acupuncture, chiropractors, herbs, progesterone creams, nasal washes, reiki.
There are still others I haven't tried: biofeedback, massage, botox (don't laugh -- I've heard it helps some sufferers).
Sometimes it seemed like something was working for a month or two, but then they would get bad again -- so I never really know if something works or if the headaches just naturally ebb and flow.
This past year, I returned to occasionally using Relpax, keeping it down to two or three times per month, to avoid rebounds.
I had first thought about doing this blog a couple years ago -- just after I quit prescription meds. I thought perhaps it could help me and other sufferers find ways to cope with the misery of chronic headaches.
I never got around to it till now. Maybe because I had a pretty bad December. Eight headaches, five of them that pretty much put me out of commission for the better part of a day, another that likely would have, except I took Relpax.
And I had one yesterday. Not unexpected, as it was the first day of my period.
It wasn't even close to the worse one I'd ever had, so I tried to just tough it out. But when I woke at 5 a.m. and it was still hanging around, I caved in and took the drug.
As I'm writing this, I still have a nagging pain behind my eyes.
Perhaps the worst effect of my headaches is the self-pity, the way they make me hate my life sometimes, the fear that they will get even worse and more frequent...
I'm not the most cheerful person you'll ever meet, and headaches don't help much with that.
I'm sorry this was such a long entry. I don't know that it's of any earthly use to anyone, but I felt I needed to show the road I'd been down, some of the things I've tried.
In past years, while I had headaches two or three times a month, mostly they were easily managed with ibuprofen.
I learned that regular exercise, riding my bike, yoga, things like that, helped a great deal to keep things under control.
I had what I would have termed a knock-down, drag-out migraine only once every two or three years.
And even those -- they never lasted longer than a day, I could usually sleep through the worst of them, and when I woke up they were gone.
Then, early in 2004, things started to change.
I began having headaches that ibuprofen wouldn't cure, and they started progressing with greater frequency into intense migraines.
I got my first prescription for a migraine medication -- Relpax -- that spring.
I only took it once that spring -- I was at work and it made me feel very strange. Kind of fatigued and spacey. It noticeably affected my ability to do my job.
Things settled down in the summer. I didn't feel the need to take Relpax again until perhaps late August or early September.
It wasn't uncommon for me to have a headache or two while I was on my period, but I started having more and more of them.
One month I would have them three or four days in a row.
The next month it would be six or seven.
Then, by November, I was having them every day.
Maybe I should mention here that when they first started, I tended to think the headaches were stress related. I did -- and do -- have a stressful job.
In the past, I'd found exercise was a good prevention and cure for tension headaches, so I began getting up an hour earlier than normal each day and going for a bike ride. Now, I love riding my bike, but even more than that, I love sleep. I hate getting up early, so I want you to appreciate what a sacrifice I was making.
But it didn't work.
Usually by late morning the headache was starting its faint, annoying buzz, which by afternoon reached a crescendo.
I treated the headaches with Relpax -- the only thing I'd found that worked.
I knew it wasn't right for me to be taking the stuff every day, so I trotted on back to the doctor. She put me on another prescription drug, Topamax. It's a seizure medication that is also used as a prophylactic for migraine.
I started out at the minimum dosage, and it worked pretty well at that level for a while. After a couple of months, it stopped working, so the doctor increased the dosage, and it went along that way for a while until about eight months later I was at the maximum dosage, which made me feel kind of sick all the time and eventually stopped working and I was taking it and Relpax every day and honestly, between all the side effects of both of them I don't know how I functioned.
So back I went to the doctor, who prescribed an antidepressant, tofranil.
So I tapered off the Topamax and onto the tofranil which worked, again, for about eight months, then gradually stopped being very effective and I was back to treating the headaches with Relpax every day.
I had this gut feeling that taking the Relpax was part of the problem, but I think I was too scared to put it to the test.
Let me just insert here that I had also been to a neurologist, had an MRI and ruled out brain tumors as a cause.
Also somewhere in there, I'd gone to an allergy doctor, who tested me for allergies. I tested positive for dust mites, some tree and weed pollens. He gave me samples of various allergy drugs that didn't seem to do a damn thing for my headaches.
He wanted me to get allergy shots, but wouldn't let me do the shots on my own, wanted me to pay him $20 a pop to administer the shot. I balked, both at the cost and, well, I was afraid the shots would only make the situation worse... maybe that's wrong.
Anyway.
When the tofranil stopped working, the neurologist (whom I didn't much like) prescribed a blood pressure medication, which promptly made me so sick I couldn't take it at all. She was out of town that week, so I went to my regular doctor, who said a newer, time released version of the drug would solve the problem, but it didn't.
