Dealing With Headaches

I recieved word last week that I have been dropped from Medicare, with added overtones that they thought I was trying to pull one over on them. I know I shouldn’t take it personally (the workers are overworked and underpaid), but OWIE.

Big confession time — I make $425 a MONTH as a freelance writer (before taxes). That’s it. (And yes, it’s the best job I can get — if you don’t believe me, just try to get a job in the Philadelphia area when you have only a mere two college degrees and can’t drive). It if wasn’t for the fact that I live with my Mom, I’d be long dead and cremated by now. Mom wants me to go on Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance. It’s $300 a month. My Prozac will be $100 per month (I have to be on Prozac or I become suicidal). Lord only knows what my monthly Excedrin bills are.

That means my entire earnings would have to go to paying for medical stuff. (Oh, excuse me — I’ll still have a whopping $25 per month before taxes to live on.)

In other words — I’m screwed.

At least I’m in good company.

Hello To The Other 47 Million Uninsured Americans

According to the US Census, about 47 million Americans do not have medical insurance of any kind. There is some general quibbling as to how accurate this number is — there may only be 30 million without any health insurance whatsoever while another 17 million have the barest minimum health insurance that still does not adequately get anywhere near meeting their health needs.

Could this be one reason why there are more than 29 million migraineurs in America?

My Propsed Health Plan

If the government is going to kowtow to the outrageous price tags on even basic health care, then they should at least send us free ice cream every week. I’m not even asking for Rocky Road or Moose Tracks — vanilla or Neopolitan will do. Preferably, they should make their own brand of marijuana ice cream and send it to all 47 million of us to keep us in line. Sure, we still get sick and miss days off of work, but who cares? We’ve got marijuana ice cream!!! Not only has the pain been reduced, but we get the munchies taken cared of, too.

This is a much more sensible universal health care plan than anything propsed so far by just about anybody running for President. (As if they would actually do a damn thing about health care no matter who gets elected. Yes, I’m still going to vote, but I have very low expectations from any of the canidates when it comes to affordable health care). Sure, there will still be 47 million of us in agony and poverty, but we won’t care so much.

Off to bang my head against a brick wall so it will feel so much better when I stop.

You have very few friends when you have a lot of migraines. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The friends you do manage to have tend to prove themselves to be a lot more honest and have a better sense of humor than most fair weather friends. Those are the people friends. Animal friends don’t seem to ever take it personally when you get a migraine attack. They simply blink and get on with their lives. But people friends….well, people friends suck, for the most part.

They Don’t Believe You

I’ve lost of what I first assumed were my friends when the migraines hit. I had to suddenly back out of a lot of plans because I couldn’t stand up, much less go out and party. After the first couple of times, the accusations start, my favorite being:

“If you don’t want to be friends, just say so.”

Migraine attacks often don’t look like anything is happening to you to people who never have migraines. Not unless you’re throwing up, but that seems to happen only a fraction of the time when you are clobbered by a migraine attack, and never at a convienient time to show that you’re telling the truth.

One time I was started by an ex-friend who thought I was doing drugs whenever I said I had a migraine. People tend to think the worst. It’s a survival mechanism, but it’s also damn annoying.

I have had two freinds who were epilieptics. They had no trouble with my migraines. Gee — I wonder why? Perhaps they went through some of the same things. The one friend I had in England who was cursed with unpredictable Grand Mal seizures was often accussed of either being drunk or high on drugs when he was having seizures.

What To Do

If your friends feel somehow threatened by your migraines, get new friends. Now, you could be lucky enough to have a non-migrainuer friend who asks you “What’s is like?” and then listens to your reply. Now, that friend has a good chance of really wanting to be your friend. You’ll soon know deep inside why someone wants to be your friend. If they are annoyed about you having migraines or tell you that “it’s all psychological”, then they want something of yours — but not your company. You’re better off without these people.

Another option is to get a dog, cat or even goldfish. I’m not joking. Pets can help lower your blood pressure, help you relax and always are appreciative of your company (well — mostly appreciative of your company). Just their calm presence can help you have the confidence to try and talk with other people instead of becoming a total recluse. And if you don’t know what to talk about, talk about the pets.

Be A Friend To Yourself

This is one of those saying that used to drive me nuts because it sounded to New Age-y. But , even more annoyingly, it works. You have to enjoy your own company before anyone else can stand enjoying your company. Also, enjoying time by yourself takes away a lot of pressure of being alone, which can certainly aggravate a migraine.

