migraine

The gods are cruel

Blog kitt decided around 10:32 on 23 April 2008 to publish this:

I don't particularly like most alcoholic drinks. Most don't taste good, usually make me shudder, and have the unpleasant side effect of drunkenness. This has been true since I first started drinking in college. Sure, I could choke down a beer, or finish a (small) glass of wine, but likely as not I'd leave a half finished drink somewhere rather than finish it.

Wine coolers were a college exception, as you couldn't really taste the alcohol.

At my second job out of college, my boss, Wook (one of the best people on this planet, I should mention), didn't drink alcohol because he didn't like the taste. His declaration made me realize a person could, wow, CHOOSE not to drink alcohol because it doesn't taste good. The thought was revolutionary to me.

I stopped drinking, for the most part.

When I started dating Kris, not drinking became even easier, as he didn't drink either.

There was the occasional glass, like once a year or something, but few enough that I could count the number of alcoholic drinks on one hand, counting the number of sodas on the other.

And then I started working for V.A.

I swear, between Ariel and Pine, Aaron and Bharat, I was encouraged to drink more alcohol than any small person should be allowed to. And I drank it willingly, don't let my wording make you think differently. There's video were I redefine the Arabic number system when completely drunk. It is spectacular.

The alcohol was more the exception than the rule, though. The Whiskey Expo and Doyle's cocktail party are the big ones I can think of. I think in the last year I've left more glasses of wine and open-but-just-tasted bottles of beer for Kris and my mom than I ever even drank in college.

I've grown fond of the "take a sip, switch the glasses with someone who's finished" trick as of late.

So, when Kris, Heather and I went to Santa Barbara for Andy's birthday and spent most of the day tasting wine, I can't say I was particularly hopeful I'd find anything I like. I just don't like the tannins taste in wine, the bitter taste in beer, or the shudder factor of hard alcohol. I realize this, I'm good with it. I don't need anything but the slightest of sips.

And then the heavens opened up, pouring light and music and joy down unto the earth.

We found the Oreana 2006 Verdelho.

To say this is the best wine ever created might be a slight exaggeration IN YOUR BOOK. It's not on my blog. I immediately wanted to buy a case of the stuff.

Kris wouldn't let me, allowing me only 3 bottles.

They lasted about 2 weeks.

I kept asking Andy to bring up bottles when he journeyed north. I kept asking Heather to bring bottles back when she journeyed south. Eventually, I gave up on both those ideas, and found the winery's website, ordered 6 bottles online and had them shipped.

I managed to share one with friends at a communal dinner, where share means "take to the dinner and run away before it was opened, lest I drink the whole bottle myself, it's that good." The rest, oh, the rest are mine mine mine!

Of the remaining five, I've had two of them so far. The first bottle was with Mom, and took us two days to drink. The other bottle was with Mark and Megan this past weekend as they came over for dinner. Except, not really "over for dinner." More like, "Megan fed us in our own house" dinner. I'm still not sure how we managed such love.

There was about a 1/4 bottle left of the wine, so I had a glass of it on Monday night.

And woke up Tuesday morning at six a.m. with my right hand numb.

Now, at first I didn't notice the numbness as anything unusual. In my ongoing effort to sit up straight and get rid of that dowager hump that's forming on my neck, I managed to pinch a nerve in my shoulder, causing my left arm to go numb any time I do sit up straight (if ever there's an argument to slouch, that one works). So, I was half asleep and my hand was numb, whatever, right?

But it was my right hand. A realization I took a bit to make.

Aw crap.

I lasted until 2:30, when I was driving back from a meeting. I was about a quarter mile from home when I realized my vision was going: my migraine auras were starting up. I drove home as quickly as I could, losing only about 20% of my vision by the time I pulled into the driveway, and fortunately all of that along the outside periphery.

Phone call here, text message there, two Omega 3 pills, one magnesium, two Tylenol™ and one doggie in the bed later, and I was out to the world.

This is the second time in two bottles that I've had the bottom quarter or so of the bottle, then had a migraine the next day. The last one was that first bottle of Oreana Verdelho from last month. That migraine was also one of the big ones.

I'm very unhappy about this realization. Wine and cheese are indeed known triggers for migraines. I hadn't linked them to my migraines, though. It could be the bottom of the bottle, too, as I didn't have a migraine after dinner with Mark and Megan. It could also be the effect of food with the wine that helped me out.

Regardless, I find this whole connection completely unfair. I shake my fists at the sky! I mean, come on! I find the most incredible wine EVER, and it makes me go blind?

How fair is that?

Migraine visuals

Blog Posted by kitt at 22:34 on 18 March 2008

I get migraine headaches.

There. I've admitted it. The world now knows I have migraine headaches, and they suck. A lot of people have "migraines," which are really just tension headaches, or stress induced headaches. Sucky suck for them, because, yes, it's a headache, but it's not really. Not REALLY a migraine.

