Category Archives: Benedryl

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New Migraine leads to ER Visit

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I will look back at this and one day laugh…in fact all I can do is laugh about it now.  I have already written this post, but had completely forgotten about it.  I spent about a half an hour putting it together….and it was already put together.  Ugh Oh well!  Maybe some of you didn’t see the first post about the New Migraine 😛

The new migraine involves the left side of my neck where there is a great deal of muscle spasming.  On the back of my neck, it feels like a hand is being placed at the base of my skull and the fingers are tenticles of pressure that engulf my head before finding their target behind my left eye where it feels like a dagger.  It may sound dramatic, but this is the pain I felt for 6 days and on the 6th day my classic migraine behind my right eye joined the party.

March 26th: I am guessing that this drastic change in barometric pressure could be why I have been 6898_10153978454741897_7694716924008176830_n (1)down for two days. Such terrible pain and meds are not working. A 0.1 change can result in migraine. This shows a change of 0.66.

March 27th: Parent Fail due to Migraine #126: The kids have no idea it is Easter and that is ok because I was never able to get to the store to get any Easter basket stuff. I feel so terribly guilty, but luckily I was blessed with children who simply go with the flow and are not very aware of time. Maybe next week will be better and I can get to the store and hit the clearance sales so we can celebrate next Saturday or Sunday. I figure as long as we go over the real Easter Story that is the main point and it doesn’t matter when we do that. But the guilt will remain. And back to bed I go. This round of migraines/headaches has been really awful and I even have a new one that I have not experienced before. And to top it off it does not seem to be responding the medications that I have on hand. But I have taken all the meds in combo and am hoping for some lowered pain time to spend with my family later on today.

March 28th: Today is my 5th day in row down with the same migraine. Meds so far haven’t helped. This seems to be different than previous migraines/head pain. I am hearing from others that they are also suffering right now. I just wish the weather would stabilize. I have no other map_tileexplanation than that. At some point I am going to have to go to the ER but it is so damn inconvenient. So if anyone has no plans or kids to take care of who wants to hang out at Sparrow, let me know?

March 29th: I finally decided to go to the ER. My speech was getting increasingly more slurred forgetting words. 6 days straight does not do a body good when it comes to migraine.

Their new triage system is quite nice and efficient.  I never sat down from the moment I walked through the metal detector until I was in a room getting ready to be hooked up to an IV.  I got my wrist band, talked to the first person to tell briefly why I was there, then off to explain further and make sure all of my info and medications were up to date in their system.  In that same room I met with a triage Dr. where she came up with a plan which was put into the system.  I then went to get my blood drawn and give a urine sample.  I didn’t even have time to put my name on the sticker and they were whisking me to my room where a nurse came in quickly and started the IV.  My veins don’t like to cooperate, but today the woman drawing my blood got it on first try and the woman putting the IV in only took two tries.

The first round of meds is the migraine cocktail and for me that is generally; Toradol, Benedryl and Zofran.  It didn’t work of course (I had already tried that at home, but they have to try).  Then they came back with Haldol (which made me want to crawl out of my skin, it was terrible) and Pepcid.  It finally knocked me out but the migraine remained ever so present when I awoke.  They were debating on admitting me at that point, but after a consultation from the hospitalist on call they decided to try Nubain and guess what it worked.  I has yet to fail me in these terrible, long term migraine cycles.  They let me lay for quite a while and once the narcotic effects wore off the migraine was gone.

Dan had taken the kids home earlier in the evening because each one of these medicine cycles takes time to take effect.  So I called him at 1:00 am and gathered up the kids and came and picked me up.  I love that my kids are so malleable…they just go with the flow no matter the situation (well most of the time anyway.

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How can I forget so easily?

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Even though I have found that prednisone works like a miracle drug for me and takes away my migraines and headaches for the number of days, the aftermath is not so much fun.  It is as if the week of freedom makes me completely forget about what it’s like to have migraines, what the symptoms are leading up to the migraine, what happens to me during the migraine and especially the day following the migraine.  This week came as if it was a complete surprise to me.  Every time I have gone on prednisone I have had a really bad week following, so should have known, but it was nowhere in my memory as I drudged through the week.IMG_7959