There are also migraine support groups that meet online if you want to communicate with someone who knows what you are going through.

Hope this helps.

My head has not been a happy camper for the last couple of weeks. I got over the Mother of All Sinus Headaches only to be knocked down yesterday by a migraine without aura. I’m still getting over it. I’d love to just curl up in bed for the rest of the day, nibbling on a Cheez-It every once in a while, but I have to work in order to pay those pesky bills.

I donned a pair of sunglasses, toddled over to the computer, blinked over a cup of tea and received a lovely email from He Who Shall Be A Writing Critic commenting on one of my articles about the evolution of birds on Helium. To put if briefly, he didn’t like it. At least, that was the general impression I got.

Guess What I Did?

I hit that DELETE button and tried to get on with my life. A writer can’t please everybody (especially a writer like me who has trouble with spelling). If I can please my clients, I’m ahead of the game. But I don’t handle insults well in the morning. Even after screaming obscenities at the email before I hit the wonderful, glorious DELETE button. (I think there should be a sound effect of angles singing whenever you delete an email like that).

Then I realized I had to get to work writing articles that I had to put off last night because of my headache. There’s always that breif grip of terror (”Will they like it? Or will I be laughed off of the planet?”) but then I tucked into my work. I was really mad at He Who Shall Be A Writing Critic.

And then, about fifteen minutes later, I realized my head was perfectly fine.

Is Anger Good For My Head?

I usually don’t recommend anger or bad vibes for migraine treatment — or getting over a migraine treatment, in my case. Anger can usually make your muscles tense up — such as clenching your jaw or knitting your brows — which can bring on tension type headaches. Also, Criticism can bring on the stress that can trigger a headache.

But then I should have felt worse after getting angry than better. I wonder why I did? Perhaps it was the rush of adrenaline. Perhaps it was concentrating on something else other than my migraine pain, letting medicine I had taken hours ago finally get a chance to work. Perhaps I’m not entirely human and have some genentic mutations in my DNA from a Tasmanian Devil.

Perhaps it was because I had a burst of anger, and then was able to forget about it while getting caught up in my work, instead of being ticked off for hours and hours and hours.

The only thing I do know is that sometimes getting really ticked off can lead to some positive results.

Unfortunately, that means I might have to one day thank He Who Shall Be A Writing Critic for helping my head to feel more like my head instead of a punching bag. Perhaps I was better off with the migraine.

Those lucky migrainers in the UK with access to the NHS (Hational Health Service) can find help on managing their condition and get a voice for them in Parliment from Headache UK. Recently, they released the findings of a survey of severe headaches in the UK that are not caused by the England World Cup soccer team.

How Are Those Heads Across The Pond?

Not too good, according to the survey. In a nation of about 60 million, 10 million are haveing their lives severely affected by headaches and migraines. That comes to about 190,000 migraine attacks in the UK every single damn day. (Damn is not a bad word in the UK as it is in the US). Migraines and headaches are responsible for 20% of all absenteesim from the UK workplace. That’s thought to translate to costing UK businesses (or business in the UK owned by other countries) one and a half billion Pounds Sterling — which translates to $3 billion (sorry — my keyboard doesn’t have the little pound symbol for you to look at.)

Most tellingly, the survey reported that 65% were really unhappy with the care they have. (I guess if they were happy, then they would call out of work even MORE often … sorry, bad joke.) 28% reorted that their doctors didn;t know enough about headaches and migraines to have any sort of chance at helping them.

The Point

Yesterday, Headache UK took their Position Paper, which includes the survey results and comments from individual migraineurs, to the House of Commons. (Apparantly the House of Lords just do not do headaches). During the All Party Parlimentary Group on Primary Headache Disorders, Headache UK will outline recommendations and a need for urgency about caring for heads in the UK. Headache specialists will press their points, as well as actual migraineurs describing what life is like for them.

This is very similar to the Congressional hearing for more headache research money that happened last fall.

However, Parliment has drafted up a nice paper and actually written some goals down, including:

That this House recognises that the 15 per cent of the UK population with migraine andcluster headache disorders has a complex neurological condition causing severe pain and debilitating neurological symptoms and that the cost to the economy is in excess of £1
billion per annum; and urges the Department of Health to ensure in relation to headache
services that guidance to NHS primary care trusts for the provision of such services is
adhered to and implemented in practice, to encourage health professionals at all levels to
develop skills to assess and treat all types of disabling headache effectively and to raise
awareness of the impact of these conditions

Americans have yet to get an impressively worded document about helping people with headaches besides the ususal comic relief that Congress provides.

