Dealing With Headaches

Two weeks ago, I had the first bloodwork tests done on me since the age of the dinsosaurs. This is to help diagnose what might be causing me migraines, constant fatigue, attraction to the wrong kind of men, that sort of thing. I got the bill a couple of days ago –$215 damn dollars.

But It’s A Bargain

Now, keep in mind I’m already paying through the nose for my medical insurance. (And I’m not really sure I want to know the origins of the expression “paying through the nose“.) In order to have the priviledge of getting a $215 bill for blood tests, this is what I have to pay:

• $250 per month for the insurance policy premium
• $15 per prescription (roughly $30 per month)
• $25 co-pay for every doctor visit ( I had two)

So, last month, I already paid $330 to my health insurance vampires. But yet, this doesn’t include the blood tests (even though I’ve already paid enough to cover them).

When the bill came, it claimed that the costs of the blood tests were $900 and that my health insurance company graciously paid for the balance.

Oh, come on. I bet you the cost of the blood tests were $215. They’re just saying it’s $900 trying to make me feel better. Retail stores do this all the time — jack up the original price and THEN mark it 20% off.

Does anybody check out these things? I guess we’re too busy watching American Idol and banning trans-fats to bother.

Happy National Headache Week

In related news, June 1-7 is National Headache Week. This is what happens after you pay your blood money. Instead of getting reasonable costs for healthcare, you get a logo and a national week. No wonder the headache will last a whole week.

Soon after I graduated elementary school, my Mom forbade me to tell her what I dreamt of the night before. She claims it’s because she never had nightmares until I told her mine. (What can I say? I like to share). But now I have reached a new level of weirdness in even my dreams.

Not only did I have a lucid dream early this morning, but I sick got sick during the lucid dream. I felt fine when I went to sleep. Then I got a migraine in my dream and woke up and still felt like crap. What up? I’ve approached the phenomenon of getting migraines in dreams before, but you usually feel better an hour or so after waking up. This was different in it’s intensity.

What’s a Lucid Dream?

A luicd dream is where you realize you are dreaming. Once you realize you are actually dreaming, that’s when the fun begins. Although you can manipulate your background and events in your lucid dream to a point, mostly you just get the complete freedom to be yourself without any repercussions.

Tibetan monks learn to lucid dream in order to help them on their path to enlightenment. Ancinet shamans used lucid dreams in order to ask spirits for healing rituals. I use lucid dreams (sometimes) in a high-brow way, but mostly I use them to get my rocks off. Lucid dreams are better than sex and drugs combined.

Except when you get sick in the dream. Usually, when I dreamt of getting ill, I didn’t realize during the dream that I ws dreaming. This morning, I knew I was dreaming, and yet was vomiting becuase of a migraine that couldn’t possibly be happening, anyway. Perhaps throwing up shows that I’ve reached the next stage in my spiritual development.

Next Time

The next time I get sick in a lucid dream, I’m going to ask to see the dream doctor that must be lurking about in the lucid dream universe. Of course, then I’d be asked what kind of lucid dream universe health insurance to carry, and I’d be in a bit of a pickle there. I really don’t want to spend my time lucid dreaming having to fill out application forms and comparing quotes.

Or maybe I should just go back to being an insomniac.

Swallowing a pill is a very personal thing. When you have chronic headaches or migraines, you better get your own system down fast and stick with it. Throughout my life, I have been told and lectured of various ways of swallowing a pill that are all better than mine (at least, that’s what I’m told). But I can only get the pills down my throat in my way, so it’s the best system for me.

What I Do

I swallow only one pill at a time. This saves me from gagging, choking or getting the inside of my throat scratched (which is a misery from the first layer of Hell).

I drink a couple of swallows of water or whatever liquid in my cup. I never dry swallow.

I curl my tongue back.

I place the pill behind my lower front teeth.

I take another large gul of liquid.

I let the liquid swirl around the pill and lift it.

Then, I toss my head so the liquid and pill go up over my tongue and start to position itself to my esophogus.

Then I cross my fingers and swallow.