Luckily I had enough medication to get me through Monday, which was spent all day in the Pediatric ER at Sparrow.  8 hours of sitting, waiting, trying to make Gideon comfortable, dealing with fever, puking, pain.  It was a good reminder of what my friends and family have done for me over the past year.  And I was very thankful that my migraine had not returned yet.  But it was the last day of the prednisone…so now I just had to wait for the head pain and migraine to come again.
12742637_1745763652304281_8267423894534451792_nI didn’t have to wait long.  Tuesday morning I awoke with the beginnings of a migraine and the regular head pain had returned.  By the end of the day the migraine had kicked in full gear, so I took a triptan, which helped me get through the day…but I was woken up at various points in the night with the pain and then remained in bed all of Wed and Thurs. The pain was almost unbearable at times.  This happens when both the migraine and the new daily persistent headache are both competing for top spot on my pain scale.  I got a lot of use out of my IceKap and I even brought out the eye patch I bough in case it might help with the severe light sensitivity I get during the bad migraines.  I spent a good deal of time sleeping, but I also watched a good deal of NCIS on my right side with my right eye close and one ear plug in my left ear.  This minimized sound, brightness and business and allows me to block out the pain for periods of time.  This migraine also brought on a great deal of jaw pain and so I pulled out my bite guard…it was as if I had to pull everything out of my aresanol to deal with this big whopping migraine.

I had already decided I would take meds on Friday morning to help with the pain if it remained and it did.  So I took my migraine cocktail (Toradol, Zofran and Benedryl) and a triptan for good measure and went back to sleep for 4 more hours.  The rest of the day I thought I was feeling drugged and then remembered the postdrome symptoms and I was smack dab in the middle of them.  How could one week of relief make me forget how all of this works.

When I woke up Saturday (today) I felt great and I took Gideon to swim, went to CVS and to QD to get our after swim donuts (and milk and orange juice).  When I got home I asked if everyone wanted to go into town later because I was feeling great, but I just needed a nap).  Again how could I forget what 4 days of solitude, tucked away in my dark and quiet room does to me…It makes me fatigue easily and makes dealing with chaotic situations not so well.  But I had forgotten all of that and we headed into town.  After doing a return at Kohl’s and doing some shopping, I was whipped and couldn’t figure out why.  By the time we left the store I was so irritable because the boys were being boys (not even being bad, just noisy and busy: chaotic).  We had planned on going out to eat and just going inside the restaurant kicked up my anxiety a notch that when I came back to the car I had to put ear plugs in and ended up having to keep them in the entire evening.  By the time we were done eating, there was no way I was going to be able to go grocery shopping too.  How could I forget all of this during a one week of reprieve??  It is beyond me!  But thankfully I am on the flip side of that migraine and I will take it easy tomorrow in the hopes that it will keep another migraine from coming on so quickly as it tends to do these days.

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Not posting for days can mean…..

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2/10/2016

  1. That I have been completely down with Migraines and just can’t get to my computer to post anything

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2. I have not had a single migraine and I have been busy doing things like laundry, packing for a trip, running errands and taking care of a sick kid.

Luckily for me and my family I had a nice long stretch without a migraine…6 whole days!  This was the longest stretch I have had without pain medication, nerve blocks, facet blocks, etc. and no migraine.  The daily head pain was there the entire time, but at a very low level and there were even periods of time where I didn’t even notice the headache.  I felt very fortunate that I was able to be with Gideon during his week off of school (even though my increase in meds made me incredible tired).  Luckily Gideon loves to just hang out and watch cartoons and YouTube videos.  If we weren’t running errands, we were hanging out in bed watching videos.  Gideon was finally feeling better by the end of the week and went back to school on Monday…I think we were both ready for that!  With the addition of Flexeril as a nightly preventative med and increasing my Robaxon (both muscle relaxers) I slept a lot this week.  But when I was awake, I had huge bursts of energy and was able to do laundry and pack bit by bit for our trip to FL.

My migraine free days came to an end last night.  And when it came to an end, it resulted in 0-5, full blown migraine in the matter of about 10 minutes.  The only triggers that I can think of was talking on the phone and computer time balancing my checkbook.  At any rate I went straight to bed. I woke up at 3:30 am and the migraine was still raging, but I didn’t want to take any medication if I could get back to sleep.  So I put my IceKap on with nice cool gel packs and was able to fall asleep, waking up on and off, for 2 more hours.  When I woke at 5:30 am I couldn’t handle the pain anymore, so I tried Imitrex first because I was suffering from both the classic migraine (stabbing pain over the eye) and the tension migraine (Pressure and swelling around my entire head).  Imitrex barely touched it, so after a half an hour, I changed out my gel packs for cool ones, and did my morning medications plus the migraine cocktail (Toradolx2, benedrylx2 and Robaxonx2 was already part of my morning meds).  An hour later, the migraine was completely gone and I was able to complete all of my tasks that I needed to accomplish today; safety recalls taken care of my van (and we got 2 bran new key fobs…so exciting), shopping and lunch with my friend Mindy and one of the longest oil changes ever, but at least the car is all set for the big trip tomorrow.

