Dealing With Headaches

It’s amazing what you can find on YouTube, although it does takes shoveling through a lot of fertilizer in order to find a rose. This little do-it-yourself acupressure instructional video has a funky Indian soundtrack of the musical combo of sitar and complianing baby. I’m more inclined to beilieve in the instruction from this lady rather than a formal instructor or doctor as she has to take care of kids. She must have a lot of experience with headaches. Her YouTube moniker says it all — “Warriorofcompassion”.

I wasn’t able to fully undertand where on the top of the head I was suppossed to press down on, but I did certainly get relief today’s sinus pressure just be taking the time to breathe in and out deeply for a couple of minutes — including a series of yawns which sure poppped open the cloggged ear canals.

Another acupressure home remedy is to roll a golf ball around your hand (although that doesn’t seem to work for me, personally).

Hope these help.

The national death toll from methodone is at an all-time high (no pun intended), according to a report compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, put toether in February but not released to the press until this month. The stastistics only go from 1999 to 2005, but still the trends are alarming. Last year, in New Hampshire, more people were killed by methodone than by car accidents.

And the reason people are taking methodone more than ever is NOT an attempt to get high, but as an attempt to get low cost pain relief. As a migraineur, I know I’ve been tempted to get relief from my pain through methodone. Other people are also selling their prescribed methadone in order to pay bills.

Not A New Phenomenon

The new report is yet another one warning about methodone-related deaths that have been coming out for years. A 2004 NPR report focused on the rising trends in methodone deaths, especially int he states of Nevada and Montana. In that news report, the specific reason people were getting methodone was as a painkiller. They do state that methodone used alone was probably not as responsible for deaths as was mixing other drugs (even over the counter drugs) with methodone.

The situation was still grim in June of 2007, when Helping America Reduce Methadone Deaths, Inc (HARM) sent out urgent press releases about the apathy towards methodone deaths.

No Coincidence

We shouldn’t be at all surprised that the death toll from methodone has been steadily rising in the last few years. Look at the costs of health care in America. When prices are rising on everything and your wages are not, people are going to try and cut corners financially wherever they can. For many people, self-medication with a dangerous drug seems the lesser of two evils.

It’s difficult to figure out the right dosage of methodone, even when it’s prescribed. People prescribed methodone always have their doctors tinkering with the dosage. The goal is to give as little as possible — I’ve even known someone in England who’s dosage was one TENTH of a miligram per day — but when you are in pain and can’t afford a doctor, you’re going to think “more is better.”

Unless the cost of everything is sky-high, expect more deaths due to self-medication.

You know how in the conclusions of these clinical trials or medical studies, there is a call for more studies? Well, this is one of the results of a follow up study about the relationship between a woman’s migraines and her heart. All the gory details are in this previous post. Which gives us all even more proof for what we gals already know — it sucks to be us.

What’s This Study Say, Then?

3568 women with migraines (I wouldn’t like to be in that room) took part in the twelve year study, a part of an overall massive Women’s Health Study (say it with trumpets). Although only 3568 women migraineuers took part, over 27,000 American women health professionals did as well. (That’s about nine thousand doctors looking anxiously at each patient…in a way). During the study, some cardiovascular whoopsies happened to some of the volunteers:

• 706 cerebrovascular events (a fancy way of saying “stroke”)
• 305 heart attacks
• 310 ischemic strokes(where specifically an artery to the brain gets blocked. Not nice.)

The women who seemed to be the most prone to these cardiovascular problesm were woemen who had at least one migraine per week. (Damn — I’m screwed). And, as usual, the study recommend sthat more studies need to be done.

Although migraines are bad for my heart, I’ll take them ove any of my ex-boyfriends any day. They REALLY destroyed my heart. At least with migraines, I have some chance of getting high quality drugs after the heart attack. Hmmm, at least that’s something to look forward to.

