Category Archives: Toradol

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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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SSDI Awarded

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I was told that it would take at least more than once to apply for social security disability insurance, so when I received the letter awarding me SSDI today, I was so very grateful.  I still have long term disability that will run through December of this year (at least the balance of what I was already getting minus SSDI).  Very relieved and I won’t have to submit anymore paper work until December for review.  So for that it was a good day!

On the flip side, the migraine side, the daily life side; my New Daily Persistent Headaches have been really bad lately and very persistent.  So much so that walking through a store, using a computer, watching TV, talking or driving are major triggers.  And when the NDPH are bad, the worse the triggers cause an increase the head pain.  The constant pain in turn makes me very tired, so I sleep a lot (16 hours a day).  I think the meds I am on are also contributing, but the constant pain also contributes.  So the only reason I am writing a blog post is because I did a Toradol shot.

In addition tonight I had an allergic reaction to something in the house, something I ate??? I don’t really know what caused it this time and it was the itchy eye, congestion type of allergic reaction.  I took a Zyrtec, in addition to the Toradol and put a cold pack on my eyes.  Great combo 😛  But starting to feel better now.

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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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Imitrex…Side Effects

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1/28/16 I HATE IMITREX!  The side effects are so awful that I just don’t like to take it. My heart begins to race, my chest tightens, my throat constricts making it t difficult to breath. HOWEVER, it seems to be the drug that actually helps knock down the migraine that occurs over my right eye, the classic migraine that I fight often. I’m not sure how long the good effects last because I am starting to feel it creep back up, but it’s something.   BUT DID I TELL YOU THAT I HATE IMITREX. Why does the medication that causes the most terrible side effects have to be the one that may help with the migraine. Ugh!  But I am thankful that there are a few options out there now to treat the different types of migraines that I suffer from.  Some people don’t even have that, so I shouldn’t be complaining.  When I looked up my side effects though, it says to discontinue and to seek immediate medical help because the medication also has the side effect of heart problems that can be masked by the side effects I am having, so I would have no idea if I was in real trouble.

So in the mean time I will take Imitrex if I feel a classic migraine coming on.  Prednisone will be reserved for long trips or very important events for the time being and Toradol and Robaxon work well to manage the tension migraines and New Daily persistent Headaches.  I feel like I am gaining a little bit of control over this demon, but am a long ways from finding the medication that prevents the migraines/head pain/headaches from happening.  One step at a time.  I go back to MHNI next Tuesday to work on a new plan of attack.  I have ideas and am learning so much about my migraines and patterns through writing this blog, that I feel like I am finally putting the pieces of a puzzle together.  And though it is far from complete at least the outside edges are getting closer to being done.

All I know is that because of Imitrex I was able to pick up my son from school when he called saying that his thumb really hurt, run errands and take him to the Dr. in E. Lansing yesterday and this is all after waking with a migraine and not being sure if I would make it out of bed.

I am glad we were able to get in to Josiah’s Dr. yesterday though because the splint they put him in at the Emergency Room was really cutting off the circulation and causing a great deal of swelling even after we had already loosened it.  They also determined that the fracture that the ER dr. saw wasn’t really a fracture.  But because of the bruising and the areas the hand and thumb are sensitive, they said he likely sprained it pretty bad.  We go back in 2 weeks to find out how he is feeling, but for now he loves his new Spiderman boot splint in his favorite color!!  It is pretty cool if I might say so myself.  He can take it off to take a bath, but for now he keeps it on all the time.  When you just look at the splint it looks like any other, but it is actually hard and formed to his hand just like a cast, but this one can be removed.  He was happy and the swelling went down rather quickly.  So hopefully the pain will go down too 🙂

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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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St. Ignace, MI

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Setting in for the weekend in St. Ignace. And it happens to be a convention of Mini Cooper drivers. They are planning on setting a record of Mini Coopers on the Mackinaw bridge followed by a festival. We got the last room in St. Ignace and it happens to be full kitchen suite with a bedroom where the kids can actually be put to bed. Great adventures had but looking forward to relaxing a bit a enjoying the pool and taking a nap tomorrow. Kind of like being back in Canada.  We did all the hiking and walking which lead to pretty severe head pain but now that we are relaxing with no plans and nothing that we have to see my head pain has diminished again. Hope it stays that way.

On Saturday morning I woke with minor head pain and went swimming.   After I took a nap, we went for a walk around town which landed me in bed and down for the rest of the night.  Luckily I woke the following morning with minimal head pain, but the storm brought it all to a head again Sunday during our crazy drive home.

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Botox: MHNI visit #6

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6/18/15 My insurance company finally approved the Botox for 3 rounds of injections through the end of the year. Headaches have been pretty awful lately so I am really hoping this does something positive.

June 18th

Botox is done. It was awful…30 injections in my face, around my head, down my neck and shoulders.  So yay!  No more wrinkles.  I did have to do a Toradol shot, so I am feeling a lot better now.  So my mom and I went off to lunch at Five Guys Burger where I was sorely disappointed because their fries are deep fried in Peanut Oil (allergic to peanuts) and the oil was everywhere. Just hoping I don’t have a reaction. Then off to Trader Joes where I bought spicy California roll and the very best spicy black bean dip!

On our way home to rest. Long morning!!  Unfortunately the peanut oil or the California roll hit me bad on the drive home…first the bloating (I can literally feel my pants get tighter) then the gas and then the cramping.  Luckily I had my antihistamines with me and took it but I always feel crappy for several hours after..until the bloating and gas and cramping stop.

So all in all a fun day 🙂  Haha!

 

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Big Day

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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.

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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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Hit a Wall

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I finally hit a wall last night. It was wonderful having the energy for the first time in a long time. I felt euphoric and thought I could do anything. And I did! It was great! And then the head pain escalated to a full blown, I need to go to the hospital or take my injectable Toradol, kind of head pain. I finally had to call Dan, who was asleep in the living room, to get help. It was a bad one.

So today I was so sad that I had to cancel a day of fun, fellowship, and cleaning with my dear friend Mindy Richmond, who had Rhubarb pie, my favorite. But I stead I went back to bed this morning and slept until 1:30. After that I have really tried to took it very easy the rest of the day, but kids, dinner, kids and now Josiah is in charge because the pain is escalating again. So back to bed I go hoping Dan will be home soon to put the boys to bed!

Such a roller coaster this has been.

Mindy Richmond: Hard lesson in taking things slow, isn’t it! Ever since my MS diagnosis I’ve been learning that. Get better, my friend. Rest and more rest!
Heather Loose Johnson: I prevented a bad one again tonight by listening to my body. Dan walked in before I drifted off to sleep.
Kathy Smith: Den and I continue to pray for you, honey. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
Heather Loose Johnson: Thank you Kathy and Den.