Dealing With Headaches

Yesterday’s post gave us a basic look at the two types of hemiplegic migraines (migraines with partial bodily paralysis, usually only on one side of the body). The cause of call migraines are mostly mysterious, but it is thought that genetics play a big part in hemiplegic migraines. A link from one of our readers touches on a theory that familiar hemiplegic migraines might be linked to cortisiol spredaing depression.

Obviously, something is going on in the brain that is darn uncomfortable. Since the brain doesn’t feel pain, the pain just merrily travels along the rest of the body in order to express itself.

No matter what causes hemiplegic migraines, the big question is — is it treatable?

Yes

Although it may take a little while to diagnose. The symptoms look and feel a lot like a stroke or epliepsy, so you will most likely be tested for those conditions before hemiplegic migraine. If other members in your family have hemiplegic migraine, then your doctor really needs to know this. This could be familial hemiplegic migraine.

The other kind — sporatic hemiplegic migraine — is a little more difficult to diagnose, but there is treatment for when it is finally diagnosed. Odds are, your regular doctor will have to send you to a specialist like a neurologist who will be able to help you better and quicker.

Both kinds tend to be treated with preventative medicines. These medicines are called abortive medicines, but don’t let the name get your worried — it has nothing to do with abortions. It just means stopping a migraine before it starts. These families of abortive medicines are called triptans and ergotomines. You might have to have regular heart tests to be sure that you’re not getting a bad reaction to the medicine.

There are also some pain medications which can help once the pain hits — however, if you are already taking the abortive medicines, then your choice of pain relief is more limited. Best go over your options with your doctor or specialist to be sure there won’t be any medicines that react badly to your preventatives.

Other preventatives getting some buzz are called a calcium channel blockers. The most recognizeable drug of calcium channel blockers is verapamil. There are a lot of precaustions with verapamil, so it’s not a drug your specialist will lightly let you take.

There is also a possiblilty that your neurologist or migraine specialist will put you on a combination of drugs, not just one or the other. Depending on yor circumstances, you may also be put on an anti-depressant, whether or not you are diagnosed with depression.

There Is Hope

Although I do not have hemiplegic migraines (knock on wood), from my research, it sounds like a pain that comes and goes, rather than a continuous pain. So, there are rest spells in between attacks. (Please feel free to reprimand me if I’m wrong!) The knowledge that my migraine attacks do have ending points does help me from aggravating the pain I’m currenly in. I survived one attack — I can survive another.

Fear and stress certainly can aggravate any migraine attack. Staying as calm as you can, with deep breathing, meditation, trying to think happy thoughts, mild massage — if it helps your body to relax, go for it. I find the sounds of my goldfish tank very relaxing, as well as the smell of peppermint. If you want to take herbs to help you relax, please discuss it with your doctor first to be sure the herbs won’t react badly with your vital prescription medicines. Relaxing your body and not panicing can help you float through a migraine attack rather than be dragged under with panic.

That being said, if you ever get a migraine that results in you being uncoordinalted or partialy paralysed, please call an ambulance or have somebody drive you to an emergency room, just on the off chance that you might be having stroke or an epliepsy attack.

These two posts only scratches the surface of a very complicated and rare form of migraines. Still, I hope it helps.

Have you ever thought this when you get a migraine or another kind of headache? “I have a headache — it’s bad — I must have done something bad in order to deserve this headache.” Well, you are not alone. It’s very common for people to associate any kind of chronic pain with some sort of fault in their own characters. This fear that we are somehow deficient or bad can keep many people from seeking help for their headaches.

Myth: The Migraine Personality

Stewart Tepper, MD, associate clinical professer of neurology at Yale University of Medicine, talks in the latest issue of Better Health & Living about the myth that only wimps or the morally defcient get migraines:

>”The idea that there’s a “migraine personality”-that people who get them are worriers or have some kind of mental or physical weakness — is a myth. Migraines don’t hit just one type of person. And they are truly debilitating: The World Health Organization counts them among the 12 most disabling illnesses for women.”

So, there you have it. Although headaches and migraines might drive a person crazy and make them not too much fun to be around, having head pains does not mean you are mentally ill or somehow a wimp. Yes, technically I have a mental illness (endogenous recurring depression) and am “haedache prone”, but don’t let me scare you from seeking proper medical attention for your chronic head pains.

It’s Not Your Fault

The vast majority of chronic head pains are not from the results of anything done by the patient (or anything not done by the patient). They can happen because of the weather, because of your genes or even from glare of a light making a bright spot on your computer. They also can be signs of other medical conditions that need attention.

