Category Archives: Migraine Hangover

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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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Do any Migraneurs out there experience Binge Eating?

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When I am down with a migraine, it is likely that I stay in my room for at least 3 days and I sleep a lot.  I tend to eat very little and what I do eat is not very substantial…I tend to stick to water and oyster crackers, maybe a bar or two.  This usually lasts 72 hours and then I have a day of postdrome (migraine hangover) where I don’t eat much and am still in bed due to fatigue, dizziness, nausea.  So now I am at 4 days of eating very little.  At the end of the postdrome when I start feeling better, man am I hungry.  I could eat everything in my site and I generally due.  And then I have eaten so much that I feel sick.  No urge to throw up or anything…just a cycle that I have started to see happening.  Just curious if anyone else notices this trend.

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Postdrome and the ER again

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1/24/16 Sunday was a day of feeling nauseous, feeling groggy and just an overall day of feeling gross.  Head pain was dull all day, but that’s because it was overshadowed by everything else.  I couldn’t sleep the night before due to feeling so well from the shot of Nubain.  So that didn’t help.  Trying to get myself re-hydrated and eating again was my main goal of the day.  And then to get some sleep.  I went to bed at 10:30 pm.

1/25/16 I woke today feeling refreshed was a wonderful way to wake up, since I had woken with severe head pain for the previous week.  I had a couple of hours this morning when I felt relatively good, but then fatigue came on quickly so I decided to take a nap.  But before my nap I decided to turn the vibrate on my phone off, so that when I have it in silent mode it doesn’t vibrate either.  Of all days to do this!  I got 4 phone calls that I really should have gotten.

The calls were about Josiah…he had injured his thumb and needed to go the ER.  Luckily Dan answered the phone.  And then he had the brilliant idea of using “Find my iPhone” which makes a sound no matter what setting you have it on.  Which finally woke me up and heading in to the ER to find out what the verdict was on Josiah’s thumb.  Broken!  My boys…just can’t keep themselves safe!

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Migraine Hangover/Postdrome

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The day following a severe or even a  mild migraine attack can be just as debilitating as the attack itself.

“The postdrome phase is the last phase of a migraine headache. It is usually preceded by the prodromal phase, the aura phase and the headache phase. The postdrome phase comes after the pain of a migraine has worn off. It leaves the individual with a feeling a little like a hangover.

People often don’t realize that the hangover is an official phase of a migraine, called the postdrome. Many migraine sufferers, especially women, do experience a postdrome after the headache, and it can last for around 24 hours.”

This is the period I am in now.  The fog!  And because I also suffer from NPDH, so I don’t get the full pain relief that others will feel.  Just hoping that a migraine doesn’t decide to take hold again tomorrow.  Sometimes that happens…back to back!  These times are the hardest on my family and on me of course. But I can always hope that I get a day or two of “relief” at least from migraine pain.

Oct 12th

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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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