It’s no surprise that often migrainers become extremely sensitive to sounds, light and sometimes tastes during migraine attacks. I had suspected that migrainers could get super sensitive to touch as well, because of my Mom’s unusual comment when she has a migraine that “My hair hurts.”

Well, Mom, You’re Not Alone

A recent study published in the April 22, 2008 issue of Nuerology found that migraineurs have yet another item to add onto their misery list. 16,573 people participated in the massive study, of which over 11,000 were diagnosed migraineurs, and nearly 1500 were “probable migrainerus” (ie — they hadn’t gone to the doctor yet, but display all the symptoms of migraines) and 3345 people just had “headaches”. About 68% of the lot had some skins owies when having a migraine or headache.

The practical upshot of all of this is that migrainerurs often find normal tasks like wearing jewelry, brushing their hair or rubbing your head as “excruciating”. The technical name for this sudden extreme skin sensitivity is allodynia. This was seen to happen to those not only with chronic head pains but also to those who fell into these categories:

• Women diagnosed with migraines
• Obese people diagnosed with migraines
• People diagnosed with the double whammy of migraines and depression

So?

One of the good points of this study is that it vindicates my Mom’s statement that when she had a migraine “her hair hurts”. We teased her about that when I was a kid, and do I feel guilty about that now. Perhaps migraineurs with skin sensitivity will be taken seriously now by both doctors and family members. As to treatment for this symptom, no recommendations were made other than:

“More importantly, this condition may be a risk factor for migraine progression, where individuals have migraines on more days than not. Identifying risk factors for progression is a very important public health priority. For example, it may be that individuals with allodynia should be more aggressively treated in order to prevent migraine progression, as well as to decrease this sensitivity on the skin.”

Obviously, more studies need to be done, both to determine relief for the symtom and to see if skin sensitivity is a reliable factor in determining whether migraine disease is getting worse in an individual.

Off to take some Excedrin.

I love YouTube. It’s even more entertaining than going through the auctions on eBay (where in 1999 I once found for sale a kid brother, a false leg and turtle models with human genetailia molded on. Not all from the same seller, though). I slog through YouTube in order to benefit you, Gentle Reader.

Today, I finally found something that might help with headches. I haven’t tried it myself and — as I’m suffering from bad allergies and thus have severe balance issues — but it’s as natural a headache relief solution as you can get.

I like My Yoga with Granola — How About You?

It’s a yoga pose (shown in the image with this post). Actually, there’s a whole series of yoga poses, breathing exercises and prayers for headache sufferers. However, I don’t think a lot of people with severe headaches are going to have the patience to breathe in a prescribed manner or take the time to do a prayer that they actually want a Deity to hear.

The videos are brought to you by ExpertVillage and are only a couple of minutes long, so you won’t drop to sleep during them.

Before you do any yoga poses, wear clothing that allows you to bend and have firm footing. Preferably, you should do any yoga poses that involve bending with the use of an exercise mat (like those sweaty ugly mats used in gym class — only a smaller, better version).

Down dog pose is only recommended for tension-type headaches. They also recommend you take deep breaths and loosn your arms up before doing the down dog. One stretching pose they recommend is sitting cross legged on the ground and put your hands together in the traditional prayer position — but with your hands behind your back. You need to do this with your spine as straight as possible.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

Ever get an question in your head that you can’t find the answer to and it starts to drive you crazier than if you had “Achey Breaky Heart” stuck in your head for a week? (Can you tell I’m still taking the mystery generic allergy medicine I taked about yesterday?) Well, as you can probably guess from this post’s title, the question emblazoned on my brain is about the existence or non-extistence of herniated disc migraines (A herniated disc is also known as a “slipped disc” It’s not a lot of fun).

Blame My Client

As a freelance writer, I get a lot of strange topics assigned to me. Mostly what I write is web content, which relies on SEO tricks in order to have it place well in the SERPs (Search Engine Page Ranking). For a long article, I get a list of keywords the client wants me to incorporate “naturally and conversationally” into the article.