What Normal People Do

There are various other methods used by other, presumably normal people to swallow a pill, including:

• Dry Swallowing: Hugh Laurie’s character House does this a lot. Tough cops in murder mysteries seem to do this a lot, too. Perhaps they get special training. I’ve never been able to manage it. This is where you stick a pill in your mouth and (without any preamble) swallow. I noticed Hugh Laurie tosses his head back when he dry-swallows the fake pills on “House” (or, at least, the clip shown on “Ellen”). This is advanced pill-swallowing. You need years of training and severe migraines to get this maneover down pat. Either that, or youhave to become a committed drug addict (neither of which is recommended).
• On the tongue: You take a swallow of water, then place the pill directly on the middle of the tongue, take another drink and swallow the lot down. My Mom is able to do this. I can’t.
• Back of the tongue: This is just a variation of the above method, only you place the pill as far back as you can on the tongue without gagging.
• Pretend it’s all a milkshake from Heaven: You take the pill and water, but pretend it’s a thick, creamy milkshake and suddenly the pill is down and your taste buds are saying, “Oi! You lied to us!”
• Stick the pill in the center of a tiny meatball or lump of cheese and swallow whole. Oh wait — that’s how I give pills to my dog!

So, how do you swallow pills? Or do you not bother with solid pills and insist on liquid medication? I’d write some more in this article, but I have to go take an Excedrin now.

If figure if there’s one person out there taking propranalol as a migraine preventative, there must be others. (Unless my doctor is crazy). So, I’m giving you this warning — do NOT take a dose of propranolol right before going to bed — or even an hour before going to bed. You’re better off eating a Hershey bar and washing it down with Pepsi than taking propranolol.

I wish I knew about this stuff when I was in college.

Anyway

Dr. Fountain Of Youth Face told me to take a dose when I wake up (along with the Prozac) and then take the second dose “in the afternoon”. I wondered why in the afternoon and not on the evening, but I didn’t ask. (I was still trying to figure out how to pronounce the name of the medicine). It seems that it would be more logical to take the pills about 12 hours apart in order to keep the medicine evnly distributed throughout my system.

Propranolol doesn’t work on logic, apparently. It works on some sort of alternate-universe logic. You have to take it in the morning and the afternoon and nowhere near your bedtime.

Man, was I wired. I tried everything — drinking chamomile tea, reading boring books and I was still drumming my fingers against the mattress at three in the morning. I can’t count sheep in my head. For some reason, that wakes me up. But if I get up out of bed, turn on the light, and write down a list of the sheep that I count, THEN I get drowsy.

Come to think of it, very little about my body works logically.

The Moral of the Story Is

Don’t second guess the instructions on your prescription meds…not if you have to get up eearly in the morning, anyway.

Although officially my first diagnosed migraine was when I was already at the venerable age of 24, I had excrutiating pains before then. I just never thought of them as migraines. Since I was never diagnosed as having migraines as a child (I had too many other problems that took up my pediatrician’s attention), it is possible that these head and eye pains were not migraines, but symptoms of other things.

But, sadly, children do get migraines (sometimes called adolescent migraines). Personally, I think I had my first one while still in the womb, but I’ve no proof that can actually happen.

Here’s what I can remember of my childhood migraines. (That would make a great title for a book of poetry now, wouldn’t it?)

Getting Drops In My Eyes

Mom has it written in my baby book that before I could walk, I attacked my first eye doctor by biting and punching him. Man, was I psychic, or what?

My first remembered really bad head pain was when I had to get drops to dialate the pupils of my eyes. This left me extrememly photophobic, dizzy and nauseated. And I had to get this crap twice a year when I was a kid, because my eyes were so bad and my eyeglasses prescription constantly needed changing. I’ve been reassured now that these drops are not used anymore, but I’ll be damned if I ever let a doctor dialate my pupils with drops again. If I ever have to get them dialated, I’ll dialate them by listening to Peter Gabriel.

Lack of Sleep

I was an insomniac as a kid. So, I had incredible headaches all of the time. I had so many, I thought it was normal. Now that I look back, I can see that I put up with a lot of needless suffering as a kid. It’s too bad Prozac (or ipuprofen) hadn’t yet been invented when I was a kid. I probably would’ve been better off just getting an IV of Prozac stuck in my veins as soon as I popped into the world.

Gym Class

People thought I was faking it, but I wasn’t. I can’t catch a ball to save my life. This is because I have monocular vision and can’t see in three dimensions. None of my gym teachers ever believed me. So, if any sport involves an object becoming airborne, sooner or later it connects with the side or top of my head. Usually, I’d have migraines even before gym class started just because of the stress involved of wondering when I was going to get beaned.

