Feeling Encouraged and Discouraged

I had my appointment yesterday at the Headache clinic. I left feeling very encouraged. The nurse spent about 45 minutes talking and LISTENING to me. It was really nice having someone try to figure out with me what is causing these headaches and try to figure out a plan of attack for how to deal with them.

Since I have a science background, I wanted to know the science behind how they work and what is going on in the brain. She took the time to explain the different types of headaches and how they are triggered and how they are treated and how they can't just look and see what is causing mine, but have to do these types of studies by trial and error with different medicines to get the right treatment.

At the end of the session, I left feeling really good that at least there is hope. She increased my daily medicine and told me that I would have to play around with my different medicines when I actually get a headache to see what works when. Sometimes I will have to take one thing and sometimes another. At least now I have a plan and strategy. She said that I am not allowed to suffer through a full day of a headache anymore. In the past, I would try one thing, imitrix or ibuprofen or tylenol/codeine and if that didn't work, just suffer. She said...no more. If one doesn't work, try something else. The reason my migraines go on for days is the brain is putting out too much of the neurotransmitter and I'm not getting rid of it and so the pain stays around or comes back once the pain meds wear off so the migraine lasts several days or weeks. I have to get the extra neurotransmitters out of there in order for the migraine to go away.

At least it all made sense to me.

I need to try an avoid the triggers that I can stay away from. She ran some blood work and one test came back low so they are going to monitor that in 2 months. She is also going to have my vision tested next week. The last time I went into the eye doctor he told me that when I turned 40 I would wake up one day and have bad vision :) Both my parents wear glasses as does my sister. I've always had perfect vision and wearing sunglasses gives me a migraine so hope my eyes are good!

Now for the discouragement part. I am fighting off the plague around here. Between the mice--mouse count up to 6, and the ants--in every room of the house, to a really bad cold that my daughter brought home from college, I haven't had one minute to do anything I've wanted to do this vacation. I know that everything has a season and this is the season of the plague and the rain will stop and the critters will go back outside where they belong and the cold will run its course, but I'm run down and tired. I THINK I have all of my shopping done for Christmas and if not, there are always the after Christmas sales. I really need to get to JoAnn's for some mats for the Go! cutter, but if not, those can wait too. They are on sale at JoAnn.com so maybe that is my best option right now.

ugh. I really want to go to the Christmas service tomorrow night. Maybe we will just have one at home.