Last night, I had an assignment about “Living with a Herniated Disc”. One of the keywords I had to use was “herniated disc migraine”.

Now, open up another window on your browser and enter “herniated disc migraine” into your favorite search engine. I’ll wait.

Welcome Back

There’s nothing there, is there? (Except for some chiropractor ads and questions in health forums). Now, for the client, I treated the herniated disc migraine as a secondary ailment derived from the herniated disc. If you have the stress and pain of a herniated disc, you are bound to get migraines or serious headaches. A doctor would probaly (emphasize probably) treat the migraines seperately from the herniated disc pain. (As always, please don’t use this blog as a substitution for a doctor visit.) However, about 90% of herniated discs do not need surgery in order for the pain to go away. I couldn’t find any information on whether surgery for a herniated disc would also help get rid of migraines (that’s too much to hope for, I guess).

That’s all I could find. Not a lot of help, sorry.

So I’m putting the question out to the blogosphere — is there such thing as a herniated disc migraine?

I’m going to apologize in advance for any sloppy appeareance or any disjointed reasoning in this blog post (well, more disjointed than usual, anyway). I was up to three m last night with a killer of a headache in the front of the right side of my face. I assumed it was a regular sinus headache, as my nose had been dripping all day. So I took over the counter Rite Aid sinus medication. Not a lot happened, except I was in a lot of pain and couldn’t get much sleep.

It felt like the day after you get punched in the eye. (And I have been punched in the eye before, so unfortunately my basis of comparison is accurrate).

Mom to the Rescue

Mom and I have to vote today (PA primaries — ugh) and so I have to leave the house eventually to do my civic duty. Mom had allergy medication — not sinus medication , one specifically for allergies — and urged me to take a pill. (I’d like to tell you the name of the stuff, but there is no name on the prescription label except PSE 120/MSC 2.5). I ran it through Drugs.com, but they said it’s probably a generic not in their directory.)

In less than an hour, about 90% of the pain was gone. This leads me to assume that my current head misery is caused by allergies and not sinuses.

But aren’t they the same thing? I mean, if you have allergies, doesn’t that mean you will automatically have sinus problems? And perhaps I shouldn’t be taking this stuff even though it works because I can’t identify it?

Yup

Basically, a sinus headache and an allergy headache are the same thing. However, if you can cure the pain with sinus medication, it’s a sinus headache and if you can cure it with your Mom’s allergy medication, then it’s an allergy headache.

Now, some doctors or nuerologists define an allergy headache as a reaction to a food you are allergic to. If you don’t have the post nasal drip, sore throat, stuffy nose or nausea, itchy eyes or sore eyes, than it’s probably a food allergy headache. You really need to see a doctor about that.

I’m not sure what I’m allergic to. I have all of the signs of a sinus infection, yet the sinus medication did zip on my pain.

I know I’m allergic to mowed lawns. When I lived in England, I lived mostly in the woods where the grass, nettles, snapdragons and other greenery grew to well over six feet tall. I never had any allergy problems. Now, I return to America with it’s constantly mowed lawns and my face feels like it’s been on the recieving end of a phone pole.

Oh, time to go vote. I have to go now so in the future people can blame me for the choice of Democratic presidential canidate for 2008. Can’t let all of you down.

The National Headache Foundation and the American Academy of Neurology teamed up for a honkin’ big study of 24,000 people on which drugs might make a person more prone to getting migraines. The key thing to remember about this study is that it looked at the OVERUSE of drugs (which can happen even to the best of us, admit it), and not drugs that are used as directed or only used briefly.

The study also noted that overuse of these medications could give someone with the occassional migraine or headache a chronic migraine problem.

