Coenzyme Q10

I thought, for the sake of my fellow sufferers out there (none of whom seem to be reading me, but oh well) I'd talk a little about Coenzyme Q10, which has improved my quality of life lately. I superstitiously fear to say anything in case I somehow jinx myself -- but just in case it could help anyone else, I feel obliged to put in my two cents on the subject.

I have other things going on -- other treatments I'm looking into, but I'll try to get to that soon. Hopefully I will have good things to report -- but there are tedious complications to getting cleared through insurance etc. and I don't feel up to delving into all that in my currently scattered state of mind.

Anyway -- I don't remember where I read about CoQ10. But I read about a clinical trial that showed a good percentage of people who took the supplement for four months and reported a 50 percent reduction of headaches. Well -- 50 percent isn't anywhere close to where I'd like to get, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

I bought the stuff and took the first dose before leaving the parking lot of the health food store. I was feeling that familiar queasy, pre-headache pain that has become such a source of dread for me -- always wondering if it' going to stay a headache, or if it's going to segue into the horror of migraine. Anyway, it seemed to help right away. And I began taking it every day. I wasn't sure how much to take at first. I think in the study it said something about people taking between 100 and 300 mg -- or maybe I read that somewhere else. I started with 100, but that didn't seem quite enough, so I upped it to 200 after a few days.

Here's a weird thing -- in the research about using it for migraine, I read that it should be taken as a preventative, but wasn't effective to abort an attack, but one evening I was at work and felt a headache coming on and it was starting to ramp up and I didn't take medicine fast enough and I thought, "here we go." For some reason -- I don't remember really even thinking about why I was doing it -- I took another 100 mg of the CoQ10 -- and the headache faded away!

So -- pretty cool, right? I've used it a few times like that and it seems to work some of the time. BUT -- and of course there's a but -- there are some side effects and I've found I really shouldn't take more than 200 mg per day. Otherwise I get a fairly unpleasant stomach ache and it also aggravates my insomnia. But I feel that, at least for now, it has been helping me keep my medicine use in check. I'd been trying to alternate Exedrin with the Maxalt, but I guess I was using it too much because by the beginning of November it started really ripping up my stomach and I had to cut waaaaay back -- like I didn't take it for more than a month to make sure I gave my stomach lining time to recover. Since then, I've cautiously used it 2-3 times without too much distress, but I'm trying not to use it more than once or twice in any two week period.

So -- I would feel comfortable recommending CoQ10 to any migraine suffer. Possibly people with less medicine sensitivity than I would be able to use it without any side effects at all.

I'll get back to ya on the other stuff I mentioned.

This migraine is not just doing its job; it hates you and everything you stand for with a fiery passion

Yesterday I had a migraine that I think might have redefined my whole concept of pain. I don't know. Maybe I just haven't had one that bad in a while and I'd forgotten. I think forgetting how bad it can be is a coping strategy.

It started making its presence felt shortly after noon; I dithered a bit on taking prescription meds because I'd taken Relpax the day before. Ever since my rebound nightmare I try, if at all possible, to avoid taking the stuff back to back.

I thought, oh well -- maybe nothing much will come of it.

It was disappointing to think of spending the day in bed because I've been sick most of the week and was finally starting to feel better and wanted to get out and do something.

The migraine hit hard and fast and by 2 p.m. I was unable to do anything but lie as still as possible on my back. The pain was intense. I was painting surrealistic pictures in my mind of people walking around with their heads engulfed in flames -- kind of like human candles.

Fortunately for me, I have the ability to sleep through pain and I dozed most of the afternoon and evening. During my waking moments, I lay there trying to compose some sort of Facebook status update about the attack. This was the best I came up with: "This migraine isn't just doing its job; it hates me and everything I stand for with a fiery passion." I never posted it because it wasn't like I was capable of going online at that point. And afterwards... I don't know. I guess I sort of hate to trivialize the experience that way. Pain is profound, in its way.

Or maybe it just feels that way because it is so... oh, what am I trying to say?

Anyway, as I said, there was something decidedly malevolent about the pain. It's hard for me to describe what it was about this particular migraine that really stood out.

I'm afraid it will come back -- though if it does, I'm planning to hit it with Maxalt (which I've switched to from Relpax -- it's pretty much the same thing, but I think the dissolving tabs probably work faster...) as soon as it starts to rear its ugly head. I'm taking antibiotics and I have this irrational fear that they are causing me to have these headaches... but it also could be because I stopped taking the antidepressant a doctor prescribed for me... there was a whole chapter this past month that by rights I should have recounted here, but lets face it, since I'm pretty sure no one reads this or cares, my motivation is a little less than all that.