I'm one of the lucky (yeah, in quotes, "LUCKY") ones who also have auras before a migraine. The percentage ranges from 12% to 25% of the people who have migraines who also have visual disturbances (auras) before the doozy of a migraine hits, depending on which study you read. I've tried to figure out how to tell people what I'm seeing, that I'm about to go blind and I have fifteen minutes to get someplace safe before I lose my sight, but most people just don't understand.

Here's how I describe what I see: imagine looking at something and not seeing borders. Like, look at my face. Now, you see the wall behind me. Imagine the border between my face and the wall gone, but in such a way that you don't notice the loss of the border.

If the wall is blue, and my face distinctly not blue, then it's obvious where the border between my face and the wall is. However, when I'm experiencing the preliminary auras of a migraine, that border is gone, EVEN BETWEEN TWO VERY DIFFERENT COLORS. It's gone, and I don't know it's gone. It's very disconcerting.

I've thought about doctoring an image to show what I see. The preliminary auras are mostly a lost of borders. After a short while, I see a bright spot, like looking at a really bright light (try the sun, but in a much smaller space), and the emptiness from looking at the bright spot and looking away. The brightness will grow, typically into a thin arc, with zig-zag iridescent lights. The arc and zig-zag lights are typical auras for most migraine sufferers.

But that doctored image...

Turns out, I took a picture that shows what I'm talking about.

If you zoom in and look at Sarah's face, the border of her face is blurred into the hair of the girl behind her. However, the color of her hair is the same as the trees in the background. Just looking at the close up of this section makes my stomach turn the way it does when I'm about to go blind from a migraine aura (which tells me, it's a learned response and not really part of the migraine, something I should work on stopping next migraine).

This is the closest I've come to what I see with the borders blurred. I'll have to work on the blinding zig-zag line next.

Freakin' genius

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:20 on 23 February 2008

Jessica called me tonight as Kris and I were heading out to dinner. Doyle had called earlier (well, texted) with an invite for dinner and Dave & Busters, and we were heading out to join the group for dinner. Given that I had declined about six other invites from Doyle, and figured he'd stop inviting us out if we didn't actually accept one or two, I insisted Kris head out with me for at least dinner. He was too interested in WoW for us to actually spend an evening away from the computers, so dinner was it.

Jessica had had an okay day, and seemed to be checking in, see how things were going. For a moment, I thought there wasn't much particular point to the conversation other than checking in. Then, she busted out with, "I have to tell you, you're a freakin' genius."

I paused and smiled, wondering what I had done this time. "Uh, thanks?" was all I could manage, slightly confused when I couldn't figure out what I had brilliant accomplished.

"You don't seem too surprised."

"Yeah, well, I'm wondering the source of my brilliance."

"Ah, well..."

Turns out, it started when I was back in Indiana.

I had declined many of the items Jessica had offered me to eat or drink. I drank mostly water, declining the diet and regular sodas. I declined the Crystal Light, too. Except the water, the drinks offered had aspartame in them, and, as we all know, aspartame triggers my migraines. So, I declined.

The gum she was offering also had aspartame in it, so I declined it, too. Jessica asked why, why would I decline the gum she was offering. I took the package, flipped it over and showed her the Phenylketonurics Contains Phenylalanine message. "See that? Contains aspartame. It's one of my biggest migraine triggers."

Now, Jess has had essentially a six month long migraine. She copes WAAAAAAAY better than I would if I was going through a six month long migraine. I'm fairly certain she doesn't have the extra special aura bonus I do, but her headache is essentially one kabillion times longer than my headaches are, so she wins in the sucky-suck competition.

I hadn't explained why until she offered me the gum when she visited last week. When I explained, a little light went off. She's had this six month migraine, right? So, that adds stress. When she's stressed, she pulls out the gum and chews away. You see what's going on here, right?

When I explained why I didn't chew gum, at least none that have aspartame in them, she threw her hands up exasperatedly. Might that be her problem, too? One way to find out: she stopped chewing gum, and threw out all that had aspartame in it.

Five days later into the experiment, and she's migraine free. Five days gum free and five days headache free. It's like the clouds parted, the sun came out, the choirs started singing, and all was glorious again. Her life is just that much better.

And I am a genius.

A freakin' genius.

Echoes of past hammers

Blog Instead of being asleep at 22:02 on 7 January 2008, kitt created this:

I remember as a child having my dad bring me home from school because I was sick. He had a work schedule that seemed to work with being home for us kids, though probably not with as much sleep as he'd like or wanted.

One afternoon of being home sick is particularly vivid, as Dad had brought me home because I couldn't see: I had a migraine, with the auras, and it was a doozy. He actually hadn't been working the night shift that day, and hence sleeping when the school called. Instead, he had been working on the upstairs bedrooms, refinishing the attic to make a couple more bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

After picking me up from school, he plunked me in his bed, shut the door, and went back upstairs to continue working on the bathroom.

The bathroom.

The bathroom, which was on the other side of a pillow, through the door, down the hall, up the stairs, around the corner and through another door.

And every hammer hit on a nail was a BOOM through my skull, the sunlight piercing my eyes through clenched lids and, yes, that pillow.

I remember calling for Dad, and asking him to stop hammering. Pleeeeeeeeease?

