Saturday, April 29, 2017

Finally a much needed break

For the past seven years, I've pretty much had a moderate headache to full blown migraine almost everyday.
 I was classified as a 'chronic migraineur'. It's amazing what one can do with a headache everyday.  When I look back, it's pretty amazing all the things I was able to accomplish with that millstone around my neck.
I was seen by many, many doctors, all trying their very best to help me. Many injections of Botox for migraines, injections for my eye problem thinking that it was a migraine from my eye problem. ( I fully believed it was  trochleitis with a trochlear migraine ) I had a septoplasty in hopes of fixing my migraines...  No avail. I even considered disability but that is not an easy process that's for sure! . I've tried every med I think until nope, one more med, and when that failed doctors would try another. It's amazing I don't need a kidney or liver transplant.  It's amazing I still have friends, still married.
Migraines bring a whole slew of their own need for meds.  You need triptans to try and abort a migraine. You need an endless supply of ibuprofen, muscle relaxers, meclazine for vertigo and can I say I'd  like to put stock in the company that invented zofran. Zofran, hands down, is a lifesaver. Well, that and the two narcotics that saved me 90% of the time when nothing else would help.  They too had a fail rate of maybe 10%. I went through a 3.5 week pain rehab course at mayo two years ago.
With chronic pain and 'attacks of pain' at that, you develop anxiety over pain wondering when it will hit, how long will it  last, what meds to take ,  will they even work? I then needed meds for anxiety along with a rare to find pain psychologist.
Many people in this country are up in arms over the failure of health care. I must admit, I know full well the limitations involved. I'm not even allowed this year to go to Mayo Clinic which is only 3 hours from me and one of the best in the country if not the world . Plus they were my doctors for 8 years. Yet I could no longer even purchase a health plan that allowed me to go there. That's  mostly okay, lets face it, I had exhausted all angles of the Mayo Clinic. Now I had to find new doctors.
I chose the one health plan that allowed me to at least keep my primary doctor. ( there was only one plan and I almost missed that boat too)  My primary took it upon himself to find me a new neurologist. This new neurologist in MSP had a whole new take. He threw out everything that had been done at Mayo. He said most nuerologist missed the most basic trigger. He felt the first year when I just had the eye pain, I must have been holding myself in such a way it triggered muscle tension.  So he went about treating the muscle tension. His ideas had few side effects. So I didn't see the harm.  He did five injections in the back of my head in the occipital area. Then started me on a med called Tizanidine. It's an antispasmodic. I was to get up to 16 mg a night as fast as possible. It had one key side effect.... near death.  Well, if you call extremely low blood pressure and your heart beating at  40 beats per minute near death. It caused frequent bradycardia and then what I imagine was a rebound tachycardia. But after about 8 weeks of the new med plus an amazing PT person the neuorologist made me see one hour from my home. ( I did see a brief break day 10-20 after the occipital injections) anyway, I had 4.5 weeks with out even a headache but certainly not one migraine. It's quite liberating. I never thought I'd see the day.  This past 10 days I did have 1 migraine and two strong headaches. I was a little discouraged but I still feel like maybe the migraines are really behind me.  I never thought I'd see the day. I do still have eye pain. But to not have this chronic migraine? Priceless.