The No-No Drugs

Well, no big surprise. The drugs that can increase your chance of migraines are drugs that you shouldn’t be overusing anyway. They include:

• Codeine, or even medicines including codeine like Co-Tylenol
• Oxycodone (my Mom takes this but she has spinal stenosis and so I think she’s welcome to get all she can take)
• OxyContin (the brand name of oxycondone)
• Any other opiate (including opium — sorry, but some people need practical advice)
• Other barbituates, (of which Oxycodone is a prominant member of)

Drugs That Don’t

Before we get onto this list, let me tell you that you shouldn’t overuse any drug. That won’t be a tactic that King Solomon would exactly approve of. But, if you are going to risk you life by overiusing some drugs, at these won’t give you any more migraines than you are already getting. Bleeding ulcers, maybe, but not migraines. These include:

• NSAIDs such as ibuprofen, naxoproxen and that crazy little thing called aspirin
• Triptans, including Imitrex
• Marijuana (I’m joking — this was never mentioned in the entire study, but it does make you wonder)

The study also didn’t mention anything about rebound headaches, which happen often when the body has become dependent on high does of painkiller and gives you a nasty headache in order to force you to take the drug it wants.

The moral of the story: We need better drugs that makes us complacent to the asurdity of life that doesn’t give us any more headaches than we already get from Big Pharma, inflation, global warming, governments that don;t do a damn thing and the Geicko Gecko. Thank you sir, may I have another?

No, seriously, only take medication when you absolutely need to and follow the directions. And keep your drugs locked away from kids.

Since I bang on about Prozac (fluoxetine) a lot on this chronic headache and migraine blog, I thought I should check to see if my cherised Prozac is currently being using used to treat migraines. (It seems like almost every drug having to do with your head is). And well, whaddya know, I found that it is. Even the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain list Prozac and family members Paxil, Sarafem and Zoloft among “migraine abortive medications”. These are all anti-depressants. Even more powerful anti-depressants like Wellbutrin are also prescribed as migraine preventatives.

I wonder why? Well, perhaps one kind of misery in the head can lead to another. There does seems to be a lot of migrainuers who also have depression (of course we’re depressed — our heads are killing us!)

My Case

I take generic Prozac for major depression, also called endogenous recurring depression (which I probably got in my past life as a hamster). I’ll tell you right now that I take the pills pretty faithfully (except for this one time recently when I accidently took two) and I still get migraines.

Also, if I forget to take my Prozac, then I get a mild headache in order to remind me to take it. And yes, I admidt that sounds like a classic withdrawal symptom to me. But since Prozac helps with my depression, it’s a cross I’m willing to bear.

Now Prozac is great for helping me get regular sleep and an appetite when I’m stressed out. Being able to eat and sleep regularly has made a big difference in my quality of life. But as for preventing migraines, Prozac sucks.

But apparently, it must work for somebody, as it does seem to be used regularly as a migraine preventative.

Side Effects

One side effect Prozac gives is that you often gain weight (it does stimulate the appetite strongly, as does most anti-depressants). Imitrex is also suppossed to have you gain weight and feel sluggish.

I felt horribly sluggish for the first two weeks when I was on Prozac, but then my body adjusted. Whenever my dosage changes, I do get dopey for about a week before my body readjusts. This can be a problem for some people.

For a more comprehensive list of Prozac side effects, check out this article on Prozac by Magnum.

Hope this helps. Have a pain free weekend.

Right. My fabulously expensive health insurance card has finally arrived in my hot little hand and I was able to get some much needed Prozac. Now, with a level head and a little less frothing at the mouth, let us turn now to this month’s Headache Blog Carnival, once again generously hosted by Diane Lee at Somebody Heal Me. This month’s theme was “Strategies for coping with headaches and migraines”.