Now that I think about it, how in the heck did I ever survive childhood? And if any of my gym teachers are still alive, I’d like to smack you right upside the head for not believing me.

Ahh, that thought makes my head feel so much better!

I went to my doctor today (Dr. Fountain of Youth Face) to get read the results of my bloodwork done last week. Included in that array of tests was an HIV test (commonly called an AIDS test). Considering my health had dipped (and that my last sexual partner turned out to be dipping into anything and everything that would give him half a can of Strongbow), I thought this was one test I would definately fail. Perhaps that’s one reason I had I had such a bad migraine earlier this week. I had been putting off having an HIV test since 2004 (when I left my last partner) and now I finally had to face the results.

After I got the results, my head hasn’t been giving me any bother today.

Anyway

So, I’m now on one medication for my migraines and one nutritional supplement for my eternal fatigue. The bloodwork shows I have iron-poor blood, so I’m now on an iron supplement (ferrus sulphate). Unfortuntely, I’ve discovered today (by an odd coincidence while reading Tea Bliss by Theresa Cheung) that black tea can hurt the body’s absorption of iron.

I don’t smoke. I don’t drink alcohol. I stopped gambling. Hell, I haven’t had sex since 2004. I am NOT giving up tea. If it’s a choice between feeling tired all of the time and my tea, I’ll stick with the tea.

But, what about the migraine medication? Well, I was given a choice of Imitrx or low-dose high blood pressure medication. Now, I have low blood pressure, but this medicine isn’t to affect my blood pressure. A notable side effect is that it can reduce the frequency and severity of chronic headaches and migraines. I chose the blood pressure medication, propranolol

Let’s see what happens, eh?

Not that I really care at this particular moment. I don’t have AIDS. I feel like making a T-shirt and running an ad in the Philadephia Inquirer.

Yes, I’m copping out again from writing a full article and resorting to a YouTube clip. This is because at 10:30 pm last night, when I was starting to drift off to sleep, WHAM. A migraine began. I usually get them in the daytime, not the night. The pain has been been coming in waves, but in between the waves, I’m doing pretty good. Unfortunately, another wave is starting, and I’m due to give all of you a blog post, so I’ve stumbled across this really good basics on migraines and also sinus headaches are mentioned every now and then. I’m glad to see that PBS now has it’s own channel on YouTube. I think I’ll be stopping there more often — well, after this migraine pain wave receeds.

This clip is especailly recommended for people who don’t have migraines and want to understand what’s happening to the people around them that do get migraines or sinus headaches. And remember, make friends with your nervous system.

There is a popular theory that one of the reasons we get migraine is due to a magnesium deficiency. There’s also some thought that the body also may be going through deficiencies in calicium and/or ribolfavin (one of the B vitamins). Apparently, most people don’t get the daily requirements of magnesium (let alone that of calicium or ribolflavin).

Part of this theory about migraines being due to magnesium deficiency is based on thinking that migraines are caused by constricting blood vessels. This theory is on the outs, being replaced by serotonin levels being the culprit. But the sad fact is that no one knows what is the actual physical action that produces migraine pain.

Any Proof?

Part of the basis for this lack of magnesium theory is that some migraineurs, given enough magnesium to choke a horse, would report that they got less migraines. There was a 1992 French study that showed some promise, but that was only on 55 controls and 79 miraineurs. Another 1996 study, this time from Germany, and the migraineurs were all women suffering from menstrual migraine (so at least you had a pretty good idea of when the migraines would hit). In 12 weeks, the migraine reduction was 41% for those recieving whopping amounts of magnesium.

What’s the Catch?

I haven’t found any long-term studies done about magnesuim therapy for migraines. I wonder if, a year or two later, those same women with menstrual migraines were getting their migraines with the sme intensity and frequency as before? Any kind of new therapy can trigger the placebo effect int he body. The placebo effect is an amazing thing — but the problem is that you have to keep switching your placebos once or twice a year.

Also, taking such large doses of magnesium can get you very sick, especially if you already have kidney troubles. You also will get diarrhea. You can usually get all of the magnesium you need just by certain foods you eat, such as bananas, whole grains, beans, soy products, seafood, dark leafy green vegetables and milk.

