I hate headaches!!!!
Boy it has not been a good 2 weeks. Last week I suffered from a horrible migraine that I thought I would never ever have again.
After Riley was born I started having migraines. Now these are not your normal my head hurts migraines. They are called hemiplegic migraines (found that out this last week) Besides the normal migraine symptoms (photophobia, nausea, visual aura, etc..), people with hemiplegic migraines experience some or all of the following: During the aura phase they may experience:
The paralysis or numbing of the limbs on one side of their body (hemiplegia)
Numbness, tingling.
Motor weakness
Speech impairment (slurring or inability to find a word)
Impaired Consciousness (ranges from confusion to coma)
Fever
Symptoms of Meningitis
In other words they mimic a stoke. Not only is it scary as heck (because of the numbness and inability to talk) once the headache starts it is the worst pain I have ever felt. I remember one time asking Dean to just shoot me in the head because I wanted the pain to stop. Now I was having these probably at least once a month for a while and they put me on some preventative medicine to help. It was Elavil which did help the migraines - I still had them, but instead of being down for a week in horrible pain, it would be a day or two of manageable pain. The Elavil wreaked havoc on me though. I had to have at least 12 hours of sleep or I'd get a headache. I couldn't be out in the sun at all - 10 mins would have me sunburned horribly, but I didn't mind because I could deal with the migraines. (I did have to go off of the Elavil when we got pregnant with Alexandra and haven't been back on it since) About the time we finally got them somewhat under control we found out the apartment we were living in had a horrible mold problem. It was a toxic mold from one of the sewage pipes leaking. Yeah, super gross, especially since it took forever for them to find out what was leaking let alone fix it. We had bought air filters to help with the mold problem and noticed that once we had the filters my migraines decreased again. So we really figured that the migraines where caused by the mold (especially since once we moved I hadn't had one again - at least until last week).
So having been migraine free (at least these kind free - I still get really bad headaches but no where near these kind) for 5 years I really figured I wasn't ever going to have another one of these migraines. Boy was I wrong....Last Tuesday I had taken Alexandra to Joy School and was at home watching TV when I noticed that I couldn't see very well. I'd never had the visual aura before so this was new to me. It looked like I could see fan blades rotating in my peripheral vision, and I couldn't focus on anything. So not having any clue what was wrong I decided to go take a nap hoping that it would go away. When Dean woke me up in time to get Alexandra from school the horrible headache had started. So Dean went to pick her up while I called the doctors office. They gave me a prescription for Vicodin (apparently it's a step up from Tylenol for the pregnant ladies) and an anti-nausea med. So Dean picked them up and brought them home, but by the time he got home the nausea and pain were so bad I couldn't keep the medicine in, so we headed to the ER where they gave me some IV pain meds and anti-nausea meds and then sent me home. I've always hated going to the ER when I've had a migraine because they treat you like crap. I understand that people come in seeking drugs and use migraines as an excuse, but seriously I'm not after the hard core drugs, I would be happy with Tylenol in a shot, just get rid of the pain and the nausea. Usually it's mostly the nausea I want them to get rid of too, I can take meds to get rid of the pain, but not if I'm throwing up!!! Anyway so enough of my ER rant....I was still hurting pretty good when they released me, but I'd stopped throwing up so I knew I could take more meds at home. Well, I spent the next two days laying in bed with the migraine not going anywhere. The vicodin wasn't doing anything for it. Then Thursday night I started having the numbness on the left side of my body. I had never had this happen in the middle of a migraine, it was always the precursor. It happened about 4 times, so I had Dean call and our Bishop and Elder's Quorum president came over and gave me a blessing. And then we headed to the ER yet again. This time though the doctor actually talked to me and took a history (they didn't the time before just gave me meds and kicked me out). One of the scary things about the stroke symptoms for me is that my mom had a minor stroke when she was about 35. So the ER doc was actually just gonna give me meds and release me, but she decided to consult with a neurologist first and he said that I should have an MRI first just to make sure that it was only a migraine. So they had to call in the MRI techs to run the machine just for me in the middle of the night (which made my headache tons worse) but we found out that nothing was wrong which was a big relief for me! The doctor then gave me stronger pain and anti-nausea meds which finally helped. So by Sunday I was sort of feeling back to normal. But this last week I've had a little headache on and off and it's annoying as heck. I'm just tired of my head hurting.....
Good news though, laying down and doing nothing for a week has my bleeding almost to nothing! And they did check the baby's heart rate the 2nd ER trip (not the first one....) and so far so good. I go in next Friday for my next appointment, but I'm 16 weeks along! I think the morning sickness is all done, but I'm not positive because of all the nausea from the headaches the last 2 weeks.
Funny story though to finish the post off. Alexandra thinks the baby widget (in the top corner) is a picture of the actual baby. The other day she had me pull up the blog so she could "see" the baby and then she sat and poked my belly and then would quick look at the picture to see if it made the baby move. Funny girl! Last night she hugged me and told me that she loves the baby.
After Riley was born I started having migraines. Now these are not your normal my head hurts migraines. They are called hemiplegic migraines (found that out this last week) Besides the normal migraine symptoms (photophobia, nausea, visual aura, etc..), people with hemiplegic migraines experience some or all of the following: During the aura phase they may experience:
The paralysis or numbing of the limbs on one side of their body (hemiplegia)
Numbness, tingling.
