can i have a little help please?

Right now as I sit here eating my scrambled egg dinner (I couldn't bring myself to eat Chinese Food @ our Thailand meeting for fear of pain) I think I may have had my question answered that I threw across the sky this morning. Perhaps it didn't fall on deaf ears.... "can I have a little help please?" *I was actually hopeful when I said that.

It was a beautiful morning for walking. It had just gotten light out and the fog was just hanging low across the fields near where I walk and onto the tops of the trees. lovely! Even the ducks greeted me this morning and walked along with me for a while. They were my buddies!

And as I walked I was thinking about my worsening headaches of course, because it seems that lately it's about all I think about. It occured to me that my Lamictal was increased from 100mg. to 15omg. in early October (turns out Oct. 4th actually). That's about the time my "month from hell" started.

Then, I realized that the next dosage increase came Sept. 25th, and immediately, the next day in fact, I ended up getting IV medications and the next night landed in the E.R. The rest you are familiary with from the previous posts in the last week. This dosage increase was from 150mg. to 200mg.

Could there be a link between my worsening headaches and the Lamictal? It would be terrible if there was. It has helped me such a great deal with my moods (not counting the anxiety during menstruation and high pain levels). But overall, my husband admits I seem more loving, as in caring and nicer to be around.

But HARK! The headaches most definitely have gotten worse after each increase....

I braved church today. I took earplugs and did alright because I was feeling great before I left. We sold a few calendars this morning, about 5, and that is better than nothing.

After church my friend came and talked to me. She recently went on Lamictal and said her dose was 200mg. The interesting thing though, is she's had daily headaches since starting the medication. The other day she even had a migraine and she says she's never had one before.

I FREAKED! I had just made this correlation a few hours ago, and here she was confirming it w/out me even bringing it up!

When I got home I called the pharmacy and asked them about side effects. He said that yes, headache could be a side effect. So, although I don't know for sure, I e-mailed my PA and told him about my concern and what I've been noticing. Fortunately, all my trips to the doctor for IV meds are in my chart so it will be easy for him to substantiate that. Also, if he has more questions or needs more information, I can direct him to this blog.

It sounds crazy, but I'm so excited even though I was quite fearful at first. There are other mood stabilizer/migraine meds I can go on and this means that the increased frequency isn't a permanent thing, just due to a reaction with the medication.

The other day I asked myself the question: What kind of twisted life lesson am I supposed to learn from all this?

I think I've learned a few things in the last month.

1) that I am capable of going to the doctor or hospital when miserable, asking for help, and getting it

2) that I can e-mail my doctor and he will e-mail back and even order pain control for me

3) that I have lots of friends who love me and care about me and want to help me, especially with the children

4) that my husband wants to help me, hurts when I hurt and would do anything to help me get better

5) that IV magnesium DOES NOT work for me and even makes me feel worse

6) that sometimes I need extra aleve with DHE injections of IV's, and that if you inject yourself too close to a nerve your muscles will spaz out

7) that the throbbing pain pulsing through my neck was from borderline high blood pressure

8) that when I'm menstruating, along with super high pain, I tend to get very anxious and agitated. by asking for help, I can get medication that will keep me safe during this time

9) that there usually is a cause, explanation or a reason for what's happening to me, even if the answers are a long time in coming

10) that once pushed to the limit, I will do anything and give up anything (in this case a variety of foods) in order to be proactive in feeling better.

So, all in all, the help hasn't come yet. I'm hoping to hear a response back tomorrow, and if I haven't by late afternoon I will call my PA's advice line or leave a message for him on his voicemail. However, he seems to be exceptionally speedy and helpful with his responses, he may just have a backlog of messages from being out of the office for a week.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I will take it as it comes and deal with it the best I can.

This is getting really old....

This is getting really old....I woke up with another headache after spending all day yesterday with a mild one. It's hard to keep a good attitude.

My pain was at a three but my thinking was really slow and I was feeling kind of out of it. There was nothing here at home that I am allowed to take, and remembered the IV magnesium for "rescue."

This was a rescue kind of a day.

I know the magnesium didn't work last time, and my pain got worse a few hours afterward, but I also got it when my pain was really high to start with.

Because my pain was at a three I figured that if it worked, my body would respond to it better since things weren't out of control. And, if it didn't work, then we'd know and could move onto something else.

So, the hubs drove me an hour to get the treatment, and sure enough, no change in pain. On the way home (another hour...obviously...) it started to pick up. Without even asking him, the hubs drove me over to Urgent Care because they hadn't closed yet. To see what they could do for me. I was starting to get really discouraged too. The good attitude I had earlier had completely faded and I was pretty down.

The nurse that was helping me was nice enough, but she was asking me all kinds of questions that I was annoyed with. Like, don't you have a doctor helping you with this? Haven't they given you this or that medication? Have they given you this....Do you have a neurologist?

Yes, yes and yes I answered and geesh, I just wanted a stinkin' drug to get rid of the pain. I could overhear her talking to the doctor and it was like: what are we going to do w/ that lady w/ a migraine. I mean, I have been in and out of migraine treatments a lot over the past week.