There were a TON of selections this month (blame Tom Cruise) and here are the ones I gravitated to immediately:

• Megan at the wonderfully titled Free My Brain From Migraine Pain blog has an equally wonderfully entitled article called Coping, Hoping, Moping And Other Strategies. Here, Megan becomes a willing lab rat in order to help science stumble onwards. Check out the ticker “How many days since my last migraine?”
• A thought provoking little article by Eileen Gray is Fighting the Good Fight from My Life With Migraine (at least it’s not My Dinner With Godzilla). She also gives her personal acount of life with Topamax.
• A blogger named simply Anthony (like Madonna or Sting) on the interestingly (but weirdly) named Joyful Digesting postulates on what might be causing some kinds of headaches with Your GI Problems May Be Giving You A Headache! Heck, everything else in my life seems to be hurting my head — why not acid reflux, too?
• Now with cool kitten pictures, RainGem researched an intersting link list entitled 18 Best Sites fro Migraine and Headache News. (Erm, shouldn’t that really be 19 Best sites, RainGem? Blatant hint?)

There were a lot of selections this month, and I’m sorry if I didn’t mention everyone. This is not a reflection on anyone’s writing ability. Actually, I haven’t had time to read the entire April Headache Blog Carnival yet. (Story of my life).

Next month, Diane is taking a break and so the carny will be held at Atomic City, hosted by Bobblehead. Hey, I feel better already.

Here’s a book I highly recommend for everyone, especaily people who go through chronic often-misunderstood ailments like cluster headaches or migraines. The author, Viktor Frankl, survived two Nazi concentration camps (including Auschwitz) and writes a bit about life in the camps, but them mostly about how anyone can find the will to survive when they think there’s a point to life. (The original German title translated to Saying Yes to Life Reguardless instead of Man’s Search for Meaning).

Get rid of all those self-help or thinking positively Louise Hay crapola. I mean, seriously — who do you think knows more about handling the sucky areas of life — an Auschwitz survivor, or someone who chats with Oprah?

Ok, A Migraine Ain’t Auschwitz, But…

Those of us with chronic pain often feel like we are helpless under totalitarian figures. Our pain tortures us at whim, no seems to believe us and getting any relief costs a fortune, which means we often have to choose between healthcare and necessities like food and the rent. There are many days when I think, “What’s the effing use? No matter how hard I try, I’m still gonna fail.”

Frankl’s book isn’t full of self-pity or rage against the Nazis. He’s a bit like a twentieth century Job. Bad things happen because bad things happen — end of argument. Get on with getting through the bad times instead of railing at the injustice of it all. Frankl reasons that he and all other concentration camp survivors manged to live because they thought there was a greater meaning to their lives. Everyone found their own meaning.

Viktor’s meaning was to survive long enough to write a book and teach others about logotherapy in which by finding a meaning to our lives, we can become healthier (or at least be able to get on with life).

Perhaps yours is to put food on the table for your family. Both are equally noble purposes.

Granted, there are many medical conditions which are the patient’s fault, in a way (especailly those who choose to smoke and drink), but chronic pain and migraine disease aren’t among them. If you are tired of all the self-help books which blame you for all your medical migraines and depression (such as You Can Heal Your Life by the afore-mentioned Louise Hay) and want some REAL comfort, then I recommed Man’s Search for Meaning.

Hope this helps.

::Rant Mode On::

Yes — this is going to be one of THOSE posts, so put your armor on. Either that or moan, croan or vomit your support, depending on what your current migraine pain is.

Last year, I made a whopping $5100 before taxes. Suddenly, I no longer qualified for Medicare, despite the fact I make BELOW the national poverty level of $6000. If I didn’t live with my Mom, I’d be out on the street (where I had been for the previous five years — but that’s another story). SO, I had no health insurance.

But I need Prozac in order to keep from blowing my brains out. It would also be nice to be able to afford an ambulance ride if I should ever need it. Apparently, it’s my God Given Right to own a gun, but NOT a God given right to be taken care of if I get shot by someone else’s God Given Right or try to kill myself with my God Given Right.

So, I grit my teeth, took on two more clients, am working ten hours a day seven days a week in order to pay for medical insurance myself. All of my new money from the two new clients is already spent on medical insurance premiums. How nice. I’m told I can write off my insurance premiums in next year’s taxes (whee — but this year I guess I don’t eat).

