Pain

I am in the middle of a migraine saga. I have had migraines for as long as I can remember. Recently I have just about had my fill of ruined events because a migraine hits on a day that I have looked forward to meaning I miss the fun stuff - New Years Eve .... missed it; Mayoral Ball ... missed it; my cousins wedding ... missed it; a long awaited day off ... missed it. And in February I had a three day migraine that just about finished me off - I got pretty low then. So, I have been keeping diaries with symptoms and triggers etc to try to get a better understanding of what causes the migraines, how to avoid them, how to manage them when they hit. The triggers are quite complex and can't always be avoided though so it is not a straight forward thing to manage.

As well as the diary I have been to see the GP (I know, following my own advice, who'd have thought it?!). Firstly we started me on beta-blockers which were wonderful in that I didn't have a migraine while I was taking them. However, I didn't feel great and I ended up with a heart rate of 38!! And climbing 2 flights of stairs had me out of breath and having to stop for a rest. Now I may not be the fittest person in the gym but I can usually manage more than that! Even after reducing the dose to the lowest possible amount (they had to order them in specially cos they don't carry that small a dose as stock) I still couldn't manage more than 3 minutes on the cross trainer and at rest my heart rate never quite made it as high as 60! Still, it did keep the gym instructor on his toes...

So beta-blockers aren't for me. It took a while to get back to the GP but eventually I managed it (after missing 2 days of work and getting a parking ticket for not being able to get out of bed and move my car). We are starting another tablet to see if we can prevent migraine attacks, or at least to reduce the frequency and severity of attacks. It has been 4 days now and so far so good.

That isn't all the pain this week though. I was woken up in the early hours of Saturday morning with agonising pain in my left wrist. It had been a bit achey recently what with increasing training and weights and going cycling etc but man it was bad when it woke me up. I couldn't move my wrist, even to lift it up. It was swollen to twice its normal size too. After a broken night of being woken up crying with pain I managed to get some ice on it, some anti-inflammatories into me, and Dave went to get me tubigrip to help support it. He wanted to take me to hospital but I couldn't face the extra pain of being examined by a worn out doctor in A&E so I refused to go. Saturday was spent in a haze of pain. I have continued the treatment and it is on the mend now but boy, oh boy, it hurt so much.

And on a different note, I learnt a new word today: meshugana which I may adopt as my tagline as it means 'a crazy person'.