So she comes into give me the shot of torredol and I had been crying. Like, the booger/snot/gooey/yuck kind of crying. Just so despondant and so tired. So, so tired. And, she's like, you shouldn't cry because that'll make it worse.

Like freakin' duh!!! I've only had these since i was EIGHT YEARS OLD...I think I know that crying makes it worse but I CAN'T TAKE IT.

I totally wanted to smack her.

I could tell I was being kind of short with her and apologized, I just told her that it wasn't her and I was having such a difficult time handling it all.

As soon as I got the shot I left the joint and my hubby could tell that I was over the top upset. He sort of got in my face (in a good way) and we went home. The pain decreased a little. Like down to a three from a five. Not good enough. I waited a few hours and decided to take a frovatriptan. I wanted to wait a few more days as I'm only supposed to treat 2 a week, but when the mental health starts to fade, what are you going to do? Also, I just had to get by until my doctor gets back on Monday and I can tell him what a tough time I've been having. Also, when I had gotten home from the doctor, I took an Ativan to calm down and relax which I knew would help me get rid of the headache and help me wait until the pain went away. I think I also took 2 aleve before I took the frovatriptan, and that didn't seem to help either.

However, I am happy to say that within an hour the frova worked and it was such a relief. I went in my hallway and took this self-portrait of myself. Because this is what the real me looks like when I'm tired, discouraged and hurting.

What will tomorrow bring? I'm trying not to think about it.....

just when i thought things couldn't get worse...

Today turned out to be a lot like yesterday. My day started off great. Woke up with a clear head and after taking the kids to school I went for a long wlak @ the lake again. This time I walked the whole stinkin' thing, about 4 miles. It felt good to be out in the crisp morning air and to feel the tightness in my legs from the exercise. I was feeling pretty emotional though and had to fight back tears.

Also, my mind was filled with worry and fear about the pain returning. I had to force myself to look at the trees, the birds and the ducks....force myself to think about the good things that were happening now, all around me. It was so hard. Within minutes my mind was back to the night before and planning what I would do if my pain came back.

After I returned home, about 1 in the afternoon, I again started to feel pressure in my head. Before the pain could really escalate, I drove to the doctor's office and went to the nurse's treatment center to get an i.v. magnesium sulfate procedure that was a standing order for me. They told me that they didn't give them @ this site, so an RN called around to see where I could go to get it. We discovered that I had to drive an hour to find a place that would do it, but I knew my husband would take me.

When I left home about 6 p.m. my pain was about a 5. By the time I got to the ambulatory care center @ Sunnyside my pain was about 6. I received the treatment and when it was over there was no change in my pain. Also, my blood pressure was 147/107 and the nurse who was attending me said that I needed to get my blood pressure checked again within a couple of days. We drove home and about 20 min. from home my pain was @ an 8 and I vomited. When we pulled into town I started crying and asked my husband to take me to the E.R. I didn't want to go home and just lay there suffering. I was soooo tired of hurting.

Of course the emergency room was busy, it always is, and it was a Friday night. My husband said, "Are you sure you want to stay?" I started crying and said, "I'm not leaving!!!"

I don't know how long we waited, it must have been two hours. I was completely miserable, agitated and full of anxiety when they called me back. I was at the point where all I wanted to do was die. In fact, I would have done anything for someone to just give me something so I could leave the planet. When they called me back to the room I started crying, first because I hurt so bad, and second I was hopeful that my misery would finally be over.

Of course once I got in there it would be at least another 1/2 hour before I got my first medication. Mentally I was really starting to lose it. At one point, I looked @ my husband so desperately and said, "I want to die, please just let me die..."

The first med they gave me in the i.v. calmed me down, the second was an anti-nausea medicine and the third was for the migraine. They also did a CT scan which showed nothing. After I got back to my room the ER doctor said something about me going home. My pain was down to a 5 but I was absolutely petrified to go home and told him that I had hoped my pain would be lower before I went home. He said they could administer the last medication they gave me again. That brought it down to a 2. But I have to say, either my anxiety, or the combination of meds, or both of these combined, caused me to feel completely drugged and very unsettled, like I was just squirming in my skin....it's hard to describe. I think the anti-nausea med was called compazine and the migraine med was seroquil (??) something with an "s" anyways! My blood pressure was still kind of high but lower than it was @ Sunnyside.

The weird thing was, that with this combination I didn't sleep, but I could hardly open my eyes for at least an hour. Very strange... according to my outpatient letter, the ER treated me for acute migraine headache, acute tension-type headache, acute uncontrolled hypertension and acute anxiety reaction.

After I got home (2 a.m.) I tried to go to sleep. I was really fighting some bad thoughts and so anxious about the headache returning. I called the 24 hour psych line and talked to a nice guy who gave me some really good suggestions. One was to follow up w/ a doctor the next day and talk about anti-anxiety medication.

I finally fell asleep about 5:30 a.m. and slept for an hour.

This is a day I hope to never repeat...