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New Migraine leads to ER Visit

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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Big Day

6/15/2015 Monday’s are great!  I went to McDonalds (and not in the play room) to relax alone while waiting for a script to be filled. After a crazy and emotional week last week it feels wonderful to be alone and peaceful.

June 15th meme 2

Since I was feeling well all morning I went off to Walmart to do some shopping.  I was doing well but then fatigue hit, so I had to sit in the shoe dept and rest.  Fatigue is a pain in the butt.  Just when I think I am getting ahead, then I am knocked back down.

Then Gideon and I had dentist appointments tonight.  Gideon was really excited about first dental visit and he did awesome.  I was feeling nothing but anxiety about the sounds and pain I would likely feel so I did a Toradol shot in the dentists office.  By the end I was exhausted and ready to go home and to bed.

Tuesday: The following day I spent the day in bed resting and recovering from the Big Day on Monday.  I slept for 14 hours and when I did wake I had bad blurred vision and double vision.

Wednesday: Another bad head pain day.  In bed again all day.  I finally tried Imitrex and the side effects were awful.  Within about 10 minutes of taking the medication my head started to constrict…which sucks when your head already hurts.  Even though there were terrible side effects, at least it reduced the head pain.  But not likely to take it again.

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MHNI Apt #2

I called into the dr yesterday with the worsening vision and jaw pain and some word loss. So I met with my neurologist today. After going over all my meds and making a few adjustments we discussed what over the past 3 months had given me any relief. My only response was the narcotic Nubain that they allowed me to take for some relief. It took the pain completely away for about 7 hours.

And then talked about the trigger point that the physical therapist found and sprayed Ethyl Chloride on and the headache went completely away for a short time but reduced for several hours.

So he decided to do a nerve block in those trigger points the headache went completely away as long as the lidocaine wore off it started to get worse but has eased up again this evening.

But my friends and family, we might be getting closer to root cause behind the headache and it is a nerve issue. Next step is to monitor how the steroids are doing and do another nerve block at my temples/trigger points in a month. If that works they will discuss and attempt to kill the nerve to hopefully get full or at least some relief. They would just have to get the right nerve. But it would resolve the jaw pain blurred vision and headache as I understand it. This might be to much to believe in but for today I have hope. And for that, today I am grateful.

Meds: He is slowly ‘ up the dose of Lyrica to see if I can get more of a full effect.  Stopped the Norflex as an abortive and made it into a preventative every day medication.and added Zanaflex as an abortive.  Also recommended B12 shots.

Comments from FB:

Shanon Smith: Great news. Will continue to pray for you!
Michelle Govitz: Great news! Still praying each day
Joy DeSimpelaere: Prayers they find it soon!
Shannen Rowe Dubose: Excellent news.
Kristen Long: That is good news Heather. Glad to hear you had some relief and forward progress is being made
Natara Loose: Are they 100% sure it’s not MS? Since it runs in our family? I take it you already got an MRI and CT SCAN and spinal fluid analysis? Just looking out for you cuz
Dawn Tomlin: This is a hopeful break through! All in Gods timing!! I will continue to pray for the smallest things and relief!!!
Heather Loose Johnson: Yep they did all those tests plus like 50 others it felt like. I let them know I had MS in my history. There were some spots on my MRI but they were pretty certain the spots were caused by the headache/migraine. I will have a follow up MRI in 4 months to be sure because there was a slight chance it was autoimmune. So they are keeping an eye on that.
Heather Loose Johnson: Two of the spinal taps lead to spinal headaches both times that lead to a total of 3 blood patches. Sucky. But I will bring it up again. The clinic treating me had not yet received the scans. Good reminder I need to call the hospital to get a move on the medical records. My mind pretty much sucks.
John SilverstoneAt least it sound like there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Still Praying