My Hair Hurts

Painful Face

I am proud of myself - I made it to work despite not hardly being able to walk once I got there, and I was actually productive working on three or four projects.  I didn't finish them, but I got close on a couple.  Woo Hoo!  Put the smackdown on those pesky Legs today!!!  I think my theme for the next year is going to be DISTRACTION!!!  I think it will work just as well as what the doctors have been dishing out.

Still no word from Dr. Kildare about his "plan" for my care.  I fear March 2012 may come and go before they call.  Oh well, it was a long shot at best.  In January I will have to see if I can get an appointment somewhere else.  This is excessively tiresome, but in the year of DISTRACTION maybe I can tackle The Legs and get the problem under some sort of control.  Or maybe not.

I think because of all the pain I am already experiencing today (my cup o' pain is chock full) The Headache is trying to revive.  I guess it is still the old three day cycle, as Friday was horrid, so I guess Monday has been horrid, then Thursday, then Sunday.  Yeah!!!  Christmas Eve and Christmas are not in the horrid cycle bad days, so I may get to enjoy a bit of holiday yet.

Sometimes when The Headache gets to going (like today) I experience a lot of facial pain, and anything touching it (glasses, hair, wind, me) sets it off worse.  I was told this is a type of allodynia - experiencing pain from non-painful touch.  It is a symptom that goes with the diagnosis of Hemicrania Continua, but I think most headache conditions have this as a possible symptom.  Tonight even my hair follicles seem to hurt when I move my hair.   I wonder at times like these if I need a Sinead O'Connor hair cut.  Probably the irritation of shaving my head would hurt worse than the irritation of the hair.   Dang!  Can't win for losing!

One of the problems with having too many health problems is that the problems from one distinct issue (i.e. allodynia from a headache condition) cross over and create different problems for another health issue. 

I have mild sleep apnea (diagnosed by Dr. Dense in 2008 after forcing me to take a sleep study in her freezing torture chamber / sleep center combo) and am supposed to use an APAP machine to assist with this.  Dr. Dense insisted I get this study done when first trying to treat me for The Headache, and refused to prescribe any medication until I did this. I am sure this is because she could charge several thousand dollars for reviewing a report spit out by a machine instead of just a few hundred dollars for my office visits, but I guess I'm being cynical aren't I??  Anyway, I could barely stand the wires strapped to my face for the sleep study, and THEN boy howdy try putting an elastic band tightly across some region of your head that does not like to be touched to hold a mask on.  The allodynia from The Headache prevents me from wearing the mask to assist with nighttime breathing which is supposed to help The Headache.  Impossible!

The cankle situation got totally out of hand this weekend.  I not only had cankles, but I couldn't even stick them in my big ol' cankle shoes.  I called the endocrinologist Dr. Kid to say I need a new diabetic medication, Actos is not for me or put me back on Avandamet.  The last time I took Actos I swelled up like a puffer fish, and I'm doing it again.  So this is how it works.  Called at 8:00 AM, talked with medical assistant who put a note in the system.  She said they would call the new prescription in and give me a call back.  In the meantime I make it to work, and get busy distracting myself.  At 2:30 I call my pharmacist and they have not received a new prescription.  I then call Dr. Kid's office and speak to the medical assistant who apologizes that they have not called me yet. Dr. Kid won't prescribe Avandamet, even though I had taken it for two years no problems found, so he wants to know what I want to take.  Huh??  I then tell the MA that I can't take sulfonylureas because I had had an allergic reaction to them, and I couldn't do metformin alone because I was at the limit I could tolerate.  She said they would call back or call in the script.  I wait until after 4:00 and call the pharmacy, no new script.  I call Dr. Kid's office.  They are closed.  So I guess I will try again tomorrow morning.  Big Sigh.

The lunar eclipse is starting, and I am going to run out and see what I can see.  It is very foggy tonight, so hoping the full moon is enough to burn through the clouds and the fog.