![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_schrapnell...listen to some music', is the end of the original. Which is the title of a CD burned for me for Christmas by Older Daughter. And you know what? It *has* been a very long year - I'd say I was glad to see the back of 2007 except that I saw it in quite cheerfully. That'll learn me!
Anyway, I'm mulling over my Year's Books List, which I'll post tomorrow or the next day ::crosses fingers::, but now, as it's still Christmas, dammit (yeah it is - until Epiphany!), I'm going to give the promised, if a little belated, medical update. You can skip the cut if you don't enjoy chronic headaches... Unless you don't but would still like to hear about the fun fun fun of a brain MRI.
Anyway, Christmas was not our most relaxed or cheerful, but the kitchen crew (me as head chef, my sister, virtual adopted brother and both girls) had a perfectly amicable day of cooking, the meal was good, and presents appreciated. I got Philip Reeve's Starcross from Y.D., which I'm readlng and enjoying now, and a Dedicate a Tree kit from O.D. (she said it could be dedicated to a fictional character - suggesting that naming one for Dido Twite would be very cool), to focus on the child lit element.
More on books in the New Year! [does witchey dance for luck]
Anyway, I'm mulling over my Year's Books List, which I'll post tomorrow or the next day ::crosses fingers::, but now, as it's still Christmas, dammit (yeah it is - until Epiphany!), I'm going to give the promised, if a little belated, medical update. You can skip the cut if you don't enjoy chronic headaches... Unless you don't but would still like to hear about the fun fun fun of a brain MRI.
For context, rather than interest, I've had headaches since I was about 8 - varying frequency and types, and the only long stretch without any being the second half of my first pregnancy, and almost a year after. (Didn't work on second one, which puzzled and disappointed me in equal measure.) I've variously been told that they were migraines, didn't look like them but *might* just be as there's a family history, and that they weren't migraines. I've also had TMJ work, bio-feedback, osteopathic treatment, acupuncture and - last treatment - a daily preventative for chronic daily headaches. When the last didn't work, my GP (wonderful woman) said it was time to go to a headache specialist.
Which I duly did. He said they are migraines, but compounded by the chronic daily type (daily not being a literal use in the description, apparently) and nothing will work until I stop taking OTC painkillers. And this is why I thought it might be useful to share the information he gave me: apparently, headache experts now say that taking painkillers (ibuprofen - but hold the codeine, thanks! being my most usual one these days) more than 4 times a month will cause rebound headaches. And no - that's not a typo for four times a week - it's four times a month. I've had rebound headaches in the past, where I was taking aspirin every day, so have kept an eye on headache info, and was still stunned by this. (My GP obviously didn't know, although the consultant praised her for the way she'd tried the preventative she'd put me on, so she's not just completely out of touch with the research.)
So, a month with no OTCs at all, and a promise that it'll be No Fun - worse headaches, and flu-like symptoms - Huzzah! At the end of that I go back and he can give me a preventative which will keep the bastards down. I really liked this guy (and not just because he described me as a 'pleasant woman' in the report to my GP), as he's big, serious expert keeping up with the very latest developments in neurology and yet didn't talk down at all. But he said several times that I'll hate him midway through the month, and I don't doubt it's the truth. I asked if I could do the month after Christmas, but decided against January assteepholmand I are HOPING to get away for his birthday. (Last year's birthday plans went severely, horribly agly. I don't think there's a good reason for a repeat, myself, but ...) So I'm planning on February.
And then there was the MRI. This was routine, rather than the result of seeing something odd on the neurological exam, so I wasn't worried about it from that angle. And I've never really been claustrophobic - though I wondered if I was going to start being so when asked - repeatedly - if I was for the MRI. And I wouldn't have been, either, just from the machine and the inside-it-ness of the thing. But. (Big but.) Rather snotty nurse or whatever, getting me ready for the thing, whose English wasn't much better than her manner. Just before sticking me in the machine, she answered my (admittedly not well-timed) question about all the fillings I have with a dismissive 'Yes, but what can I do about that? That's fixed!', which seemed odd, as I'd have thought a pace-maker or valve was pretty damn fixed too. So that was less than re-assuring, and then, having cautioned me that it was essential to keep really still, she flipped a plastic mask-thing over my face. Not claustrophobic, but bloody hell, do I have a phobia about being unable to breathe. And I thought this thing was so close that I wouldn't get enough air and promptly had a massive panic attack. It took about 5 minutes before I could control my breathing and merely worry about what would happen should I sneeze, and this was without doubt, one of the longest 20 minutes I've spent. But I survived that too, and have a huge set of x-rays of my brain, for all the good that'll do anyone. (I trust! Soon as I'd had it, there was an ep of Scrubs in which a woman who was just given an MRI so she'd stop annoying them all - or Dr Cox, at least - turned out to have a huge aneurism. Made me laugh and laugh.)