He did.

Now, fast forward to today, two days after one of the worst migraines I've had in a long time, a mere 36 hours after the ebb of the day long blindness, my vision restored until the next wave. I'm reminded again of the memory of that migraine years ago, listening to Kris' practicing thrum through my head, bouncing between ears before finally leaving.

I let Kris practice. If I concentrate hard enough, maybe I won't notice the constructive interference happening in my head...

No time for this!

Blog Posted by kitt at 18:28 on 13 May 2007

I so way do not have time for this.

My weekend is completely full. As I looked over my list on Friday night for what I wanted/needed to accomplish this weekend, I thought, "there's no way I can get all of this done." There were about 25 items on that list, and writing about that list wasn't on it.

This morning, I woke up late, around 7:30 am, and wondered if I wanted to get up, or just lie there next to Kris longer. I decided to lie there, but continue reading Expendable, one of two books Andy had loaned us a couple weeks ago. I was about half way through it, zipping along when I had a few spare minutes here and there. It was the first fiction book I'd picked up to read in over a year, all the other books I've read being either technical books or non-fiction good for me books on gardening or mental toughness or PHP.

I blame Catch 22. It made it to the top of my pile, and I've tried to read it so many times. It's about some guy who's incredibly lazy in a screwed up world. Kris likes it. Mark loves it. Tyler thinks it's great. Why do all the boys like it, and I can't stand it.

It's still at the top of my book pile, which has continued to grow bigger.

So, I skipped it to read Expendable, since Andy specifically brought it over for Kris and I to read. And I was reading it.

I read for a couple hours, though how it took me a couple hours to read it, I don't know. I thought I read quickly, but I was on only page 225 when I noticed a bright light on the right side of the pages.

Now, I hadn't looked directly at a light source yet that morning. I was nicely lying next to Kris, inserted gently into the Doggie Matrix, casually reading a book quickly. There was no reason for that bright light in my vision.

Except.

I knew what that light was.

"F---!" I exclaimed, throwing back the covers, taking a small tan dog with it, waking Kris from the light sleep he'd been in while I had been snuggling him.

"What is it?"

"A migraine. Another migraine. Another f---ing migraine. Third one in less than a month. What's going on? Why is this starting?"

I marched into the bathroom, cranked the shower on as hot as I could stand the water, popped two Advil and climbed into the water. I may have drained the water heater standing in that water, as hot as I could stand it, as long as there was hot water.

See, for the last quarter century, when I have a migraine headache, I become immediately stressed. It's a learned response: I know what's coming, I panic, I down the painkillers and rush to bed as quickly as I can, praying I can be asleep or otherwise oblivious to the avalanche of pain and numbness and nausea and blindness that's going to hit me in the next twenty minutes.

This learned response has not helped me at all. I still have the pain. I still have the numbness. I still have the nausea.

I still go blind.

So, I jumped into the shower, water as hot as I could stand it. I read recently that increasing the blood flow to the extremities can alleviate the worst of a migraine. I can't stand the aura, I can't stand going blind, or realizing that no, I can't trust my own senses, I can't trust my own sight. The blindness is the worst part. I'm not sure if the suggestion to heat my hands was going to help, but I was going to try.

I'll approach this as scientifically as I can. I can't affect the blindness if I don't stay awake for them. I can't see the effectiveness of the different processes I try if I'm not awake to see the effects.

After I ran out of hot water, I dried off, went back into the bedroom and crawled into the bed to watch the lights. Must to my surprise, they disappeared after about 15 minutes, while I was still awake. I was thrilled, picked up Expendable again, and started reading. I managed to finish it, then fall asleep for the afternoon. I managed to miss practice, as well as time to finish a dozen things I wanted to do today.

Today is totally shot. Maybe I should just go to sleep again.

Alerts

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 09:37 on 24 April 2007

Google has a program where you can set up new search results to be emailed to you on a regular basis, say once a day. I have several set up, because I find them interesting. I also have a couple set up for research purposes for a couple projects I'm doing.

One of the alerts is the term "migraine" from which I receive anywhere from three to three dozen notes, all in one email, a day.

The first one on today's alert read:

Migraine may protect against cognitive decline
Reuters.uk - UK
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women with a lifetime history of migraine have
less cognitive decline over time than women without migraine. ...

My first thought was, hot damn! Finally, something positive to come out of these torturous events.

I scrolled a little farther down the page, and came across this alert:

Migraines could lead to brain damage
Hindustan Times - New Delhi,Delhi,India
Researchers have established the fact that migraine can be a progressive
disorder and frequent sufferers have an increased risk of brain damage. ...

Great. Just great.

Do I have a choice? I'd like the first, please.

Reading the article, though, doesn't sound like the first is actually incongruous with the second. The study shoes the rate of decline is less for migraineurs with aura, but the decline is still there. Possible reasons are diet changes, adequate sleep and other trigger avoidances that cause people who have migraines to be healthier overall (minus the headaches).

It's almost as if we're shown early in life how being blind, nauseous, and frail can be, and we adjust to minimize the reoccurances of those reminders.

Or something.