Thursday, October 22, 2009

Bad Headache Day #41 2009


Too Much Travel?

Been a bad day today, although with the help of the stimulator I managed to stay at work all day and be somewhat productive. I think yesterday's travel was a little too much, 2 hours driving in the morning, two more hours in the late afternoon.

The clients were wonderful, as I expected. Very responsive, and we got a lot accomplished so I didn't think it was necessary to be there two days. I'm going to do some more setup at the office, and need to get a decision from the higher ups as to which box/database the clients need to enter their new master files into. My compatriot from work who traveled with me is a wonderful outgoing programmer and she is very organized and helpful, so I had a great trip work wise.

The Headache was very strong last night and tonight my medication isn't working and my stimulator isn't keeping up. I tried to eat some food today, and maybe its my pancreas and The Belly acting up not The Headache?? Can't tell, the pain is just increasing despite all my efforts. I took my usual dose that should knock me out at 8 PM but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick, and I'm not sure if I should take anymore until about midnight. The nausea is especially bad so maybe if I toss my cookies it will help. ewwwwww.

I think it has almost been a month since the last really bad headache day - a new record for The Headache! The pain is bad, but the stimulator helps a great deal. I'll mess with the settings in a little bit and see if I can ward off the worst of this. I'm having a lot of left eye pain right now, and from past experience that is not a good symptom. My body seems to be losing the memory of what the terrible extremes of pain I have been in the last couple of years feels like. For this I am grateful. Thank you St. Jude/ANS and Cleveland Clinic!

I feel like Medusa tonight, with the tendrils of pain from The Headache starring as the snakes. I wish I could stare into a mirror and turn myself into stone and then The Headache wouldn't hurt as bad! Of course my head is all bone and no brain anyway so I'm not sure if it was all rock it would be any better.

2 comments:

  1. thank you for visiting my site. yes, it's terribly frustrating dealing with an ins. co. playing God. My pain doc is now petitioning them for stim device - should be interesting. do they work for you?

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  2. The stimulator took me from a daily 7-9 on the pain scale with lots of medication that didn't help much, to probably a 2-3, which is a world of difference, without hardly any medication.

    I am also off most daily medication, but my headache still manifests itself as seen in the post above, and I have to resort to some kind of pain relief. The weirdest part is I still get some of the physical symptoms without the pain. Shows that The Headache is still going on even if I am not getting the pain whammy I was.

    This is my 4th month with the stimulator, and my pain relief gets better each week. I was told with my level of pain it might take 6 months to reach maximum benefit. I started getting real relief at 7 weeks post implant.

    Implants don't work for all headaches, and I am sure that there are some people that had them taken out or didn't help, but I don't even notice it most days and I sure can tell if I turn it down low becuase The Headache pops right back up!

    Sounds like you have a good doc backing you up - that makes a world of difference.

    This blogger has a different brand of stimulator for different type of headache:

    http://onstim.blogspot.com/

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