Now, if you picked a fight with a gorilla by insulting his mother, and the gorilla punches you in the head, giving you a headache, then in that case you DID do something to deserve that headache. But those cases are usually rare.

Lots of times, you get headaches and migraines for no other reason than life is not fair. That doesn’t mean you have to suffer.

You Have Powers

Although your head may be the cause of a lot of your pain, your head can also be the source of managing the pain. There are many things you can do to help yourself. You also should pair these suggestions with a visit to your doctor.

• Keep a headache journal. Let your doctor read it. This can greatly help identify the triggers for your pain.
• Get regular sleep of about seven hours a night. Lack of sleep can aggravate any pain. Who knows — lack of sleep could be the major trigger for your pain.
• Get regular exercise, which also helps you get regular sleep.
• Learn how to better manage stress, such as with meditation, aromatherapy or massage.
• Cut back on caffeine in both your beverages and your painkillers.
• Learn all you can about headaches, migraines and alternative therapies to help you help yourself.

Remember what the third Dr. Who said: “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

Last time I mentioned dentalwork headaches, I also mentioned that I had about two weeks before my dreaded dental appointment.

Didn’t work out that way.

A few hours after that post, the pain came back so bad, I thought my face was having labor contractions. And, that being Thursday, I of course could not get an appointment to see the dentist until Monday. His office put me on antibiotics and acetominophen for the pain.

And so I only had the weekend to stew. The tension of wondering how much it would hurt and how much it would cost gave me a dentalwork headache.

Today’s Dental Trip

My goodness — I made it to the dentist’s chair and back still alive. Turns out the labor contractions in my face was an abscess. So, I had my first (and hopefully last) root canal. And you know what? It wasn’t as bad as my family told me it would be. Yes, it was bad, but I’ve had worse.

I took Excedrin before the dentist appointment, to help counteract the splitting headache I usually get after my skull has vibrated a while because of the drill…and because of the panic I put myself through. Constant fear can greatly magnify any pain, including headaches…and toothaches.

In oder to deal with the panic and dentalwork headache (which is really a tension headache with the word “dentist” as a trigger), I did a few things:

• My Mom drove me there and back. That was one less thing to worry about.
• This time, I actually turned around to look at all of the instruments laid out on my dentist’s tray. Usually, I just scrunch my eyes shut and grip the armrests throught the entire visit. Being able to see the small size of the hooks, scrapers and the needle helped, oddly enough. I guess these torture chamber instruments didn’t quite live up to my imagination.
• I periodically made myself breathe deeply. This helped to relax some bodily tension, which contributes to headaches.

Dentalwork headaches are a symptom of dental phobia. In order to help ease the dentalwork headache, I had to work on my dental phobia. And now I’ve faced the fire-breathing dragon called Going To The Dentist and he didn’t even singe my eyebrows.

Until I got the bill, anyway. Ouch! Still, it was cheaper paying for work now than if I delayed until the whole tooth decayed (not just the nerve) and needed a crown (which averages about $1500 where I live).

Hope this helps others who get dentalwork headaches because of dental phobia.

Now, chances are the thought of mixing Prozac and Percoset for migraine pain has never crossed your mind. First off, you need a perscription for both. Secondly, neither Prozac nor Percoset has been made to treat migraine pain. Prozac is the medicine of the Gods, in my opinion. I have had terrible depression all of this life and probably in my past lives, too , and if it wasn’t for Prozac I’d probably be in the loony bin, jail or the morgue by now. Percoset is for severe pain, such as for those with spinal arthritis.

Secondly, mixing perscription medicines is just plain BAD. It could kill you. It can even do WORSE things to you than kill you. I mean, looked what happened to Tammy Faye Bakker. Not only has that scared me off most perscription medications, but off of mascara and Protestantism, as well. So, normally, I would never seriously think of mixing Prozac and Percoset.

However, life’s circumstances never seem to fit into predictable categories. And even the risk of winding up like Tammy Faye Bakker can pale in comparison to migraine pain.

Yes, I Was Tempted

I had a really bad migraine today and no way to get out of the freelance writing assignments that were due. So, I had to just bite the bullet and go to work. I’m not entirely sure why I got this particular mnigraine, since I have had them long enough to try and avoid my triggers (caffeine withdrawal, 48 hours to my period, lack of sleep…or, forgetting to take my Prozac. However, I had taken my Prozac today).

Now, my Mom has a bottle of Percoset (legally. She had spinal surgery last year and is still recovering). Since I live with my Mom (ALL HAIL SAINT MOM) and have to pick up her perscriptions, I couldn’t help but notice that she’s on Percoset.