I'm sharing the more than 4 x a month painkiller info in case this will be helpful to anyone else, though I hope my readers will NOT need it.
Which I duly did. He said they are migraines, but compounded by the chronic daily type (daily not being a literal use in the description, apparently) and nothing will work until I stop taking OTC painkillers. And this is why I thought it might be useful to share the information he gave me: apparently, headache experts now say that taking painkillers (ibuprofen - but hold the codeine, thanks! being my most usual one these days) more than 4 times a month will cause rebound headaches. And no - that's not a typo for four times a week - it's four times a month. I've had rebound headaches in the past, where I was taking aspirin every day, so have kept an eye on headache info, and was still stunned by this. (My GP obviously didn't know, although the consultant praised her for the way she'd tried the preventative she'd put me on, so she's not just completely out of touch with the research.)
So, a month with no OTCs at all, and a promise that it'll be No Fun - worse headaches, and flu-like symptoms - Huzzah! At the end of that I go back and he can give me a preventative which will keep the bastards down. I really liked this guy (and not just because he described me as a 'pleasant woman' in the report to my GP), as he's big, serious expert keeping up with the very latest developments in neurology and yet didn't talk down at all. But he said several times that I'll hate him midway through the month, and I don't doubt it's the truth. I asked if I could do the month after Christmas, but decided against January as
steepholmand I are HOPING to get away for his birthday. (Last year's birthday plans went severely, horribly agly. I don't think there's a good reason for a repeat, myself, but ...) So I'm planning on February.And then there was the MRI. This was routine, rather than the result of seeing something odd on the neurological exam, so I wasn't worried about it from that angle. And I've never really been claustrophobic - though I wondered if I was going to start being so when asked - repeatedly - if I was for the MRI. And I wouldn't have been, either, just from the machine and the inside-it-ness of the thing. But. (Big but.) Rather snotty nurse or whatever, getting me ready for the thing, whose English wasn't much better than her manner. Just before sticking me in the machine, she answered my (admittedly not well-timed) question about all the fillings I have with a dismissive 'Yes, but what can I do about that? That's fixed!', which seemed odd, as I'd have thought a pace-maker or valve was pretty damn fixed too. So that was less than re-assuring, and then, having cautioned me that it was essential to keep really still, she flipped a plastic mask-thing over my face. Not claustrophobic, but bloody hell, do I have a phobia about being unable to breathe. And I thought this thing was so close that I wouldn't get enough air and promptly had a massive panic attack. It took about 5 minutes before I could control my breathing and merely worry about what would happen should I sneeze, and this was without doubt, one of the longest 20 minutes I've spent. But I survived that too, and have a huge set of x-rays of my brain, for all the good that'll do anyone. (I trust! Soon as I'd had it, there was an ep of Scrubs in which a woman who was just given an MRI so she'd stop annoying them all - or Dr Cox, at least - turned out to have a huge aneurism. Made me laugh and laugh.)
I'm sharing the more than 4 x a month painkiller info in case this will be helpful to anyone else, though I hope my readers will NOT need it.
Anyway, Christmas was not our most relaxed or cheerful, but the kitchen crew (me as head chef, my sister, virtual adopted brother and both girls) had a perfectly amicable day of cooking, the meal was good, and presents appreciated. I got Philip Reeve's Starcross from Y.D., which I'm readlng and enjoying now, and a Dedicate a Tree kit from O.D. (she said it could be dedicated to a fictional character - suggesting that naming one for Dido Twite would be very cool), to focus on the child lit element.
More on books in the New Year! [does witchey dance for luck]