Motor weakness
Speech impairment (slurring or inability to find a word)
Impaired Consciousness (ranges from confusion to coma)
Fever
Symptoms of Meningitis
In other words they mimic a stoke. Not only is it scary as heck (because of the numbness and inability to talk) once the headache starts it is the worst pain I have ever felt. I remember one time asking Dean to just shoot me in the head because I wanted the pain to stop. Now I was having these probably at least once a month for a while and they put me on some preventative medicine to help. It was Elavil which did help the migraines - I still had them, but instead of being down for a week in horrible pain, it would be a day or two of manageable pain. The Elavil wreaked havoc on me though. I had to have at least 12 hours of sleep or I'd get a headache. I couldn't be out in the sun at all - 10 mins would have me sunburned horribly, but I didn't mind because I could deal with the migraines. (I did have to go off of the Elavil when we got pregnant with Alexandra and haven't been back on it since) About the time we finally got them somewhat under control we found out the apartment we were living in had a horrible mold problem. It was a toxic mold from one of the sewage pipes leaking. Yeah, super gross, especially since it took forever for them to find out what was leaking let alone fix it. We had bought air filters to help with the mold problem and noticed that once we had the filters my migraines decreased again. So we really figured that the migraines where caused by the mold (especially since once we moved I hadn't had one again - at least until last week).
So having been migraine free (at least these kind free - I still get really bad headaches but no where near these kind) for 5 years I really figured I wasn't ever going to have another one of these migraines. Boy was I wrong....Last Tuesday I had taken Alexandra to Joy School and was at home watching TV when I noticed that I couldn't see very well. I'd never had the visual aura before so this was new to me. It looked like I could see fan blades rotating in my peripheral vision, and I couldn't focus on anything. So not having any clue what was wrong I decided to go take a nap hoping that it would go away. When Dean woke me up in time to get Alexandra from school the horrible headache had started. So Dean went to pick her up while I called the doctors office. They gave me a prescription for Vicodin (apparently it's a step up from Tylenol for the pregnant ladies) and an anti-nausea med. So Dean picked them up and brought them home, but by the time he got home the nausea and pain were so bad I couldn't keep the medicine in, so we headed to the ER where they gave me some IV pain meds and anti-nausea meds and then sent me home. I've always hated going to the ER when I've had a migraine because they treat you like crap. I understand that people come in seeking drugs and use migraines as an excuse, but seriously I'm not after the hard core drugs, I would be happy with Tylenol in a shot, just get rid of the pain and the nausea. Usually it's mostly the nausea I want them to get rid of too, I can take meds to get rid of the pain, but not if I'm throwing up!!! Anyway so enough of my ER rant....I was still hurting pretty good when they released me, but I'd stopped throwing up so I knew I could take more meds at home. Well, I spent the next two days laying in bed with the migraine not going anywhere. The vicodin wasn't doing anything for it. Then Thursday night I started having the numbness on the left side of my body. I had never had this happen in the middle of a migraine, it was always the precursor. It happened about 4 times, so I had Dean call and our Bishop and Elder's Quorum president came over and gave me a blessing. And then we headed to the ER yet again. This time though the doctor actually talked to me and took a history (they didn't the time before just gave me meds and kicked me out). One of the scary things about the stroke symptoms for me is that my mom had a minor stroke when she was about 35. So the ER doc was actually just gonna give me meds and release me, but she decided to consult with a neurologist first and he said that I should have an MRI first just to make sure that it was only a migraine. So they had to call in the MRI techs to run the machine just for me in the middle of the night (which made my headache tons worse) but we found out that nothing was wrong which was a big relief for me! The doctor then gave me stronger pain and anti-nausea meds which finally helped. So by Sunday I was sort of feeling back to normal. But this last week I've had a little headache on and off and it's annoying as heck. I'm just tired of my head hurting.....
Good news though, laying down and doing nothing for a week has my bleeding almost to nothing! And they did check the baby's heart rate the 2nd ER trip (not the first one....) and so far so good. I go in next Friday for my next appointment, but I'm 16 weeks along! I think the morning sickness is all done, but I'm not positive because of all the nausea from the headaches the last 2 weeks.
Funny story though to finish the post off. Alexandra thinks the baby widget (in the top corner) is a picture of the actual baby. The other day she had me pull up the blog so she could "see" the baby and then she sat and poked my belly and then would quick look at the picture to see if it made the baby move. Funny girl! Last night she hugged me and told me that she loves the baby.
Continued rant about the medical service. ERs are bad, but Kaiser is the worst. The faster they can get rid of you, the more money they make. Not only did they assume that Cort was just drug seeking, they couldn't be bothered to take a proper history. (Cort had different insurance when the migraines started after Riley was born, so it wasn't in Kaiser's records.) If the doctor had just asked Dean a few questions...
ReplyDeleteAnd MRIs are miserable. The techs warn you that it will be noisy. However, our family seems unusual, we can feel the scan, and it is painful.
Hopefully, Cort won't have to go back on the Elavil after the baby gets here. It made her a zombie.
Please keep us in your prayers that this migraine was an aberation, and there won't be another one - ever.
You're definitely in my prayers! Man, the things us women go through to bring these little spirits to this earth... any husband who says we're just whining needs to be kicked, REALLY HARD, you know where. I hope you feel better soon! :)
ReplyDeleteOh, and I'm super happy the bleeding is almost stopped! That's awesome!
ReplyDeleteGlad the bleeding has almost stopped! ERs DO suck, I'm sorry you had to be there!!
ReplyDeleteI'll keep you in my prayers, and let me know if you need anything!
Love ya Mae!