Living with Migraines

I made it through the car travels both ways without much trouble at all.  Mild headache Thursday afternoon/evening but absolutely bearable.  During the holiday weekend I tried to get fairly regular and ample sleep, and I was careful not to overindulge too much in either food or drink.  I had some wine, including red wine, but kept it to a small glass and didn’t seem to suffer for it.

Yesterday, getting back to work was alright.  This afternoon some of the tension is starting to creep back into my shoulders and neck, so I’m trying to be mindful of that and do what I can to ease it away.  I’m going to make some tea to take with me while I wait for my daughter at ballet.

I think I drank too much coffee with too little breakfast yesterday - I found myself jittery during my second class.  That rarely happens when I drink coffee, so I was more careful today to have more of a breakfast and less coffee.  I hate eating breakfast so early in the morning, so it’s all I can do to make myself eat something most mornings.  I’d much rather eat around 8:30 a.m. or so, but that isn’t really feasible at work.  I try to keep my coffee to 1-2 large mugs each morning, with no caffeine after lunch.  It doesn’t always work out that way, but I usually stick to it.

We’re heading into a four-day weekend, and I’m looking forward to it.  I’m trying to treat it as a mini-vacation and am planning on doing no work at all the whole weekend (I didn’t bring any home).  I stayed up way too late last night - well past midnight - so only got about 5-6 hours of sleep.  That isn’t a good move on my part, and I’m hoping to sleep well tonight and sleep in just a little bit, too.  Tomorrow’s the drive out to see my family and I’ll make sure we stop at least once to stretch our legs.  Too long a ride in the car without any stretch breaks makes me achy.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  I hope you all have good weekends and take time to reflect on all you’re thankful for.  I will be doing the same as I enjoy time with my family.

It’s late in the afternoon and I think I’m finally past this latest headache.  I’m grateful that it broke relatively quickly.  I spent about four hours curled up on the couch yesterday, trying to block out the light and not move at all, and when I got up again after a brief nap things seemed mildly improved.  I still had the headache this morning when I woke up but now, around 4 p.m it seems to be abating.  I’ve taken it very easy today.  I watched a video, did some knitting, caught up on my own posting on the message boards here and tried to just chill out.  DD’s playing with a friend this afternoon which means the house is relatively quiet and DH and I are free to do our own thing at our own pace.  I spent the last twenty minutes or so catching up on bills and record keeping, which helps keep my mind at peace as far as the finances go.

I’m so glad for a short week this week.

Late last night I felt a twinge of a migraine starting but figured a good night’s sleep would take care of it.  Wrong.  I woke up feeling miserable and missed out on a clean-up I was to go to along with a birthday party for friends’ little boy.  One of the other guests mentioned to DH that I’d missed last year’s party as well, due to a migraine.  I’m feeling a little better this afternoon - it’s tolerable, though still painful.  We’re supposed to go out to dinner with friends this evening, and I think I’ll be able to make it.  But I don’t know what kind of company I’ll be.

It’s all due to stress, I think, this time around.

It’s been a pretty good week since my last post.  Lately however I haven’t been sleeping very well, and I’m worried that eventually it’s going to catch up with me both in terms of how I feel physically and how I cope with day to day stress.  I took 3 mg of melatonin nightly for a while and found that it helped me sleep more soundly (as well as fall asleep more easily) so I think I may go back to using that for the time being.

I am ready for a couple of days off and am looking forward to Thanksgiving.  The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the 3.5-4 hour drive each way that we’ll be doing to go visit family.  Sitting in the car for too long is no fun.

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty touch and go day.  A migraine started coming on Monday night, got worse while I slept (and woke, and slept, and woke) and was pretty bad Tuesday morning.  I debated going to work and decided to try and get through the morning, which I’m glad to report I was able to do.  I felt 100% better this morning, and the headache never went all the way to 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, so even the bad ones don’t seem to be getting as bad.  In times of pain, that is still something to be grateful for.

It truly amazes me  that I’ve gone as long as I have without a major migraine episode.  My period started today which means the last 3-5 days were prime days for a migraine.  I wouldn’t say I was feeling 100% great (I rarely so) but I escaped unscathed.  Something’s different.  Something’s changed.   I wrote about it in my last entry, I think.  I’m so grateful to have had so many days in a row without the vomiting, without the pounding and debilitating pain.

It’s Sunday morning, and I continue to be amazed that *knock on wood* I feel OK!  What is different?  Sometimes I wonder if this break in my usual cycle has anything to do with the acupuncture and homeopathy I tried over the summer.  I’m a skeptic, but it’s hard to ignore the change in the pattern of my migraines.  Of course, it could be the subtle changes in my diet, or that I spend most of my days in a different climate (the city I work in is far enough inland to have different weather patterns than my home, oddly enough).  I wish I knew for sure, but whatever the reason I’m grateful for any reprieves I’ve been getting.  I haven’t been pain-free, but I’ve yet to have a day since August where I was completely debilitated by pain.  That is really saying something, as usually there are 1-3 days a month minimum where that happens.