Awhile back I started getting headaches that would just not go away. It didn't matter how much Extra Strength Tylenol I took. They would start in the afternoon or evening and progressively get worse. I always ended up nauseated and wanting to die. Unlike my headaches when I was younger, I couldn't even sleep these off. I would wake up just as bad in the morning, but then they magically went away between nine and ten in the morning.
After continued harassment by my mom, I mean urging, I finally made an appointment with an ENT. The first thing he did was order some x-rays of my sinuses. Once he ruled out any issues there, he talked to me about trying a mouth guard at night. Let's just say I didn't go that route.
A few years ago, a good friend of mine gave me some of her Excedrin Migraine medicine. WOW! Something that worked! I have just assumed, ever since Crista gave me that wonder drug, that my headaches must be migraines. Now I have also tried Head On. Due to the fact I have 4 kids, I have not been subjected to the annoying commercials. I use that for immediate help and then take the Excedrin if it gets any worse.
Since the boys were sick on our vacation, I ended up getting sick on the way home. That was about 10 days ago. I mainly got it in my head. I had the stuffy head feeling and the continual drainage pipe (aka my nose). This past week I have been getting quite a few headaches in the afternoon and evenings. On Friday night, something went wrong. I no longer had drainage. Instead, it felt like someone had a screwdriver up the right side of my nose and it felt like someone had hit me, with a baseball bat, on my right cheek. It was worse by Saturday morning. My teeth, on the right side, started hurting. A gun was sounding really tempting at the time.
A gun? Do you wonder why I would want a gun? Years ago my mother told me about a patient on the psych ward. She had been suffering from hideous headaches for a long time. They NEVER let up. She had been to the doctor many times but no one ever found what was causing her headache. It finally drove her into a deep depression and she decided to commit suicide. Fortunately, she didn't know the proper technique of shooting yourself in the mouth. She shot the bullet through the top of her mouth and it went through her sinuses and exited. It turns out that she had a massive infection in her sinuses. She cured herself! Well, except for that nasty hole through the roof of her mouth and the her cheek. Can you believe that?! No doctor thought to check her to rule out sinus infection. I tell you, I don't blame her one bit and would never refer to her as someone who was mentally unbalanced. If my head felt like it did yesterday for even one more day, I would be looking into something similar. OK, maybe a doctor, but you get the idea.
I have been taking a non-prescription drug that you get from the pharmacist. Last night I started taking 800 mg Motrin, too. I think that finally helped me out a little. Today I woke up feeling a bit better. I had to take Leigha to a birthday party at a gymnastics academy. Since I didn't have the boys with me, I had the opportunity to get out there with her. Amazingly enough, all that bouncing around helped to open up my sinuses even more. I am still not feeling wonderful, but what a difference. Too bad I won't be able to walk tomorrow!
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2 comments:
Sinus Xray, check. Anti-mouth guard, check. Extra Strength Tylenol, check check check.
As soon as I read "I always ended up nauseated and wanting to die," I knew it was migraines. And I can also sympathize with the woman who shot herself - because honestly, before I was on medication and I was getting more migraines than ever, I really did want to kill myself. Fortunately, I was always able to find some sort of reason to be able to tell myself that it would eventually pass, but omg, the pain really was that bad.
I had a migraine while I was in Iceland - and I knew exactly the moment it started, but I didn't know it was going to get so bad. One definite trigger for the Worst of the Worst migraines for me is a drop in blood pressure - when I start working out I always get them, and when the heat is really bad I get them, and the one last week was because I was in a hot tub and stood up - I could feel my blood pressure drop and I just thought, "Crap." And sure enough, I got a killer migraine that night, bad enough that two doses of my migraine medication didn't even fix it.
Another trigger for me is sleeping in, and this one I think is directly connected with my sinuses. The longer I sleep, the more clogged my sinuses get, and if I sleep past about 9 or 10, I am almost certain to get a migraine. No more sleeping in for me, but I'm glad to have figured out the reason for it. The medication has saved me, though I still have lingering effects from the migraines (my eyes feel weird; I'm aware that there's something going on in my head even though it doesn't hurt; and I still get a "migraine hangover" the next day).
Now I just need to figure out why I get the rest of my migraines - I still haven't identified any other triggers like in food.
It's so hard dealing with them; I hope your medication continues to work for me (I've had on and off luck with Excedrine Migraine, though it was becoming less "on luck" and more "off luck".) If it stops working for you, know that there are great medications out there. Sometimes it takes a few trials to find the right one for me (Zomig ZMT is the first that works - Midrin and Cafergot didn't do anything at all for me) but just please, if the Excedrine stops working, please please ask your doctor about getting a prescription for one of the many migrain medications there is.
Dang that was a long comment!!
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