If you don't get them, thank your lucky stars.
Mine started when I just 9 years old. I'd get one maybe every two or three years. Then, in my thirties, I began to get them every few months, several of them bad enough to send me to the emergency room. I'd ask for a Demerol injection--which, at that point, because I was barfing my guts out--was the only thing that would work. Imitrex injections didn't. I certainly couldn' t keep down a pill.So then the doctors and nurses would exchange looks and roll their eyes, obviously thinking: Oh, she's one of THOSE.
Hello? am I not lying here on your exam table with my face in a basin, sobbing with pain? And you think I'm here because I want to get high? If that were the case, wouldn't I show up here more than once or twice a year?
I saw doctor after doctor. I tried medication after medication. I subjected myself to the suspicious glares of medical professionals who believed I was simply seeking drugs (though they never said that to my face), never mind that I do not now, nor have I ever had anything remotely resembling a drug problem. I hardly ever drink, for pete's sake. I haven't had a hangover since 1986. I'm sure one hit off a joint would send me to my grave.
Finally a doctor (who now is my current doc) tried me on Fiorinal #3. For me, it's a miracle drug. The combination of 4 different ingredients will usually knock out a migraine right from the very start. I still get headaches--a LOT of them--but if I take the Fiorinal in time, I'm usually good to go.
Except for yesterday. I woke up in pain at 4 a.m. I took a pill. Two hours later the headache was worse. I took another one, cursing myself for not taking 2 to begin with. But one almost always helps. Not yesterday, though.
So then I have an hour or so where I'm feeling better; the headache is there, but not throbbing and I am not nauseated. I answer some e-mails, do a bit of proof-reading, check out my usual haunts...and then I'm flat on my back again, immobilized by pain.
This goes on all day. Pain, lull, feeling kind of decent, then pain again. During one of these lulls, the virus-I-though-I'd-gotten-rid-of-a-week-ago reappeared, rewriting itself over and over again. I zapped it again (after a 2-hour scan--NOT McAfee, which is worthless in this case) but my computer, which has been slowly dying over the past month or so (sudden blank blue screens, constant screen freezes, and getting BUMPED OFF) was pretty much worthless at that point.
Maybe it was the frustration. When you write, there's always stuff to take care of and I was, and still am, pretty backed up. Or maybe all the drugs, haha, But I decided then and there I needed a new laptop--NOW. I couldn't take it a second longer. So Nate and TJ and I went to Best Buy two minutes away and I bought the little Toshiba I'd had my eye on. Nate and TJ were there for 1) technical support, and 2) someone that drugged out has no business making a major purchase without supervision.
Of course when I got it home, it's not like I could play with it. Nate set it up while I huddled under a blanket, dizzy and exhausted, migraine back full force.
Then, at seven p.m., I lifted my head and realized that, after 15 hours: I AM PAIN-FREE! Pain-free enough to eat dinner, though one hour earlier I was too sick to get up and make it. You can imagine how wonderful that feels. And this morning, too, I'm perfectly fine (and regretting having to use up a sick day when I'm actually...yanno...sick).
I never know what brings these things on, though stress is often involved, and sometimes very strong smells (think church-lady's cologne). But I was off this weekend, did not go to church, and the only stress I experienced was stress from my old computer. However, I DID eat cranberries, plus had a glass of cranberry-apple juice--2 things I almost never have--and I had them both on Sunday. Haven't Googled it yet, but....cranberries? Is it possible?
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