My Migraine Battle: On The Forefront

On a Bender?

Last night my occular migraines were so bad that I had them in both eyes. It broke alot of blood vessels in my eyes, so they were completely red and made me look like I'd been on a total bender. Wish I could laugh about that, because it is kind of funny considering how rarely I drink. Today isn't a whole lot better.

I haven't been getting very much sleep recently. My daughter has asthma which is usually controlled, but this past week has been really bad for her, especially over the weekend. Of course our doc's office wasn't open over the holiday, since last Wednesday in fact, so my husband took her into the doc's office this morning. It's really scary when your kid has asthma, because all you think about is what if she stops breathing at night or wakes up with an attack during the night. Of course, she did wake up with attacks and we had to get out the nebulizer, which is a machine that delivers albuterol directly to her lungs and relieves the constriction. So, I can't sleep when she's like that, because I spend the whole night listening for her asthma attacks and worrying about her. And of course one of the worst things for a migraneur is going without sleep.

I have an aura today as well as the occulars, so I know that I'm in for a really rough day. It's not the kind of thing you want to look forward to, you know? All I can do is try to distract myself from the impending doom and hope for the best. It's wishful thinking, which I've written about in the past, I think in January, but every once in awhile I allow myself to indulge in it. It's probably just a step up from having a pity party, which I also sometimes allow myself to indulge in, but try not to.

On a totally unrelated topic, I've decided that it's time for my GP to get educated on migraines, so I printed out a list of resources for her and hopefully she'll spend some time in research. I know that homework's the last thing anyone wants to do after work, but I had to do it all the time in my job, so I'm not expecting more of her than I would expect of myself. I didn't overload her with sites. I just gave her the best ones that I know of:

www.headaches.org/consumer/topicsheets/migraine.html
www.midas-migraine.net
www.migraine.org.uk

and a couple of blogs, in case she wants to know how they affect different individuals.

I've just got to get her to really know how to treat it more effectively and what's out there as treatments. I know she understands how much pain I'm in all the time, thank goodness. For those of you who don't keep a migraine diary, I really recommend it. It's important for them to see what your pain levels are on a daily basis and what meds are or aren't working for you.

Right now, I'm on stupid little old fashioned meds that aren't doing much for me (Fioricet and Imitrex). The Imitrex helps, but it costs $200/shot, and if I used it like I'm supposed to, about 2x/week, I just can't afford it. So, I rely on Fioricet quite a bit, but I can only take that three days a week, because it causes rebounds. So, the other days, I'm supposed to just remain in extreme pain all day long. I can't do that. I'd end up in ER about every other day, so I don't always take it as prescribed. I try to wait as long as I can to take it, because I don't want the rebounds, but that's not good either, because it's more effective if you take your meds at the first sign of migraine. I'm caught in this vicious cycle with no end in sight right now, and that's really what gets me frustrated.

posted by Jessica @ 11:17 AM