Today, my coverage is scheduled to start. I need to get my Prozac. It also would be nice to be able to find a doctor to help me with my migraines. I’ve also been fainting (but that could be due to working 70-100 hours a week). I still haven’t gotten my damn medical insurance card yet, and I was accepted into the policy on April 7.

So, no pills.

My acceptance letter says I could download and print out a temporary ID card from their website. I could use that to get my pills. Great. I went to the website. They want a user name and password. I enterred them.

They do not recognise that I exist. They changed my password and username without telling me.

I have taken a lot of Excedrin today and hope today to never meet someone who works in the medical insurace industry or the pharmacuetical industry. I would probably kill them. Granted, I have a pretty good defense in that I did not get my Prozac and this could all have been prevented had Medicare not dropped me like a piece of fox poo.

My Dream

In my “spare time” I write speculative fiction short stories, which garner a lot of rejection slips and not much else. One of the themes I write about is the Revolution. Not any in the past — the one that’s to come. We are generally a calm, complacent people — a nation of cows, really — but sooner or later we will reach our breaking point. Even cows kill people.

The Revolution is where we put all the bastards of the world who make life hell for the rest of us with things like health insurance premiums up against a wall and chop them to bits with machetes because we couldn’t get our Prozac because the damn websites won’t recognize our existence.

And then we will all live happily ever after.

Off to stare at machete catalogues and try to re-learn how to write in shorter sentences.

It’s all Tom Cruise’s fault.

::Rant Mode Off::

Now, you might look at that headline and think “I do that anyway”, but I don’t mean swearing at your headache or migraine. I mean using EFT (Emotional Freedome Technique), developed in the 1990’s by Gary Craig. It’s very similar to acupuncture — only no needles are involved. It’s even more similar to acupressure, where you press down on acupuncture points. The only difference is that you tap.

Oh, and you’re suppossed to think about certain emotions, but quite frankly, that seems optional. (But proponents of EFT will argue otherwise. But how can we be sure that someone is REALLY thinking about certain emotions when they are supposed to be thinking about certain emotions? You can’t. So there.)

What You Do

I’ve seen some varations on a theme, but basically it looks like EFT for migraines or headaches goes something like this:

• Rub your most painful spots, saying “Although I have this migraine, I fully accept myself” (Now see, this is where I would lose it)
• Then you start to tap on all of your acupuncture points, or at least twelve of them. However, according to Tappingman on Squidoo, you only need ten points. Tapping is described as “drumming your fingers on a desk”.
• Along with the tapping, you are suppossed to focus on a phrase like “Although I have a blinding pain behind my eyeballs, I accept myself.”
• Continue until the mapin goes away (which EFT proponents claim will be ten to fifteen minutes — if you are using the technique properly).

Don’t Expect Miracles

Although I think you can get a lot of genuine help from some alternative therapies like acupuncture and acupressure, I remain highly skeptical of EFT (”No way!” you say). The technique is far too new to be reliable. So far, it could very well be acting like a placebo (which is pretty effective in helping the body believe firmly it will get better just because something new is being tried).

Also, when looking at EFT web sites, you hear a lot of rah-rah and not a lot about the actual technique. Most of the pages seem devoted to anectotal acounts (which could be faked). And, I’ve also read some questionable medical advice. In Tappingman’s Squidoo thingy, he mentions “Something like 80% of headaches and migraines are caused by dehydration…” (and no source for this statistic is mentioned.)

Bull. NO ONE knows the exact cause of migraines (a fact I keep hammering on about). This is one of the reasons why migraine disease is such a nasty problem. And I have heard about drinking a glass of water when I felt a bad headache or a migraine come one. All that happened was that I had to drag myself to the bathroom more often.

Although I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV, I do let a hell of a lot of headaches and migraines. I’m also trained by The School of Hard Knocks of how to discriminate advterising ploys from actual helpful medical evidence.

