So saith the doctor, at any rate. He found the burnt toast smell interesting and asked if I'd ever had an MRI. I confessed my deep clausterphobia and my inability to even get near so much as an open MRI, even with medication, and he didn't push it. I might have fallen a little in love with him just for that. He said we could do a C/T if it came down to it but he'd like to hold off. Yay for that! There was discussion of how burnt toast could be indicative of siezures (ack!) but since I am cogent (just miserable) during my headaches and Topamax is an anti-convulsant, he feels that is extremely unlikey. WHEW!
What he did suggest was this: upping my dosage of Topamax and adding a few other meds. I'm on kind of a low dose of the T. at only 50 mg. a day. Turns out the max is significantly more (500 mg./day) and he feels there is plenty of room to work with. Of course, the more I take, the spacier I will become so we are trying to keep it within reason. I'll try taking 75 mg. at bedtime and if that really leaves me in orbit, I'll climb back down and we'll see what else we can do. The good news is I should lose a few more pounds with the increased dosage. I can't be unhappy about that!
He gave me four or five samples of as-needed medication to try when the headaches come. Whichever works best will be what we go with. Lucky Penny did warn that there may be some unpleasant side effects to some of the meds he gave me. He told me that if the side effects lasted only ten minutes or so then I would need to make a decision about what was worse, the headaches or the side effects. What happened with the Immitrex lasted a full 12 hours; if these side effects will last only ten minutes but work to clear my migraines, I'll take it. I'd rather be down for ten minutes or an hour than a whole day.
He also gave me an anti-nausea medication to help manage the symptoms of the migraine. I tend to become freezing cold when I have a headache, no matter what the temperature outside, and the doctor told me today that this is because my blood pressure becomes very low. He suggested I drink lots of fluids. The anti-nausea meds should help make that possible.
I'm to try all this for six weeks and then come back for a re-evaluation. I'm really hopeful that I'll find the answer in one or more of these drugs. I've taken the anti-nausea med before and I know it works really well so that alone makes me feel like I've finally got a safetly net. The others, well, I'll wait and see. But I really think it's going to be okay.
(And the nurse I saw told me they would only take Sarge's lisence for three months, not six. So WAHOO! for that!)
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Off to see the neurologist
The doctor's last name is Penny. Do you think it's okay if I ask him "Penny for your thoughts?" at the end of the appointment?
Tell you all about it when I get back.
Tell you all about it when I get back.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Happy 30th Birthday to me!
This guy is the best thing about my birthday:
And even though he's teething AGAIN and has an earache AGAIN and won't sleep and I am a year older and starting a WHOLE NEW DECADE...this year's birthday beats the last five years worth of birthdays combined. Love you, little man.
And even though he's teething AGAIN and has an earache AGAIN and won't sleep and I am a year older and starting a WHOLE NEW DECADE...this year's birthday beats the last five years worth of birthdays combined. Love you, little man.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Today
Today I woke up with a migraine and my knight in a waffle weave long sleeve t-shirt came to my rescue.
I felt it coming last night--the tension that creeps up my shoulders, the slight visual distortion that makes me feel like I'm working too hard to see. I tried to head it off at the pass by going to bed at 8:45 but I woke up at 4 AM, head slamming. I staggered to the bathroom and took some tylenol and ibuprofen, drank as much water as I could without throwing up and staggered back to bed, praying that it would all take effect by 6:00, which is when my day starts. No such luck.
My wonderful husband does the night shift, you see. I go to bed at 9:30 and he wakes Sam up at 11 for a bottle and then gets up with him at 4 or 5:30, whenever he wakes up again and decides he's hungry. If Sam wakes up every hour in the middle of the night, it's Jeff who gets him, leaving me to sleep peacefully. So when 6 AM comes, Sam is all mine and I think that's fair. We have a whiteboard out in the hallway on which we write notes, to let each other know what's happened in the night. This is what I woke up to this morning, squinting to see out of my one working eye:
See how great he is? (The last line was added later in the day.)
I told this awesome man how terrible I was feeling and being familiar with my headaches, he at once told me to go back to bed. "Are you sure?" I asked, feeling horribly guilty. I knew I couldn't hold Sam, that I'd drop him, but I felt like I should be doing SOMETHING. "Go!" he said. "I've got it." I went. I took some more drugs, drank some more water and I went.
And that's kind of how it went all day long. I had to vote, so I couldn't stay in bed all day and I HAD to go grocery shopping because we had no food in the house. Jeff even offered to take the list AND SAM and go to the store for me but that would have been far too much. I bulled through it, came home and collapsed again and once again Jeff took care of everything. He hauled the groceries in from the car for me (I still couldn't lift anything without going dizzy and nauseous; thank goodness the commissary carries out for everyone) and he chased me back to bed. He fed Sam, played with him, changed a diaper so nasty it made him barf, did everything.
And I know that it wasn't a chore because that is just who he is. He loves being a father and he loves being my husband. And I? Love, love, love being married to this incredible man. He is all mine and I could not be happier!
I felt it coming last night--the tension that creeps up my shoulders, the slight visual distortion that makes me feel like I'm working too hard to see. I tried to head it off at the pass by going to bed at 8:45 but I woke up at 4 AM, head slamming. I staggered to the bathroom and took some tylenol and ibuprofen, drank as much water as I could without throwing up and staggered back to bed, praying that it would all take effect by 6:00, which is when my day starts. No such luck.
My wonderful husband does the night shift, you see. I go to bed at 9:30 and he wakes Sam up at 11 for a bottle and then gets up with him at 4 or 5:30, whenever he wakes up again and decides he's hungry. If Sam wakes up every hour in the middle of the night, it's Jeff who gets him, leaving me to sleep peacefully. So when 6 AM comes, Sam is all mine and I think that's fair. We have a whiteboard out in the hallway on which we write notes, to let each other know what's happened in the night. This is what I woke up to this morning, squinting to see out of my one working eye:
See how great he is? (The last line was added later in the day.)
I told this awesome man how terrible I was feeling and being familiar with my headaches, he at once told me to go back to bed. "Are you sure?" I asked, feeling horribly guilty. I knew I couldn't hold Sam, that I'd drop him, but I felt like I should be doing SOMETHING. "Go!" he said. "I've got it." I went. I took some more drugs, drank some more water and I went.
And that's kind of how it went all day long. I had to vote, so I couldn't stay in bed all day and I HAD to go grocery shopping because we had no food in the house. Jeff even offered to take the list AND SAM and go to the store for me but that would have been far too much. I bulled through it, came home and collapsed again and once again Jeff took care of everything. He hauled the groceries in from the car for me (I still couldn't lift anything without going dizzy and nauseous; thank goodness the commissary carries out for everyone) and he chased me back to bed. He fed Sam, played with him, changed a diaper so nasty it made him barf, did everything.
And I know that it wasn't a chore because that is just who he is. He loves being a father and he loves being my husband. And I? Love, love, love being married to this incredible man. He is all mine and I could not be happier!
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