I read the literature that came with the antibiotics and headache was not mentioned as a possible side effect, so it seems unlikely...

I had to get up to vomit twice, both times hoping against hope that that would break the pain somewhat. It didn't. But I was able to sleep most of the night. By around 3:30 I woke up and the pain was still there -- but considerably dulled. I was wide awake at that point -- probably because I'd been sleeping most of the time since 2 p.m. the day before -- so I got up and made a cup of sweet chai, figuring I needed to rehydrate. I was up another few hours. If the headache hadn't still been hanging on i just would have gotten up and started doing things -- washing the dishes that have been piling up the past few days I was sick, that sort of thing -- but even though it was at a far more bearable level, I didn't feel like taking the chance of aggravating it until I was sure it was on its way out.

Here's the oddest thing to me about the whole experience. When I was sleeping on this hellish pain, I had kind of a beautiful dream. I dreamt I saw hundreds of white butterflies bursting out of beautiful white cocoons on a curved bough. Then after they flew away, tiny white caterpillars were making their way into new cocoons to start the cycle all over. I don't know what it meant, but it has to be good, right?

A postscript: My head is starting to hurt again, so I decided to Google Azithromycin (the antibiotic I'm taking) and headache -- it seems the literature that came with the prescription is not a complete listing of side effects -- headache IS one of the potential side effects... I'm supposed to take this stuff four more days. Damn.

Fun with riddles!

Q: How are headaches like potato chips?
A: It's impossible to stop at just one, no matter how much you want to!

Okay, not such a funny joke.
Saturday, the day of my last post, the Relpax never really did the trick. I suspect it kept the migraine from developing to its full, vomit-inducing potential, but it was still bad enough that I spent most of the day -- from about 2 p.m. on -- laying in bed, sleeping off and on and reading when I could.

Sunday was okay. I woke and rose from bed rather gingerly, waiting to see what my head was going to do. There was a bit of an ache, but I think it was mainly a leftover kind of deal. So I went about my day, got some things done, laundry, dishes, feeding the plants. I even went out for a bit in the late afternoon to fulfill a social obligation.

But by about 8 p.m., a very definite pain was developing. Hoping for the best, I went to bed about 11. When I got up to pee around 5 a.m., it seemed like everything was fine.

I woke around 8 a.m. and lay in bed reading for nearly an hour. By the time I got up it was clear that the headache was still hanging around making a nuisance of itself.

I have so many things I wanted to get done today. If I take the Relpax, I might dodge the pain, but it usually zaps any motivation. If I don't... well, who really knows?

The trouble is, if I'm going to have any reasonable expectation of the Relpax working, I have to take it before I eat. But that means I either have to fast until I decide it's warranted, or take it before I'm really even sure I need to.

Honestly, I think one of the most annoying things about my migraines is all the choices I have to make. I'm really not very good at decisions.

This morning I said to Hell with it and took a risk.

I decided to see if I could knock the sucker out with exercise before I gave in and drank the Koolaid (so to speak).

I needed fuel to exercise, and I decided a smoothie might be a good compromise. Unfortunately, all I had was chocolate soy milk (bought in a weak moment, it has been sitting in my fridge unopened for months). Now, I don't think chocolate is a "trigger" for me, but since it is for some people, I'm a little superstitious about it (another bad effect of migraines on me -- I've been meaning to write about that for a while now -- sigh...)

But by this point I was all gung-ho on my plan. I'd made a decision and I wasn't going to be derailed by details.

I made the smoothie, laced up my running shoes and headed out into the sultry late Southeast Texas spring. I decided to walk at a brisk pace to a running/walking track about a mile or so from my house, run around that, maybe twice, then run home.

On the way there, I could already tell that my body was not really up for a run. For one thing, I'd strained my back a bit hauling around bags of mulch for my garden and shoveling the same.
So as I was passing the nearly empty parking garage at St. E, I had a brilliant idea: I'd walk up the levels -- it would be nearly as strenuous as running, but without the impact.

So I did that. Just to up the ante, I even walked up the stairs a time or two. Then I continued on to the walking track, breaking into a low jog once or twice, then backing down when my lower back throbbed in protest. All through this, my head still hurt.

I got home and it still hurt.

Paid some bills, sorted through some papers -- still hurts.

Well, I tried.

I think the exercise cure works best for tension headaches -- though I was really hoping a good endorphin release might do the trick. Maybe I didn't go long enough or hard enough, but it was getting rather hot and exhausting myself in the heat might backfire and just make it worse.

So now I'm back to square one. Take the Relpax? Or risk it?