'It's been a very long year but we got through it dammit and now it's Christmas so we're going to...

[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.

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 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]

Comments

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about the headaches, but very sympathetic, because I've suffered from migraines all my life, nearly, and knew that about the otc drugs because I went through the same thing. Everyone's different, of course, but what saved me - until I went through menopause - was Topamax. It's a drug usually given to people with epilepsy, but you take it at tiny doses. The list of side-effects is terrifying, except again you take such small doses that it doesn't have the same effect, but I did get tingling in my fingers and toes and memory holes and it made me very drowsy for the first week or so. But it cut my headaches by about 80 or 90%. When you have so few headaches, you can then really see what your other triggers are - for me, it's chocolate and smoked meat. Until you eliminate all other factors, like the rebound effect of OCT painkillers, you can't really do the preventative stuff (like avoiding chocolate...).

Anyway, good luck on your quest to be headache free! And Happy New Year!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Oh - I think I remember the name Topamax from the list of preventatives the consultant reeled off - the promise for when I'd gone through the month! I was about to write that it was odd how most of them were meds used for other conditions entirely, but used in very small doses. The one my GP tried on me - Amytryptaline (such a HAPPY sounding name, I think) is an anti-depressant, Inderal, high BP, among other things etc. And daughter is on another anti-epilepsy drug for BPD. Anyway... Thanks, and glad you've got out the other end of this!

I know that messing with my sleep pattern is a sure-fire trigger, and instinctively avoid red wine whenever headachey (I drink v. little altogether) but SO hope I don't find chocolate to be a trigger.

Happy New Year to you too!

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Topamax is the brand name - you might want to look it up online to see if it is dispensed under a different one in the UK. I tried amytryptaline, and found it helpful but not as miraculous as topamax. Best of luck!

And I'm learning now that I CAN eat very small quantities of chocolate - like one or two small pieces, but not a whole slice of rich cake, for example. I can also drink one or two glasses of red wine, and the better it is the less likely it is to cause trouble!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Well, that's hopeful. I can have several bars of chocolate in the house and just eat a small piece or two a day without problem. And I've heard that about high-quality red wine causing fewer problems before, I think - though all of these are going vary with individual, of course. Interesting!

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

Eek, this was a scarier process than you described at Winchester. But hopefully next New Years you'll be writing about how 2008 started badly with February being a pain but then you had a wonderful headache free year :)

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

:) Charlie and I are going to make a pact that whatever we might say snarky in February is totally discounted. So maybe I'll airbrush it out of the year entirely!

[generalblossom.livejournal.com]

oh, I am so sorry to hear about the migraines, and can not imagine how tough February is going to be. OTOH, February, the shortest month, good choice, and Spring to look forward (sort of) at the end of it. And it will be worth it. I am noting down the information about drugs masking it, it´s sort of shocking!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Hmm - I changed LJ email address at long last to my gmail one, and appear to have stopped receiving notification of replies altogether...

Yes - shortest month, hunker down and get it over with! It is shocking - last I heard, it was more than 3 or 4 times a week that would cause headaches - and the consultant said opinion had changed to 8 times a month a while ago and then to 4 times a month. But the info doesn't seem to have got to non-specialists yet, let alone interested non-medical types like myself.