Writings
Migraine Log 04/03/07 » Mon, Mar 5th 2007 6:41 am
Last night as I was settling into bed to watch the Simpsons at about 10:50, I noticed that my left peripheral vision was being a little strange. As I’d just turned off the lights, I figured it was just the usual afterglow from my monitor or something. Then (and this has happened before) I felt my tongue tingle as it would if I’d licked a pile of salt.
Given that it was almost 11:00 at night and I was already tired, my initial reaction was fear. In fact, my only reaction was fear. I recalled the last time I got a migraine right before bed, and how the pain from that one lasted for nearly four days. I’d fallen asleep before the pain could set in, and woke up barely able to walk and feeling like I was going to vomit.
This time, however, the fear wouldn’t let me sleep. So I lay awake until the pain began, but it didn’t get very strong at all before the two Tylenol 3’s and the Gravol kicked in and knocked me out.
I woke up at 1:30 AM having to piss like a race horse. The pain was there, but very dull. I didn’t feel nauseous, but walking was tricky. As though I’d just spun myself around for a full minute and tried to walk in a straight line. Naturally I figured I’d be dealing with the dizziness for the rest of the week, but I didn’t care. I didn’t feel sick, and my head felt decent. I went back to bed.
I woke up just a few minutes ago. It’s 7:30 now, and I feel pretty decent. My neck’s really stiff and my head’s a little light and just barely sore, but that’s almost how I feel everyday anyway.
I am reluctant to celebrate though. The blindness and bizarre tongue numbing were joined by a strange “itchy” feeling on the inside of my head. Maybe it was just the medication doing its thing, but it was pretty unsettling. Given the intensity of all of the aura symptoms and the near-complete absence of post-aura symptoms (the skull-crushing headache), I’m willing to bet that I haven’t seen the last of this one. As I think I’ve written in a previous log, I’ve had a migraine disappear on me before. Though I didn’t fall asleep, the headache was still a no-show and just about an hour later I was blind again, and that second time around hurt like a mother.
On the bright side, if I don’t end up with a kickback headache on this one, I think I can add a horse tranquilizer to my migraine dosage from now on and just sleep through the shitty part. But we’ll see…
As for causes, I’m feeling like I have this one in the bag. I was just talking with my friend Greg on Saturday night about how I figured my migraines might be connected to prolonged periods of high stress. Bad as it was though, the breakup wasn’t really “stressful”. However, from Friday night to Saturday night, I’d been in a non-stop “dull state of panic” while I visited my brother Pete in Toronto. Figuring out how to get to, on, and off the Go Train was stressful. Being on my own and away from home was stressful. Walking around and not being able to eat exactly when and what I wanted was stressful. Even getting back on the Go Train for the trip home was stressful. While these things shouldn’t be stressful to normal people, they were to me. And my guess is that this kind of strain is what caused this migraine.
As much as I hate the idea of being medicated for stress, I think Greg’s advice to see a psychiatrist for stress meds might be something I should consider. I mean I’m sure they’ll try to set me straight without medication at first, but if it comes to that, I think I’d be alright with it. I don’t know if I have “General Anxiety Disorder” or not, and I don’t want to sound like one of those annoying Wikipedia reading, self-diagnosing hypochondriacs, but the description really does fit. I worry about some seriously insignificant shit.
I’ll have to wait until I’m covered by insurance again, which I don’t think is until I’m officially back in school, but I’m optimistic. Even if I’m way off base on the GAD thing or everything else, I’m sure I’m not the only one who knows me that thinks I’d benefit from the aid of a shrink. Heh.
In the meantime, I’ll just work on keeping my cool as best I can. I’ll go download some “calming forest sounds” right now.
1 Paul D on Thu, Mar 8th 2007 10:44 pm
If you were anxious on Saturday, it didn’t show. So you were dealing with it well.
2 Aaron on Fri, Mar 9th 2007 8:09 am
Heh. Well, I had just eaten so things were pretty good. It’s not really a constant thing, but it comes and goes when it looks like my routine’s going to be broken. IE: Lunch at 1:00 PM instead of noon. But the food thing’s just me worrying about getting a migraine (I figure hunger’s a trigger).
I haven’t gotten another migraine since this one, so it might be safe to say that the sleeping pill added to my little pre-migraine cocktail is a decent “cure”. If I could sleep through them and feel half as good I did after this one, I don’t think I’d worry about them much at all.