Category Archives: Migraine Cocktail

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New Migraine

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March 26th I am guessing that this drastic change in barometric pressure could be why I have been 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.  And the pain is new.  It feels like someone has their hand at the base of my skull and their fingers are like tentacles of pain radiating up and over my head to my forehead.  The majority of the pain begins in my neck on my left side, at the top of my head where it is sensitive to the touch and has stabbing pains and behind my left eye.

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 explanation 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: Finally decided to go in to the ER. My speech was getting increasingly more slurred and I was having trouble finding words words. 6 days straight does not do a body good when it comes to migraine.

I have to admit that the service at Sparrow ER was pretty amazing, fast and very smooth.  I got there and got my bracelet.  I immediately went to the next person to tell them why I was there, and was called directly to give a more detailed account of what was going on and at that point I met with an ER physician where they came up with a plan.  From there I went on to get my blood drawn and urine sample.  Before I could even finish filling out the sticker I was taken to a room.  Within minutes a nurse was there getting an IV started.  It was nuts!  And awesome!  They tried the migraine cocktail (Toradol, Benedryl and Zofran) which didn’t do anything.  Then they tried Haldol and pepsid.  Haldol is a drug that I need to put on my “never take this drug again” list.  I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and then passed out.  Still no relief.  After a consultation with a hospitalist to determine whether to admit me or try a Nubain shot and they went with Nubain and it worked like it always works.  I am heading home with a prednisone pack (which I plan on saving for a trip where I could really use it.  In fact I have felt pretty good since that ER visit and really didn’t need the prednisone pack.

1:30am Home again home again!! I feel so much better. Hoping that I wake feeling refreshed a little bit anyway. The boys did great. He took them home and put them to bed at regular bed time. Then when I called he woke the boys long enough to get to the car and went right back to sleep. Kids are so great like that!! Thanks for the prayers.

 

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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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Weather and migraines don’t mix

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This whole weather changing thing has got to stop. At least the drastic changes. I woke with a migraine so disabling that I could barely handle the pain. Dan took the kids to the bus stop and I went back to sleep only to wake up to excruciating pain. So I brought out my Arsenal of abortive meds and took them all. I took the one that has been working for migraine first but 30 minutes later nothing changed. Then I took benedryl to hopefully go back to sleep and waited and put my IceKap on but nothing was helping. I finally brought out the big guns: 2 doses of Toradol and I was relaxed enough to fall asleep in about 15 minutes and slept until now. The excruciating pain is definitely gone, PTL, I just feel groggy with moderate level pain which I am so grateful for. Hey at least I finished and filed my taxes last night; maybe that was the cause of the migraine 😜. And thankfully I had planned today as a day of rest. So I will continue to rest and pray that when the meds where off the migraine does not return.

Of course this migraine lasted 72 hours followed by a day of disabling fatigue and dull head pain.  The 2nd day I just tried to sleep as much as I could to deal with the pain, using medicine alternatives like the icekap and heated ricebags.  However by the 3rd day I couldn’t take it anymore, so I took abortive meds again. Fortunately the meds take the severe pain away but unfortunately they leave me very dysfunctional and sleeping most of the day, then I couldn’t sleep at night, so I slept most of the day today (migraine hangover day).  The past 3 weeks have looked exactly like this and I am just getting frustrated.  Yes, there are meds out there that take the pain away, but they don’t make me functional.  So I am starting to consider a 2nd opinion.

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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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Vacation with Migraine

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I took a nice long break from my blog while I was on vacation in Florida.  Mostly because the beginning of the vacation was dealing with head pain and migraines and fatigue that I never got on my computer and the second half of the vacation was spent keeping my little man, Gideon, comfortable because he became sick on Tuesday (the day I finally got medicine that would allow me to have more energy and less head pain, prednisone).  All in all we did make lots and lots of fun memories and have so many pictures of course that I am sure we will look back on this vacation with many happy memories.

Then we got home late Sunday night got the car unloaded, unwound and went to bed.  Monday I spent the entire day in the ER with Gideon…luckily his fever broke and he is doing much better, but he has been home with me all week.  Now it is looking like both boys will be home tomorrow and maybe Friday for a snow day.  Guess I am going to have to wait until next week to truly unwind.