I understand all about adjusting to medicines -- but I knew that something that made me this sick was all wrong for me.
Then a friend emailed me a link to an NPR story about a doctor who had written a book about migraines.
He had compiled a list of all the foods that could trigger migraine, and it was way beyond the usual red wine, chocolate, MSG, etc. migraine sufferers are told to avoid.
He also explained about rebound headaches -- which taking Relpax too often could cause.
So at this point, I realized my gut feeling had probably been right all along.
But instead of just stopping cold turkey, I decided to go to another doctor in search of a cure.
He told me there was no cure for headaches and I left his office with two new prescriptions -- one of them another anti-depressant.
Maybe I needed it, 'cause I drove home totally depressed.
After giving it some serious thought, I decided to get off prescriptions meds.
I did not do it in a smart way.
I stopped taking the tofranil, and after a few days when this didn't seem to be too rough, I thought I'd stop the Relpax.
Well. The reason stopping the tofranil didn't seem too rough at first was possilby because my body didn't realize I'd stopped right away or something.
But about the same day I decided to stop the Relpax, everything hit at once.
I had possibly the worst migraine of my entire life.
I was up half the night and vomited three times.
I lay on the cool tiles of my bathroom floor most of the night moaning, feeling like someone had hit me in the head with an axe.
I wished someone would hit me in the head with an axe.
There's a line from a Joan Didion essay on migraines that comes to mind at moments like these: “That no one dies of migraine seems, to someone deep into an attack, an ambiguous blessing.”
Well. I lived through that night.
And I somehow got through most of the next year free of prescription meds (though not free of headaches, unfortunately)
I tried the NPR doctor's diet, cutting out quite ordinary foods like cheese, nuts, onions and bananas, among other things.
I tried this for about three months, I think.
As far as I can tell, my triggers aren't food-related (however, the one thing I remain skittish about, avoiding like the plague, is MSG -- I always ask if they use it at restaurants)
I've explored many possible explanations for my headaches: allergies, hormones, sinusitis. I've traveled down many a treatment avenue: acupuncture, chiropractors, herbs, progesterone creams, nasal washes, reiki.
There are still others I haven't tried: biofeedback, massage, botox (don't laugh -- I've heard it helps some sufferers).
Sometimes it seemed like something was working for a month or two, but then they would get bad again -- so I never really know if something works or if the headaches just naturally ebb and flow.
This past year, I returned to occasionally using Relpax, keeping it down to two or three times per month, to avoid rebounds.
I had first thought about doing this blog a couple years ago -- just after I quit prescription meds. I thought perhaps it could help me and other sufferers find ways to cope with the misery of chronic headaches.
I never got around to it till now. Maybe because I had a pretty bad December. Eight headaches, five of them that pretty much put me out of commission for the better part of a day, another that likely would have, except I took Relpax.
And I had one yesterday. Not unexpected, as it was the first day of my period.
It wasn't even close to the worse one I'd ever had, so I tried to just tough it out. But when I woke at 5 a.m. and it was still hanging around, I caved in and took the drug.
As I'm writing this, I still have a nagging pain behind my eyes.
Perhaps the worst effect of my headaches is the self-pity, the way they make me hate my life sometimes, the fear that they will get even worse and more frequent...
I'm not the most cheerful person you'll ever meet, and headaches don't help much with that.
I'm sorry this was such a long entry. I don't know that it's of any earthly use to anyone, but I felt I needed to show the road I'd been down, some of the things I've tried.
Welcome to my head...
And a frightening place it can be at time. Mind you, I'm not claiming that the bats in my belfry are anything more than run of the mill bats -- my metaphoric demons are nothing more than your fairly ordinary, garden variety spleen-devouring imps o' Satan.
No.
What I'm talking about here is the chemistry of the place. Of which I really have only a rudimentary understand -- although I can describe the effects in all their glorious technicolor gore. And likely will, at length, if this goes as I plan it to.
But I don't just want it only to be me whining about the pain.
What I want is to proceed in a methodical direction toward answers, solutions, even a cure, tho doctors tell me there isn't one.
The demon I'm here to exorcise is called Migraine, and as anyone who's tangled with her knows, she's one mean, scary bitch.
No.
What I'm talking about here is the chemistry of the place. Of which I really have only a rudimentary understand -- although I can describe the effects in all their glorious technicolor gore. And likely will, at length, if this goes as I plan it to.
But I don't just want it only to be me whining about the pain.
What I want is to proceed in a methodical direction toward answers, solutions, even a cure, tho doctors tell me there isn't one.
The demon I'm here to exorcise is called Migraine, and as anyone who's tangled with her knows, she's one mean, scary bitch.
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