How to Cope with Pain's June Pain-Blog Carnival is up!

There are some repeat entries from the Migraine & Headache Blog Carnival from this month, but there are also new things to read! Check out the summer vacation-themed edition of How to Cope with Pain's blog carnival!

good article on childhood headache & Migraine

I enjoyed reading this and found that many tips offered up can be applied to adults' lives as well!

http://denanhealthcare.blogspot.com/2008/06/frequent-headaches-and-migraine-in.html

Important breakthroughs? Let's keep our fingers crossed..

I'm sure lots of my blogger friends are already all over this, but I figured it could only help and encourage others if I spread the good news. At least I hope it continues to be good news!

There are two new devices that are proven to help headache sufferers before the headache completely surfaces. Look at just one of the many articles about these developments here on U.S. News & World Report's site.

In other news, I've been terribly out of the loop when it comes to reading aforementioned blogger friends' pages. Sorry, guys. BUT this can be seen as a good sign: I've felt great since Sunday and have been very productive working on the bookstore and doing other positive things. Hooray!

I'll catch up on your news later, and I am thinking about you!

another potential trigger?

Does anyone else here get bothered by ceiling fan lights? Overhead lights are annoying to me when I'm feeling good--when I have a headache, they are intolerable. But now that it's summer my ceiling fans are going at full-speed and the flickering shadows they cast on the ceiling and walls while the overhead light is on mimics the flickering of a dying fluorescent tube light. Does anyone else feel bothered by this flickering light?

old habits die hard

At least that's what my brain seems to think. Of course I was being deliberately naive (and a tad facetious) last week when I asserted my belief that my Migraines had bit the dust for good! Let's face it: Sunday I felt fine, Monday - Wednesday I felt phenomenal! Too bad the monster returned on Thursday, Friday AND Saturday. Perhaps that had something to do with Athfest weekend, which leads to my getting overexcited and therefore headachey due to that anticipation and stress. (Good stress, usually, but still.) Saturday I drove to Atlanta to meet up with one of my very best friends who was in town from Ireland. As much fun as we had going to see R.E.M., The National, and Modest Mouse, the long drive to meet her in addition to the rush to get into the amphitheatre and the sheer excitement of seeing her and seeing the bands led to #3 for the week.

No triptans for me until Thursday! I'll make it. I have to.

That's all for now--just thought I'd give a little update to say that I am not cured as I had wished to be.

notes from the insomniac

A couple of days ago I mentioned weird shooting pains I was having on the right side of my head. They were gone the next day and have yet to come up again.

Here's the best thing I could possible interpret from them in light of the fact that I've been Migraine-free since Sunday: THE PAINS WERE MY MIGRAINE EPISODES SAYING GOODBYE! Several especially painful Migraine episodes from the past were doing their own version of waving goodbye, having set up residence my head for years. They finally decided to leave me alone, and as the most painful ones left my world forever, they zapped their way out for a memorable exit.

Welcome to my dream world, folks.

In truth, I felt pretty amazing Monday, health-wise (especially in the evening), a feeling I've not experienced in a while now. Tuesday was even better, and today's pretty good but not as good as the first two days of the week.

Let's talk about what's not so hot: NOT BEING ABLE TO SLEEP. That's right, kids: that little insomnia problem I've not mentioned much on here reared its ugly head again. (Awhile back, a friend led me to a little song I love about insomnia--I pretend the song's about Migraines. I mention it in a post that's over two years old. Unfortunately the link to the free download isn't working right.) In the last couple of years, I've had some sleep issues, and they've really plagued me during their short stays. When I got off Amitriptyline a few months back, the glorious side effect it causes--sleepiness--was gone. I had trouble staying asleep through the night, and forget about 3 AM bathroom breaks. Those left me tossing and turning for what seemed like forever, nervous I would miss out on too much sleep and be tired or headachey the next day.

This insomnia is markedly different. I can't fall asleep at first but am not worried or frustrated about the problem. In fact, I haven't been sleepy at bedtime in a few days now! Very different from how I was feeling up until last week when I was exhausted almost all. the. time. Usually I feel exhausted when I wake in the middle of the night, it's just that I can't fall asleep. For the past few nights, I've felt energized and wide awake during sleepless times. Last night I couldn't fall asleep 'til 1 (after having climbed into bed at midnight). Woke up at 2:30 to pee and was up until 3:45 or so. Fell asleep for thirty minutes or so and was back up again at 4:15 and stayed awake 'til 6. My alarm went off at 7:20 and I snoozed a bit (yes, in the morning I was able to snooze) and then got up and was pretty chipper and energetic.

