Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: migraines (Page 1 of 2)

Migraines and Laundry, Which One is Worse? Part 3

Ok back to migraines and laundry, I was talking migraines first.  Speaking of which, I am working on 3 days in a row now.  I haven’t figured out my triggers but whatever it is, it is happening!

See Part 1 Here

and Part 2 Here

Onto some more technical stuff, visual aura’s I haven’t explained yet so here goes.  Imagine getting your picture taken with a particularly bright flash.  The after flash you have is close to the visual aura.  It is bright, and obscures whatever you see right in front of your eyes but there is still some peripheral vision.  Or it could be the other way, no peripheral but a tunnel.  I get that type a bunch.

The aura is not only bright though, it flashes.  somewhat like the sun reflecting off of a gently moving lake.  Mostly mine are white but the good ones are all colors.

In sort Migraines suck.  Most places around the net tell you that you don’t get a migraine, you have migraine disease and have attacks.  I don’t really like to think about it like that.  I want to be completely normal as I sit here to write this with a migraine starting.  I will see how much I can do and then come back to the rest.

Hmm almost 2 hours later, even with medication sometimes the stupid things put me to sleep and there is nothing I can do about it.  Hopefully this cycle can be done now, it has been 3 days in a row and I am almost out of pills!

So back to my point from post number 1, which is worse, migraine or laundry?  I would have to say migraine but laundry is close behind.  I would like to actually be “caught up” with laundry for more than about 20 minutes.  But there are 3 kids and 2 adults that refuse to run around naked so there are clothes to wash.   If anyone wants a job doing laundry…..  Doesn’t pay anything.  Now I have to go clean, as soon as I get my Maxalt refilled.

Until the muse strikes next,

Justin

Migraines and recognizing them

Migraine aura. Visual phenomenon before migrai...
Image via Wikipedia

Ok, so if you have read this blog for a while now, you will have seen that I have ranted about migraines a time or two.  I am not just talking about a really bad headache or something that you are trying to get sympathy for.  I mean a real down and out kick you square in the ass migraine.  Like I have also said before, I don’t know what causes them, I just know (now) that I get them.

I even had one today, Sunday, for no good reason.  It was a beautiful day, it had snowed last night so I got to get out my snowblower and plow.  that is always so much fun for me that I don’t see how it could give me problems.  But it did.  I came in and was hanging out with my kids before church and there is the sparkly not quite there but it is aura that signals a migraine.  (See the picture over there?  it is kind of like that but bigger.  You can also think of looking at a lake just at sunset when you get a really blinding sun reflection and there is just enough chop to the water to make it shimmer.)

So I take my medicine, (Maxalt prescription stuff and 2 Aleve.  If you know Aleve or Naproxen Sodium, the usual dose is 1 pill and then another in 3-4 hours if the pain hasn’t gone away.  My doctor recommended 2 to start and try to head off the pain.) All seems to go well after the med have kicked in, I feel ok and we head to church.  While we are there, the bad men with the vise come in and attach it to my head.  And then begin to twist.  I know from experience that without the medication this would have been one of the incapacitating migraines.  But I soldier on, not letting my brain put me to sleep.  After all, I had Sunday School to teach.

I tell you that story to bring up the point of my post today.  Recognizing the migraine.  You can search all over the web and find better descriptions of different headaches than I am going to regurgitate here.  What you need to learn today is to recognize a migraine.  And not just for yourself, for your kids as well.

Way back when when Hair Bands and arena rock were big and Grunge was not yet established, I started having migraines.  at the time I didn’t know what they were.  I just thought that I was sick a lot.  I would get these at least once a week, be sick for most of the day and then be OK in the afternoons to night.  My parents thought I was faking being sick to get out of things and so dismissed them.  I had aa few on family vacations that kept me out of attractions or from doing hikes and the like.  My parents were convinced I was just sickly.

When I finally found out that I had migraines I vowed never to ignore the symptoms if my kids started having them.  There is a direct link in genetics for migraines.  But since my parents don’t get them they don’t exist.  In the words of my Dad, “It takes years to diagnose migraines, you can’t have that after only one Dr. visit.”  B.S.  I told the doc what I had, he chuckled and said “Classic Migraines, here is a prescription, let us know how it works.”   I was relieved at that because someone had finally validated me being sick and not just something in my head.  Well it is directly in my head but not psycologically.

Anyway, it took 3 days worth of migraines and my nursing student girlfriend, (now my Nurse wife) to see that I needed something.  They had been getting worse and worse over the months.  We went to the ER and I got a shot of Imitrex and it stopped the migraines cold.  It was fantastic.

Anyway, before all of that, some of the first migraines I had scared me to death.  Some of the first ones I can remember started with a “creeping numbness” that started in my little finger and proceeded up my arm and into my face.  I always knew that in the next four hours or so I would have a blinding headache, throw up 3-4 times and after a bit of sleep I would feel better.  If I had known earlier what that was I could have done something about it.

My point today, of you have a bad headache chances are it is not a migraine.  If you have a bad headache with bright flashes or numbness, sensitivity to light and nausea, see a doctor, it could be a migraine.  If your kids complain about any of the above, get them check out and save them years of discomfort.

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2010 and resolutions

The time has come! Well friends it is 2010 and what do we do now? Make resolutions to break right? Ok here goes, I will…link to this website: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/people-skills/200912/new-years-resolutions-you-cant-live-without much better than I can write about resolutions.

As for me, I am going to go watch some football and take down the Christmas Tree. For the year, Start today on the Enter the Kettlebell program minimum, that isn’t too daunting. Write every day. Blog or book, BOTH!

Whatever I decide it will be for me. I want to work a lot on me this year and make me a priority!

Have fun in the new year, and in the words of so many RKC’s

Train Hard

 

Justin

Migraines and Laundry, Which is Worse? part 2

As I started yesterday, This is part 2 of my migraine journey and latest stay at home dad info.  And Journey just came on the radio, Any Way You Want It is AWESOME!  part 1 is Here

Admittedly, laundry sucks and it is not my favorite thing but if I don’t do it, there are no clean clothes.  No, the wife can’t do it, she works and now she is pregnant with number 4 so her energy is gone.  I am not complaining about doing laundry I just don’t like to.  But I went to fold the 3 loads I had washed.  About that time I got what I call the “numb bubble” again.

The numb bubble is one of my migraine clues.  It is not the scientific term but it is my term.  It is a strange feeling, complete numbness in a “sphere” roughly the size of a baseball that moves.  It usually starts in my fingers and “travels” through my hand, up my arm, and through my face.  That is the worst part, it is like being on lots of novacaine but it moves.  And it sucks.

If you just think that a migraine is a really bad headache, there is much more to it, usually.  I have read about migraines lately and there are different types but most have some sort of “aura” associated with them.  That is the type I have.

Since I was about 12 I have had migraines but didn’t have them diagnosed until something like 14 years ago when my girlfriend (now wife of 13 years) the nursing student (now Nurse) told me what my “sickness” actually was.  I used to wake up in the middle of the night with the “numb bubble” in full swing and the visual aura happening.  I would think, “Oh great I am sick again.”  I didn’t know all of what was happening but I knew that I would be throwing up a few times with a bad headache to go with it.  And then I would be fine later.  I believe to this day that my parents thought I was faking because I was better later.

I got medication at the hospital thanks to my girlfriend and from there it has helped to alleviate the symptoms before they led to the vomiting stage.  I still have the numb bubble but much less now, mostly just the visual aura that tells me the migraine is coming.  I have tried to explain that visual aura to people and I think I will try to do it in the next post.

Later

Justin

Continue to part 3 Here

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