For Pete’s sake, don’t start experimenting with a bottle of magnesium tablets. Talk to your doctor first!

Gee — guess what you think I’m going to say. Universal health insurance coverage is a big issue in America (where it doesn’t exist) and England (where it’s dying fast). Americans, especailly older generation Baby Boomers, have been conditioned to pay through the nose for health care. They have had it drilled into their heads that you only get what you pay for — so if it’s free, avoid it like the plague (sorry about the cliche and the pun).

And this attitude is killing them fast, as well as their children. There are more than 47 million uninsured Americans and who knows how many underinsured Americans. Underinsaured is actually about as worthless as not having insurance at all. Underinssured could mean that you have to pay a few hundred dollars of your own medical bills before the insurance will begin to cover it. Some means that they will cover emergency trips to the hopsital — but not prescription drugs or routinge office visits. The list of exclusions goes on.

What About Comunism?

I had this argument about universal health care coverage with my Dad (who is of the afore-mentioned generation) and he argued that socialized medicine could lead to Communism. He said that paying doctors more than in other countries encourages America to get the best doctors. They studied hard — they had the right to get paid more than other doctors.

This was before his wife (my stepmother) was dropped from her health insurance company. Now, he sings a slightly different tune.

But, you can see what proponents of universial health care coverage are up against.

What About Long Waiting Lists?

One of the biggest arguments against universal health care coverage is that the countries that have remnants of it (Canada, England) have long waiting lists for operations or to see specialists. This wouldn’t be the case if there were more doctors and dentists in the program. When given the choice of going into lucrative privitization practices or sticking with the NHS, are you really surprised that most English doctors and dentists remove themselves from the NHS progam?

Doctors, hospitals, Big Pharma and medical insurance companies have turned something that can save lives into big business. And, as we know, Big Business is sacred and not to be touched.

We deserve better than this. It’s our lives that are at stake. We don;t pay the police very well and we don’t pay firefighters anything (or next to nothing), and they save lives. Why should the health care business bleed us to death? If you insist on paying them fabulous sums of money, then we need at least a 40% rise in wages, free marijuana or free something to counterbalance these outrageous health care costs.

Perhaps if enough people die (or enough celelbrities, or politicians, which apparently count as more than one person), then maybe something will happen. Until then, we all suffer.

I watch the sea
It helps to anchor me — Geddy Lee

OK, I’m going to put something a little different up on the old Dealing With Headaches blog today. I think we need a musical break from the clincial trials, drug studies and health insurance blues. I have been insprired buy an other 451 Press blog which occassionally features “Musical Monday”s, so I’m going to steal — er, I mean, repectfully imitate — this idea.

We’re off to See the YouTube

If you play this loud enough in your work cubicle, even on your earphones, you could probably induce a headache in order to get out of work. You could probably induce a migraine in in the annoying co-worker next door who has to argue with his Internet connection every five point five seconds.

The song and the album it’s off of is called My Favourite Headache (yes, there’a “u” in there, so don’t panic, all of you American spelling sticklers (and we know who you are) The artist is Canadian, so the British spelling applies). If the singer sounds familiar, that’s because he’s Geddy Lee, the singer from Canadian hard rock band Rush. This is a solo album that came out in 2000.

The YouTube clip here has good sound quality, but is entirely lacking in the visuals department. It’s just the track playing behind a perpetual stare at the interesting album cover.

The song takes some getting used to if you’re not into Rush (and I admit, I’m not, but I like this track a lot). There is an interesting element of calm in the ominous bass guitar and pounding drums. It reminds me that even in the midst of the headache attack, there is a lifeline to cling to — even if it’s just the thought that eventually the headache will go away.

A lot of art has been inspired by suffering (including almost any novel written by an Irishman), and I think “My Favourite Headache” is a good musical metaphore for what a headache is like.

See what you can accomplish when you focus on a problem? This seems to be the result from an Italian study of office aches and pains — namely headaches, neck and shoulder pains. Results of this interesting study were published in this months’s issue of Cephlalagia. This was called an “employee initiative” program, but apparantly, none of the employees were given any incentive to participate, except for the slim chance that they wouldn’t have as much pain when at work.

That seemsed to be enough.