Percoset…the pain killer…what one comedian once described as, “doesn’t get you high, but makes the furniture really comfortable.”

And I was in pain.

And I knew where the Persoset was.

And Mom was having a good day and was out of the house visiting friends.

While I was in pain.

And Mom is getting to that age where she can’t remember how many pills she has left in a bottle.

While I was having blinding migraine pain.

Ooohhh, yeah — I was tempted.

What Did You Do, Rena?

I wound up resisting mixing Prozac and Percoset. Sorry if that disappoints all of you who wanted to read about my brain going loop-de-loop while this mixture coursed through my bloodstream. But I resisted.

How? Partially by complaining to myself, partially by taking an Excedrin, partially by deciding to take an hour out to rest, no matter how behind I was with work, and partially by being absolutley terrified of being haunted by Tammy Faye Bakker.

So, when the pain eased off a bit, I got back to work and decided to share this bit of personal insight with you about not mixing Prozac and Percoset. Sometimes it does help to write things down in order to distract you from chronic pain. But mostly, it helps to know what you are most afraid of. In my case, Tammy Faye Bakker is far more frightening than migraine pain.

A few months ago, I did a post on panic attacks that can happen during a migraine. Those are the kind I get, and foolish me was not aware that you can get migraines after a panic attack. Well, in doing research on panic attacks for another client, I discovered that getting migraines after panic attacks happens a lot more frequently than the other way around. (I guess I’m just special. Oh, whee.)

Why Is This?

Panic attacks spring upon you for many reasons — seemingly almost as many reasons as there are people who suffer from migraine attacks. If you get panic attacks, please see your doctor. They will not get better on their own. And be a patient patient. It might be a while of trial and error to determine the exact cause of your panic attacks and what medications are of best help for you.

After the stress of a panic attack, your body will usually feel as if it’s just run a marathon. As you recover and your body begins to relax, this is when the migraine hits. This is thought to be a kind of “letdown migraine“, or “Friday night migraine“, where your body has to hold it together for so long it can finally fall apart when it feels it is in a safe enough area to do so.

The bad news is that panic attacks are tricky to diagnose and treat, the migraines after panic attacks usually aren’t. Getting control of the panic attacks can help with the frequency and intensity of the migraines. Both migraines and panic attacks seem to occurr more often in women, according to this study which came out in 2003.

Write It Down

You know I keep telling you to keep a migraine journal with almost every post? It is also recommended to keep a panic attack journal. Of course, if you get migraines after panic attacks and already keep a headache journal, then you are already keeping a panic attack journal. However, life is rarely so simple. People who get headaches or migraines for one reason also tend to get them for other reasons. So, even if you suffer from panic attacks, not every head pain you get will be as a result of panic attacks. ( I know — I’m getting a headache just trying to follow this last paragraph, too.)

One of the benefits of writing during a panic attack is that it tends to distract you from the actual panic attack and helps you calm down. Some people with panic attacks help themselves with aromatherapy, meditation, and deep breathing excercises. I was taught to look at what is around me, smell what is around me, and ask “Is anything trying to hurt me NOW?”

Let me again repeat to go see a doctor if you get panic attacks — especially if this is your first panic attack. Sometimes panic attacks are signs of a different medical problem like thyroid problems or mitral valve prolapse (a frightening sounding but treatable heart condition which usually affects people with thyroid problems).

Hope this helps. And take a deep breath. There is hope.

You ever discover what was the cause of a major pain in your body and felt let down? For example, I had a rather excrutiating migraine in my left eye last week. I thought I’d grown a tumor, or something equally dramatic. But then I took a pill for draining my sinuses, and that was it with the migraine.

One the one hand, I’m glad the pain is gone. On the other — clogged sinuses — that was ALL? And it was that painful? Am I a total wuss? How will I be able to handle something REALLY bad? So, in a way, I can feel a bit let down after a migraine cure.

And, perhaps more importantly, who is going me any sympathy for developing a migraine from clogged sinuses? On the one hand, it was almost better when it was this pain hit out of the blue, and the source of the pain was a total mystery. People would gasp, cross themselves and mutter “There for the grace of God go I.” Even my Mom eventually said, “Will you get OVER it if you won’t go to the doctor!”

You can’t get much sympathy from a stuffed up head. At least, I can’t.

Of course, I don’t help myself much from refusing to go see the doctor. But when you have migraine pain, you have absolutley not ability to stay upright, let alone wait for a day in a doctor’s waiting room blaring Jerry Spinger so I can have the privilege of being ignored for ten minutes by the Great Doctor Him/Her/Itself.