If you want to try EFT for migraines, go for it. But don’t expect miracles. Most likely, it’ll work for the first couple of times (like any good placebo would) and then eventually won’t. And there doesn’t seem to be any known negative side effects.

But I’m not gonna try it. Saying “Although I have this migraine, I fully accept myself” would drive me bonkers. Saying, “I have a migraine and I want to bite heads off” is more my style.

I’ve never been a big fan of botox (”Don’t Believe the Botox Hype”.) The “bo” part of the name stands for botulinium toxin A. That means it’s in the botulism family. I’m an even less of a fan of botulism. Why would you risk sticking botulism in your face? Hey, I’ve never understood why “American Idol” is so popular, and that’s popular, too. Besides smoothing out your face, botox was rumored in to help relieve chronic headaches (it doesn’t).

So, as a reminder — botox will not relieve your chronic headache or migraine. And, a recently released study shows that botox can sink into your brain.

As another reminder, your brain doesn’t need smoothing out. It really needs all of those wrinkles.

What About This New Study?

Sadly, the study was done on rats instead of people. I’ve never been bitten by a rat, but I have been bitten by people, so I am admittedly predjudiced about being pro-rat. They were botox injections into the whisker area (that’s gotta hurt!) Thtree days later, the rats were killed and their brains opened up, which showed traces of the botox in the brain tissue and brain stem (which makes you wonder what these scientists do for fun.)

This is a preliminary study, so nothing’s conclusive (except if you’re a rat in a medical lab, you’re screwed). There is a call for similar studies to be done on monkeys (oh, joy.)

Wouldn’t it be easier to not just the damn botox in the first place?

Substitutions for Experimental Animals

Personally, I think we should stop all animal experimnentation. It’s expensive, it’s cruel and often doesn’t relate to what human bodies go through. What about all these criminals sitting on death row? What about that guy sitting for life at our expense who claimed to have something to do with 9/11? I say botox HIS whisker area and then dissect his brain three days later. We have all these prisoners who hate themselves and are a drain on society. Bu giving them a chance at medical becoming human lab rats, then they can feel that they are doing something quasi-heroic.

Surprisingly, I get a lot of strange looks when I bring this subject up.

But seriously, we could also do computer models and in vitro (in test tube) experiments instead of ripping open animals by the millions.

Remember — botox = death.

On that happy note, have a great weekend.

Whoops! If you’ve been putting off sending anything to the April Headache Blog Carnival over at Somebody Heal Me, then you better get your skates on. Submissions close at midnight TONIGHT. You don’t need to have a blog that deals exclusinvely with headaches and migraines; just as long as your post is up on the blogoshpere somewhere where we can link to it, that’s really all you need.

The Headache Blog Carnivals usually orbit around a theme, and April’s is no exception. This month, it’s “your best coping strategies for headaches and migraines”. However, if you have a post that would be of particular interest to those with chronic head pains, then Diane urges you to give it a try. Past Headache Blog Carnivals have been like the Migraineur’s Reader’s Digest of information and really interesting reads. Let’s see what magic we can mixup this time, eh?

Let’s see if I can remember to shoot that Tom Crusie post over before midnight tonight (if I forget, then I can blame Tom. In fact, if YOU forget, you can also blame Tom. I mean, what CAN’T you blame on Tom? It’s all so simple, really.)

Diane Lee, who hosts the Carnival, says she needs a few things along with your submisssion:

1) The name of your blog
(2) The address of your blog
(3) The name of your post
(4) The address of your post
(5) A brief description (2-3 lines or less) of your post

Or, you can just go over to Somebody Heal Me to see the new design changes and get filled in on the medical news of help to those with chronic pain that often shoots right over my head.

Get writing and posting and emailing to Diane at SomebodyHealMe@DianeLee.net and have a pain free weekend.

And if you don’t have a pain free weekend, then it’s all Tom Cruise’s fault.