Roll Out The Numbers

In case you let your subscription to Cephalalgia lapse, here is a really quick round up of the main points:

• 384 office workers in Turin volunteered, with about half beign a control group. 80% were women. The average age of a volunteer was 46.
• The study lasted eight months
• The employees in the non-control group kept a daily headache journal and did relaxation exercises every two to three hours of their work day. They also had twice dailt 10-15 minutes rest breaks just “sitting in an armchair with warming pads placed on their cheeks and shoulders”.
• Incredible results: 51% reported that they took less painkillers at the end of the study than when they began
• Also, 41% less headaches at the end of the study than at the beginning

• “Our study clearly shows that workplace interventions can reduce headaches and neck and shoulder pain. The methods adopted were relatively simple and the positive response from the employees, including the low study drop-out rate, suggest that it would prove popular in other workplaces. We also believe that employers would support this low-cost initiative as it would improve productivity in the workplace.” — Professor Franco Mongini of the Headache and Facial Pain Unit at the University of Turin

The Practical Upshot

If you get headaches, neck aches and shoulder pains iat work, move to Italy.

No, seriously — this is a very promising study with results to make people’s lives just a wee bit less stressful. This study centered on office workers, but I imagine it could also be used for food service, retail and teaching jobs. It would take a big mind-shift in the attitudes of employers to let their employees get up and stretch — which looks like goofing off. But, quite frankly, the managers probably need to do the stretching exercises as much as much as their underlings.

Following the study’s journal, heating pad and stretching regimen would be much cheaper (and a lot more legal) than giving your employees meth, which is what some Asian employees reportedly do to get intense (but breif) workloads from their new employees (at least, that’s what National Geographic says).

Hope this helps.

This blog tends to go into medications and alternative therapies for migraines and chronic headaches, my personal misadventures like the pain and other details on trying to manage the pain and on the debilitating symptoms (with a whip and a chair, preferably). But perhaps you need a quick review of the basics.

First off, migraines are different from headaches. Yes, the pain is still located in your head, but also becomes the center of your world. There are a lot of other symptoms and debilitating problesm with migraines. To go over the basics, here’s a neat little video by Illumistream that I discovered today on YouTube. I’m especailly glad that they note that “there is no such thing as a typical migraine.”

Just a couple of personal critiques on the video. When I have a migraine, my dog knows. She also knows when I’m trying to fake it. (I wonder if migraines put off a particular smell?) So, the chances are very good that the Golden Retriever at the beginning of the video, knew the model was faking it.

One critique — they say a migraine can last “as long as a week.” My longest migraine lasted TWO weeks.

Also, be sure to check out the visuals around “Feeling Off Balance.” Just think of what Stephen King could do with that character!

And, as always, don’t use any YouTube video (or a blog post) in the place of a qualified doctor’s diagnosis.

A study from Drexel University doctors have come out claiming that those with PSTD (more commonly known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder — once known as “shell shock”) most likely get migraines. This is not really a surprise for migraineurs. After all, going through a migraine is a pretty traumatic experience in an of itself. Like most current medical studies, this one was done in respose to an earlier study.

What Is PTSD?

It needs to get back to being called “shell shock”, that’s what it means (as George Carlin pointed out years ago). Ever see a Mack truck come at you and just miss sending you to The Wild Blue Yonder? The response you feel after that is shell shock, or PTSD. There is some talk that shell shock is only what immediately happens after the scary event and PSTD are the long-term effects. For some of us, that’s pretty much the same thing. There’s probably a lot of doctors who’ll disagree with me and feel free to do so. I’m not a doctor. But I have been diagnosed as having major depression, migraines and PTSD.

After living my life, you’d have shell shock, too, as opposed to PTSD.

The practical upshot is that with both migraines and PSTD, legal acess to powerful prescription drugs is involved. Unlike many people with migraines, though, PSTD can lessen it’s grip on you over time, while the migraines tend to hang around.

To qualify migraineurs for this study as having PTSD, they had to have at least one traumatic event happen to them. This could include surviving a natural disater, seeing a friend get killed, or being forced to listen to Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” for the millionth time. People with chronic migraines had higher percentages of having shell shock or PTSD than people who only get migraines once in a while (called episodic migraines. Oh, how I wish to merely have episodic migraines. Oh, God, if You could do anything, just boot me from the chronic migraine list to the episodic migraine list.)

