I have been remiss in keeping up here and there are new developments to tell about.
But I admit, I am driven to write out of an urge to soothe my fears, and not from any sense of obligation to my bloggerly duty -- whatever that may be. I'm quite sure it involves somewhat more regular posting than I have been disposed to do.
Forgive me if my diction is terribly formal and British today -- I've been reading Dickins, and I am grievously impressible.
To address the issue head on with no further throat clearing, I have had the neurostimulator removed, and am now terribly afraid I've acted rashly.
But let me back up.
Earlier this summer, I was feeling restless in my job, and one thing that has made me hesitant to take serious steps to make a change was the worry that if I leave this job and the health insurance provider I am covered by here, I might become stuck with the device in my body if a future provider declines to pay for the surgery to remove it. I don't know how likely that would be to happen, but a situation like this certainly screams "preexisting condition."
I had been disenchanted with the device for some time. After 4-5 attempts to get it to be more effective through reprogramming to little apparent results, I'd begun to doubt it had any effectiveness at all.
So I turned it off at a point in my menstrual cycle when I thought I was not likely to get a migraine. The first couple of days my head felt odd, but I was not stricken. Then I believe about the third or fourth day, I got a headache, which I treated with Maxalt. The next day after that, I got another headache, and I turned the device back on. But it did not appear to make any difference whatsoever and I was plunged into my usual two days of pain, vomiting and anguish. But I was nervous and I left it on. The headache was at a somewhat atypical time. But when my cycle rolled around again the next month, I once again was visited by headaches at that same odd time, several days past when I should have been done ovulating.
So I decided to call and set the process in motion, expecting it might take several months. This was early in August. I called and explained that I wanted to look into having it removed. At first, the doctor's assistant asked me if I were sure it wasn't helping, and I explained my experience from the previous attempt to turn it off. I told her I would turn it off again, and this time leave it off, which I did. That month's cycle seemed to echo the previous two, and once I had gotten more than a week past ovulation, I seemed to be in the clear until I menstruated again. This all seemed to support my general theory of "the thing isn't helping."
But, of course, I left out that I still was taking doxepin, and in fact increased my dosage during this trial period. But then, I didn't see that as a major issue as I had begun taking it (under duress from increasing headaches) several months before, while having the device turned on 24-7.
I expected them to ask me to wait a little longer before deciding, but they did not, and the process unfolded much more quickly than I thought it would. By the end of August, I had a date set for the surgery. Last year, when I needed the revision, it had taken from sometime in August to make the request to mid-October before getting the date set. I guess I could have asked to put it off for a couple of weeks, but I felt very sure. Well, okay, fairly sure.
The surgery was awful -- that is, waking up from it and being sick once again from the anesthetic was awful. But I'll not bother with the details on that, fascinating as they are.
I recalled the feeling I had after the first surgery, when it was implanted. I remembered waking up several times and feeling this sense of dread that I had really done it -- just this sick dread, for no real reason (chalking it up to my Christian Science upbringing, but then, I've never felt anything like it when I take medication or when I had a cyst removed or anything like that -- so who knows).
This time, I felt relief tinged with fear. Was I doing the right thing? Was it really helping me more than I thought? Would my migraines get even worse?
I also recalled what it's been like having this thing in my body. It felt wrong. It felt awkward, cumbersome. I worried about falling, or being accidentally struck my something, and having it tear loose, having it be damaged. I kept thinking that maybe like cell phones they will make these battery packs smaller over time, and if I'd waited five years, it might be so small I barely noticed it. But for the present, I felt wired like a refrigerator, with a compressor at the back.
Even the wires in my head felt strange. Right after the first surgery, I felt as if I were wearing a tight, heavy metal cap on my head. It got better over time, and really at the end I only noticed it if I furrowed my brow. When I did that, I could feel the constriction of the wires.
Anyway, I was getting a migraine the morning (last Thursday) before the surgery, and it toyed with me throughout the next two days -- kept mostly tamped down by pain medication no doubt. On Friday afternoon, once I was back in my own bed, it body slammed me, and I tried to counteract it with a new pain medication I've been using (more about that in a future post) but it was undaunted. I went to sleep, and woke the next morning to feel it miraculously ebbing away.
That was Saturday. Today is Wednesday. The weekend was okay -- my head felt fine (as it tends to do the first few days after an attack). Of course I was tired and sore after the surgery. Yesterday I woke up feeling out of sorts, and like I might get a headache, but I did not. But today, there is a definite (albeit faint) throb behind my left eye, and I'm terribly afraid. I've seldom had a migraine attack less than a week apart (although often had more headaches within that time frame) ... So I'm freaking out, I guess you could say. Whether I would be feeling this way with the stimulator, I cannot say. I know my head feels odd in the same way it felt odd that first time I turned the thing off for several days. But it didn't feel this way over the weekend, that I can recall. Of course I have had incision pain, and that could be a distraction from other feelings.
I'm also taking antibiotics, and those sometimes carry side affects such as headaches.
But I don't know. I just don't know. My feeling is, I'm probably not any worse off than if I'd never had it at all -- although I have no way of knowing that either. In any case, I've done it, I doubt insurance would cover it even if I wanted to try it again. I feel a bit foolish that I didn't wait and see -- give it a couple weeks more, at least. For good or ill I've done it. The next month or so should tell me if I were precipitous.
My head hurts faintly. The past few months it seems like I've gone into rebound -- that is, medication overuse headaches -- fairly easily. So if this is a migraine, I think I just have to let it go on and not try to halt it with Maxalt, as I go back to work in three days.