Although complaining about the NHS is a national sport in England (and you do have to wait a long time to get anything done), it is still the best health care game in town. As someone who has lived on both sides of the Pond and currently has no medical insurance of any kind, I speak from experience when I say to those in the UK:

“It could be a lot worse. You could be a migraineur in America.”

A few months ago, after walking to the Rite Aid and back to pick up my Mom’s prescription, she screamed when she saw the bottle.

It wasn’t her perscription.

She called and Rite Aid promptly apologized and had someone drive the correct perscription over and pick up the mistaken one. Now, whenever Mom or I pick up a prescription, I take it out of the bag and read the label before we leave the store.

And we aren’t the only ones. As it should be.

The Average Pharmacist

Prescriptions are usually filled by assistant pharmacists — that means they are a cashier who has been allowed to handle legal drugs. The job of an assistant pharmacist is just as busy and stressful as the job of any retail worker — plus, they usually have to get a lot of flack about the cost of the things they sell. They are asked a lot of questions about tens of thousands of drugs that they just can’t keep up with. Their bosses will not pay them to get the proper training about the things they sell. They do a lot of high stress work which pays very little.

Mistakes are bound to happen under this system — and they do. Sometimes the consequences are merely annoying — as in Mom’s case — but they can also be deadly.

A USA Today story revelaed that there was an average of 3.7 million errors a year, based on studies done by Auburn Universtity. CNN reports that the number is most likely 30 million errors a year. I’m sorry I can’t get you an actual number, becuase none exists. Pharmacists are not required to record or document any errors they later discover that they made.

Protecting Yourself

When you get your prescription, don’t just go right home and start taking whatever is in the bottle. Take it out of the bag before you leave the store. Do the pills look familiar? Did you get the right amount? Are they for you? Just a quick check can save a lot of literal and metaphorical headaches.

Hope this helps. And, to relax, check out these pictures of Brad Pitt.

Last week, I was clobbered by the Mother of all Sinus Headaches (no offence to any mothers out there). Today, I have only my normal aches and pains but not the sinus headache. Life is so much better in comparison. Keep in mind that I am NOT a doctor or nurse, so please don’t take my little blog posts as seriously as you would take a qualified medical practitioner’s….or posts by Gillian, author of Food History, who helped me with sound advice on this Mother of all Sinus Headaches.

How Do You Know It’s A Sinus Headache?

There are so many different reasons why you have a headache, that you can be forgiven getting another headache trying to determine what is wrong with you. If you are not sure why you have a headache and it doesn’t go away for a couple of days and doesn’t respond to over the counter medicine, call your doctor.

But, there are some cases where you can pretty much assume you have a sinus headache when it is accompanied by other signs like:

• nasal congestion
• sore throat, whether you are coughing up mucus or not
• runny or stuffy nose
• mild nausea because of the muscus dripping down the back of your throat
• body aches that you would get with a cold
• fatigue (more than you ususally have)

Pain In The Head

The actual pain you feel in your head with a sinus headache can vary from person to person. However, unlike a migraine, the pain is usually on both sides of your head and not just on one side. The pain is ususally constant and not throbbing, pulsing or piercing. You often have the sensation that your head has suddenly balloned in size, even when a glance in the mirror tells you that your head has not expanded. Pain is also centered in the eyebrows, cheeks and forehead.

Treatment

Here’s the comment from Gillian that helped me. May it help you.

Try a saline solution for a day then try taking ibuprofen (not for its pain relief as much as for its anti-inflammatory properties). They don’t help immediately, but they do bring down the congestion and side effects. Sometimes a light antihistamine also helps.

Now, to be fair to Gillian, I never got around to using the saline solution. What I did instead was have a steaming bowl of lentil-turkey soup (apologies to any vegetarians reading) that my Mom made. I get the sniffles, Mom makes soup. I’m not sure if she puts any Mom magic in it that can help with sinus headaches, because she’s not saying. Otherwise, I switched from Excedrin as painkiller to ibuprofen and an over the counter store brand antihistamine.

Taking a hot bath also helped to drain my sinuses. You can make a bowl of steaming hot water and lean over it for a few minutes, but have someone check up on you because you may faint. You can drape a towel over your head to intensify the personal head sauna experience.

Hope this helps. Thanks again, Gillian.