The one thing I have to say about vacation with migraine is not as I expected.  I think I was expecting to go on vacation and everything would be great…a vacation from migraine because I said so…but it was not so.  So “My Family’s New Normal” keeps taking shape.  Everything was so much better when I fought to get a script for prednisone though…I was finally able to have the vacation from migraine and life 🙂  It was also very well timed so that I could take care of Gideon as well.

In the days to come I will write a few posts about my vacation and post a few pics!  But I am looking forward to having things wind down here at home.  Unfortunately with a winter storm comes more head pain.  Migraine started as soon as I awoke this morning.  Might be a long rest of the week and weekend!

That’s all for now folks!

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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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Hugs make everything better!

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1/23/16 Friday night I had a very brief period of relief from the Migraine cocktail.  I was able to get up and eat and I even got some snuggles and hugs from my two little boys.  Love my boys!!!

1/24/16 Tonight after a shot of Nubain, I was feeling even better.  Gideon just came out, walking in his sleep, and climbed right up into my lap and fell right back to sleep and I just let him snuggle right up.  It was a little piece of heaven having my baby snuggle like when he was little.

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A Lazy Saturday at Home

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The only activity that happened all day was Gideon’s swim lesson.  We had a really good talk about listening to Mr. Marty and watching and listening.  He did really great today…so proud and so excited to watch him progress!

All three boys took turns playing a new computer game called: Slime Rancher.  They all enjoyed it, but since Josiah had watched 28 YouTube videos he knew the most about it.  Even Gideon caught on with Josiah’s guidance quite quickly.

We watched all three movies: Inside Out, Pixels and most of Jurassic World  Thanks to Redbox we got the third movie for $1.00 and then I signed up for the email so my next movie rental is free!

I spent the day blogging.  I hit my 100th blog post today and have posted from January through April 30th.  Starting on May next and I want to make sure I don’t forget to post the current days so I don’t have to go back and try to remember what happened or rely on my headache journal or FB.  I can kill two birds with one stone  with posting my update on my blog and being able to share it on FB!

Love, love, love this picture of Dan and Gideon!  We were all on our electronics and watching movies for almost the entire day.  But I especially love that Gideon is wearing his party shirt and his under wear 🙂  After our Anniversary celebration last night, he decided he was going to have a birthday party for himself and that I was to call Douglas, Chase, Lakelan and Alyssa.  I asked for their phone numbers which then turned into him learning my phone number for emergencies…but no party!  I don’t think he understood in the end still why we couldn’t just invite them over today.  Oh well!  We have a plan to get some parents to give us a call to have a play date 🙂

I am so glad that I took the migraine cocktail yesterday, both so I could have a good anniversary evening, but it also stopped the cycle of the migraine, so that I could enjoy my Saturday at home with my family.  And even though I stayed up until 4:30 am last night I was up by 9:00 am today and never took a nap…the true sign of a good day.   It was only in the last hour or so that my eyes started to be strained and I felt some tension taking hold at my temples, but then I remembered the alarm going off for my 3:00 pm for my scheduled muscle relaxer, turning it off and never getting up to take the med.  So I just took the Robaxon and did a little Ethyl Chloride spray just so I can finish up this post 🙂  Priorities!!!

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The reality of Life with Chronic_______

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I have had 2 1/2 days without migraine pain since January 1st. So for 13 out of the past 15 days, this is what I look like…


I have showered 3 times in those 2 weeks, brushed my teeth a few time (brushing hair or teeth causes more pain than I am willing to allow on top of the migraine pain).  I change my underwear if I remember and never wear a bra.   This is my reality!!!  And the reality for many others who suffer from Chronic Illness.

But today is our 16th Wedding Anniversary and I was having nothing to do with it, I am so over the pain. So I called my doctor and asked if I could take the migraine cocktail at home even though I have used the meds as much as I should this week. He gave me the go ahead. After about a half an hour the pain is much reduced and I am determined to enjoy our night.

Me after the migraine cocktail….


And so now we can go celebrate. Plus all my boys brought me home a new plant. It should be a good evening!!


So off to Carrabbas we go!!

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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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