And You Can’t Get Out Of Work

One of the disadvantages of telecommuting is that I don’t have a good excuse for missing work. When I was in retail and I had a migraine, I’d have to spend all day/night in bed in a dark room with my eyes closed — but at least that’s all I was responsible for. Now I’m telecommuting and get a migraine in the moring, I can’t quite call out and know how the rest of my day is going to go. That’s definately a letdown after a migraine cure.

Nope. I have to wait a few hours until the pain dies to a dull roar — and then realize I’m now about six hours behind schedule and have to type like a maniac in order to get an entire day’s work done. I used to relax and watch some TV at 7pm — no more, I’m still at work.

The best help for a leftdown after a migraine cure (or any other kind of cure) is a good round of complaining!

Back to the usual “Dealing With Headaches” chatter tomorrow.

I apologise right away for the title, but it was the best title I could think up, as I currently have a headache. It’s in my right eye (which is usually a sign that a migraine is coming to town) but it seems to be receeding on it’s own rather than getting worse. As you can probably guess from the title, this headache started when I was pooping. Which got me to thinking

Could I Die From A Headache After Pooping?

Oh, come on, I can’t be the only one who thinks that. Ever since Elvis passed away, the thought of spending your last moments of mortaility on the toilet dying from a headache after pooping has become yet another thing to fear.

There are times I think that that the headache I get after pooping isn’t just a headache. Could it be that a blood vessel has popped inside of my brain? Or perhaps my skull couldn’t take the pressure and shattered? Just from a poop? Could this happen?

Probably Not

You do build up a lot of pressure in your head by straining, which often includes gritting your teeth as you bear down. This all forces your blood pressure to go up, so you may feel as if you are about to have a stroke after a difficult poop. But the odds of you actually dying from a headache after pooping (especially if you are in general good health) is lower than being run over by an aardvark stampede.

(I wish I had some acutal clinical study numbers to prove that, but I don’t).

However…

If you have health like Elvis had, a headache after a poop could bring on an aneurysm. This is yet another reason to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet with plenty of fiber and water and get regular exercise. Water and fiber not only help keep you regular and help keep your blood pressure down, but give you a “full” feeling. Knowing what your blood pressure is can help you not die on the toilet.

And stay away from sideburns and rhinestones. I have this completely unproven theory that they can make your head explode if you are exposed to them too much.

I have a new head pain. It’s been in my left eye (not my right, as usual) for the past two or three days to varying degrees. I go to sleep with it and wake up with it. It eased off tremendously after I finished my Christmas shopping (Oh, God — I HOPE I’m done!) and I feel better know than I have in days — but what the heck happened? I still feel a dull ache, and my stomach is gradually getting used to food again, and I’m afraid it’ll come back.

Rena, You Should Go To The Doctor

I know I should go to the doctor. There’s no way I’m going to the doctor. If blood spurts out my eyeball, THEN I’ll go to the doctor (via an ambulance to the ER). Otherwise, I’m too scared to go to the doctor. I’m nearly as scared of the doctor as I am of the dentist. I live on poverty income, and so go to the welfare doctor, which means a visit to Collingdale can last an entire day. Last time, Jerry Springer was on the waiting room television and no was allowed to touch the Sacred TV Remote. The show was “I Pimp Out My Neice”. Oh, the humanity!

Besides, I’m the one who gives advice. I’m not supposed to take any advice. I’m not paid to take advice, but to give it. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

So, Google The New Head Pain

That’s a very good point. I can get paid to look up my worrisome internal turmoil. Let’s look together on Google, shall we?

First off, I’ll try “migraine left eye”.

Well, there’s a lot of adds and blah-blah-blah. I’m skipping people who ask questions in forums (although that can be a good source of information, but trying to interpet some people’s grammar is painful in an of itself). Here’s one — oh, I mean, click here.

Hmmm, seems we’ve landed on a forum — the very thing I was trying to avoid. Let’s see — according to the fine forum members, my pain could be sue to sinuses, complications from a catscan or trochleitis (inflammation of the eyeball! Isn’t that a comforting mental picture) Well, I haven’t had a catscan in a couple of years, so that’s out. My sinuses definately have been bad this past week.

So, perhaps this new migraine centered in the left eye could just be a head full of snot. I’ll try taking sinus draining medication for that.

Don’t try this at home, kids. If you have a head pain that you can’t figure out and it lasts more than a day, then for God’s sake go to the doctor. Just bring earplugs in case Jerry Springer is on.