This afternoon I took a nap, which was probably a mistake for someone who wants to sleep normally at night. But I cannot read a book without getting sleepy-eyed (even if it takes an hour during insomnia bouts), and around 4 PM I fell asleep despite my not feeling tired.

I'm a real piece of work, I tell you. Let me know if you can identify with this issue--and definitely let me know if you think I'm right about the Migraines waving goodbye and leaving me forever. Ha.

shooting pain/lightning headaches

Occasionally, I suffer from little spasms of pain in my brain. They're always unilateral, usually on the right side. Today it's been happening again, and I'm not worried about it--I'm just aggravated and in pain for a few seconds at a time.

It feels less like a zap of powerful lightning in my brain than it does a rapidly-lit, long fuse. You know how Road Runner cartoons feature dynamite with really long fuses? And the fuse gets lit on one end and slowly, slowly works its way to the actual explosive? It feels like that, but VERY fast. A little zippy pain that shoots from the bottom-middle of the back of my head to my temple. Over and over. Every few moments, then stops, then resumes minutes or hours later.

Pinched nerve? Sinus problems? Cluster headache? All of these things sound as if they could be a possibility, but I don't buy 'em. As I said, I'm just annoyed. Luckily my healthy pattern of diagnosing myself by reading internet articles led me to a few on brain aneurysms. I'm not having one-whew!

Migraine blogger interviews

The lovely (and more organized than I) Rain Gem has this entry on her blog to point you all to the Wego Health page of interviews Adrienne conducted with some of us Migraine bloggers. Interesting to read about different people's takes on the disease and why it's helpful to blog.

congested congestion never ends

I have felt congested for, I don't know, a few MONTHS now? I chalked it up at first to Georgia weather, but this has gotten out of control. Quite often my entire head, from the skin on the back of it to my nose to the sinus cavities under my cheekbones (uh, there are sinus cavities there, right?) has been stuffy. Yes, experts, I realize that the diagnosis of "sinus headache" is not accurate and that it's usually Migraine at work (this is touched upon here). Yes, I realize that sinus congestion can be a precursor or side effect of a Migraine attack. But all the time? Really? Even when I'm not in the midst of a Migraine episode?

Perhaps this is tied to the incessant tiredness I've been dealing with. In the last couple weeks, I've gotten so tired I've succumbed to the desire to take a nap for 30-120 minutes. When I awake, I feel groggy at first but then have energy again. Imagine that--energy!

Here's what I'm thinking. I need to make more money. I need to make more money so I can see a doctor who actually practices in my town. I need to talk to a doctor whose staff doesn't feel like I'm bothering them. I need to figure out what's going on with my body as a whole, but I have to get over my hesitation when it comes to holistic healing. Okay, let's clarify: holistic treatment is one of the only methods that makes sense. Of course you have to look at the entire body in order to figure out what's happening to make you function under par. But so many holistic healers I've come across--mainly on the web or in accidental late night conversations at music shows--are a bit kooky. The daughter of two die-hard skeptics (not to mention I'm a skeptical little squirrel myself), it's difficult for me to swallow the talk they deliver, the talk that smacks of New Age (e.g., millenia-old) wisdom. What to do?

For now I can't do anything anyway. Ain't no dispensible income to speak of, so I'll just sit tight. Bright news at the moment? My stuffiness is only 15% present at the moment. And yes, that's an official calculation.

I'm watching W the Women Show right now. A few days ago I mentioned their special on Women & Migraine before having watched it. I'm about halfway through right now and have mixed feelings about it.

A few minutes ago, Suzanne Simons (NHF Director) mentioned how oral contraceptives can help some migraineurs, while they worsen the condition for others. I was surprised she didn't mention the risk that accompanies birth control pills for female migraineurs (especially ones with aura). See a brief description of the risk here under the "risks" section.

Thus far they've heralded the advances of pharmaceuticals without noting that thousands upon thousands of people can't get relief from preventive or acute drugs. They mentioned the existence of "other therapies" but haven't gone into descriptions of those methods.

The pluses outweigh the minuses, of course. I think the episode is pretty good. Of course I'm most interested in the emotional, social, and psychological effects of Migraine disease, and they've touched on that but haven't gone into as much detail as I would've liked.

It's definitely worth a watch, though. I suppose it's good that I'm educated enough to know which parts of the disease they're not covering adequately, eh? It's hard to recap lifetimes of pain and frustration and education into a thirty minute show, eh?