The study also notes that people with clinical or major depression are also more prone to getting chronic migraines.

Ooo, don’t you just wish you were me? Like me, you could have a happy Trinity living in your head — major depression, chronic migraines and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I’m not entirely sure that announcing the findings of this study was such a wise idea. We migraineurs are already depressed. Don’t give us even more misery to look forward to.

A blog post about my English Mongrel Pony made it to May’s Headache & Blog Carnival, and I’ve already gottena couple of compliments on how cute Pony is. Actually, the doggy in Walking Dog Helps Ease My Head Pain is NOT my dog. I didn’t have a scanner then. Now I do, and so here is a picture of Pony (and me) when we both lived in Bath, England. Let’s see if I can get the image to work on WordPress, shall we?

Exercise And Migraines

This month’s topic was handling exercise even when you suffer from chronic headaches or migraines. Although you won’t feel like moving, regular exercise can help lessen your pain intensity and duration. It also helps with just about every other physical aspect of your health. And, as usual, the blog carnival will also exercise your brain and your smiling muscles when you read it.

Some of the articles that really stuck out to me were:

• Calming Down the Migraine Brain by Megan Oltman, the poet who doesn’t know it from Free My Brain From Migraine Pain. This focuses on how to relax even when life sucks. Practical and doable stuff.
• Teri Robert at My Migraine Connection offers a post I wish I had written with a killer title, 10 Ways for Migraineurs to Sneak in Some Exercise. Because if we consiously make the decision to exercise, God knows we never will. Unless, of course, you live with Pony. Then you wont have much of a choice.
• The MAV Experience (aka Pat) also extolls the cirtues of dogs, the Great Outdoors and elephants re-enacting Riverdance with Keeping Active When Your Body Says No.
• And when the body can’t be budged, but your inner you can, here’s Kerrie’s Mindfulness & Meditation: An Introduction. (You have to scroll down a little bit to actually get to the post).

If I haven’t mentioned your post that made it onto the blog, it’s not because of your writing abilities, it’s because I suck.

As always, please don’t use any of these posts of blog carnivals in the place of a qualified doctor’s diagnosis and recommendations.

Next month’s topic is “How to Have a Fun, Healthy Vacation in Spite of Your Migraines” hosted at Somebody Heal Me. I think I’ll skip submitting anything for that one, but I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s tips and tricks. Remember, you don’t have to have a blog specifically devoted to heads or head pains in order to submit. You don’t get money, but you do get a lot of traffic and you have a chance of getting mentioned on this blog.

(Ooo. Ahh.)

In 2005, I came back to America after living in England. Along with having to experience reverse culture shock and a lot of jokes about my accent, I also couldn’t understand the television, magazine and newspaper advertisments. They semed to be not for over the counter medicines — but for prescription medicines. When I asked Mom about them, she sighed and confirmed my suspiscions. At the time, my Mom worked for the legal department of a Big Pharma company (which I would rather not name).

It was an unwritten no-no to blatantly advertise prescription drugs — until the about 1999 or 2000. At the time, it was thought that doctors — who spent at least twelve years in college and medical school, after all — were the only decision makers when it came to what prescription medicine their patients should be taking.

Now, apparently, people without a lick of medical training or common sense can tell a drug is for them merely by watching TV. The ads themselves are not too informative.

Why The Change?

Big Pharma made millions, but now they make billions. This is partially due to the insanely expensive prices on their medications. In order to justifyu their costs, Big Pharma looked into how it could raise it’s advertising budget. Usually, doctors were courted by Big Pharma with lavish prizes,gourmet food and other perks, but this practice was getting cracked down on. So, Big Pharma turned to advertising in the most expensive media possible — television, huge glossy magazines and full-page newspaper ads.

Even Congress Says “Enough, Already!”

Congress, about as fast as a tortoise on Valium, is even looking into the necessity and accuracy of Big Pharma ads. Right now, they are hoping to enforce stricter rules to limit prescription drug claims, but hopefully (I hope, anyway) they will just outlaw the price-gouging practice whatsoever.

The moral of the story: Ignore all prescription ads that you see and eventually they will just go away. And don’t think you know more about prescription drugs than your doctor — unless you ARE a doctor.