I haven't updated in a while, and I am going to bitch and whine and complain and look for sympathy

I haven't updated this blog in a while. I've been having a frustrating summer so far, and all of the frustration is a direct result of my migraines.

A month ago I realized that my post-exercise migraines were coming back after being absent for a year. I thought that maybe they were returning because of other circumstances: maybe I was dehydrated, fatigued, maybe I hadn't eaten enough before exercising. But the more I exercised, the more I realized I was getting a regular migraine that has no obvious cause whatsoever. Great. Same position I was in last winter and spring.

Last winter and spring I went to Milford to see a neurologist, Dr. Pearson. She said that a medication, Topamax, commonly used as an anti-seizure medication, has also recently been used in the few rare cases of migraine patients getting migraines for no obvious reason after exercise. So I started taking Topamax, and hey! the post-exercise migraines stopped immediately. Now, however, they are back, and they are back with a vengeance.

It makes sense. Prescribing me Topamax was like putting one of those tiny little circular Scooby-Doo bandaids on a gaping, profusely bleeding wound that requires immediate surgery and blood transfusions: it stopped my pain for a little while, but there is some bigger, more horrible and serious issue lurking deeper within my body that is causing me to be in excruciating pain and agony every time I attempt to exercise.

To complicate my whole migraine affair even more, any pain medication I was taking to alleviate the pain from the migraines has also stopped working. I can't take Imitrex because that was giving me cardiovascular problems, and Tylenol and Advil no longer work. I would have to take 10 Tylenol or 15 Advil for my brain to feel even the slightest cessation in pain. Excedrin migraine sometimes works, I think because of the caffeine that is in it, but it will dull the pain for about 3o minutes. After that, the migraine is back in full force. My doctor also prescribed some other pain medications specific to migraines, and those did even less than Tylenol or Advil. So I decided I would try a Vicodin. A friend of mine gets migraines frequently, and she takes Vicodin, and she says it gets rid of her migraines, so I figured I would try it. Anything to stop the pain.

I took Vicodin one day after I had my post-exercise migraine, and the pain stopped. It was GONE. ALL the pain in my head was GONE. The only medication to have done that before was Imitrex, but that caused so many other complications that I had to stop taking it. Vicodin got rid of my migraines. But after taking Vicodin whenever I got a migraine, which, without exercise, was at least once a week, my tolerance for the medication started to build. Now I have to take 3 Vicodin to get rid of a migraine. I've developed a nasty little habit according to my mother, but what am I supposed to do when I am in excruciating pain?

I also want to know why more research has not been done on migraines. All of the neurologist I've seen have bitched about the lack of research on migraines. The ones who have done the little research there is neurologists who are migraine sufferers themselves.

I have an appointment to see a new neurologist on August 4. Until then, Vicodin is the only thing I can take to get rid of my migraines. I can't really exercise. The only exercise I do now is walking. I'd rather be out of shape for a while than be in excruciating pain all the time. It would be nice, though, if this new doctor could find the reason why I get these migraines after I exercise, instead of giving me a bandaid to put over a more serious and complicated problem.



So what else is going on in my life? I've been trying to read a lot. Today all attempts at reading have failed, though, because, what a surprise, I feel a migraine coming on. This one hasn't even been triggered by anything I can think of, either.

I've been working a lot at Papa Gino's.



I've come to accept that I have no long term plans, no career goals other than getting out of the food service industry by the time I am 30 and becoming an English teacher, and I am ok with that now. I don't need direction in my life, and I don't want it. And it's nice finally to accept that my career (or lack thereof) and my grades should not have any affect on my self-worth.


There's my monthly emo-post.