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And now that we are pretty much packed, with the exception of the last minute stuff, I could use lots of prayers as we travel 15 hours.  Just hoping and praying for low to no head pain…but I packed my arsenal of abortive meds if I do end up with one…so I feel prepared.  We pick the boys up after school and head straight out!  We are all pretty excited!!  Just a quick picture to leave you with from our last trip to Destin, Fl…such a beautiful place!  I can’t wait to go for a walk along the beach 😉

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1 year anniversary of the first day of my everlasting migraine/headache

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1/23/16 It only seems fitting that I am back in the ER exactly one year from the day the migraine began. One year of so much craziness, so many Dr visits, so many missed events, so many….

But also I am thankful for new friends, thankful tha I now have an  understanding of Chronic illness and living with chronic illness. I am also very thankful for health insurance because even though out of pocket I pay $845 a month and max out of pocket of $3000 at least I didn’t have to pay the hospital/Doctor bills that added up to over $300,000 last year.  I am so thankful for the family and friends who have supported my family and myself over the past year.

On my way to the ER after battling a 112hr migraine.  I just couldn’t handle the pain anymore and decided it was time to go in.

Waiting for the doctor at the ER.  It was one of the best ER visits that I have had in regards to a migraine.  She looked back at my chart and saw that Nubain was an effective narcotic for when the migraine cycle couldn’t be broken with Toradol, Benedryl and Robaxon.  I also told her that starting an IV was extremely difficult and if I could avoid it, that would be great.

Thankfully she really listened to me and did not insist on starting an IV or taking blood.  Instead she offered me a Nubain shot and when that took effect I was able to go home feeling so much better.  This is a picture of me after the shot of Nubain, kind of a goofy grin, but that is exactly how I was feeling 🙂

Me waiting for my family because they didn’t get any of my texts.  And although I am slightly annoyed I am so thankful for the relief.

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Familial Tremors and 72 hr Migraine

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Sherry Dunne Weaver, Aunt Merry Dunne Blades, and  Teresa Blades Jagielski, you guys will get a kick out of this.

Last night at dinner Gideon looked over at me and said “you are shaking just like Grandma” and then he demonstrated by shaking his spoon as he took his next bite. Unbelievable that a 4 year old would notice that. I’ve always had slight tremors called familial tremors but my meds have intensified them so that even if I am standing in one place to long my butt shakes :).

Familial tremor is an involuntary shaking movement that tends to run in families. Involuntary means you shake without trying to do so.

Sherry Dunne Weaver: Love this!! Josiah probably never notices!!
Heather Loose Johnson: Nope he had no idea what Gideon was talking about. Such different personalities wink emoticon
Merry Dunne Blades: Oh Gideon you are so observant. Plus he must have a good memory since he was pretty little when Grama passed. Uncle Gary has the tremors really bad and I am sure it has to do with all the meds he takes but the Dr says No. Not sure the Drs know everything.  Heather, I just realized Gideon was talking about your Mom. I just don’t think of her as a Grama !!! HaHa
Teresa Blades Jagielski: people that don’t know me often say why are you shaking, did you drink too much coffee? If only it was that simple.
Today my morning was pretty pain free, but as the day went on the pain progressed quite quickly.  A friend came over for lunch and we chatted and chatted.  Which unfortunately is one of my main triggers.  But sometimes, talking with friends trumps the fear of the migraine (that is until the migraine hits and hits hard).  The pain that followed that night was unbelievable in my forehead and throughout my entire head.  I ended up taking Toradol, Benedryl and Zofran (the migraine cocktail) in order to sleep.
The migraine continued into the next day, Saturday, and I was in bed all day, but had great difficulty falling asleep due to the pain.  The pain settled behind my right eye and lasted into Sunday morning with the same pain between my eyes and especially behind my right eye.
This migraine continues to follow the 72 hour migraine, the end of the day on Sunday I was just feeling groggy and in a fog which I learn out much later is called a migraine hangover.
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