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Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category

Who You Calling Disabled?

June 5th, 2010

I hesitate to call myself disabled. I work 25 hours+ a week at a demanding job, I do get out and see people, sometimes, and I’m down to only 3 or 4 days a month in bed. Most days I can wash the dishes and straighten up a bit, more than half my days I get some exercise, many days I can manage the laundry.  I’m down to 5 to 7 Migraine days a month, from 12 to 20 a few years ago. Although I have some fibromyalgia pain many days, days like today when I feel wrung out and ache from head to toe don’t come more than 2 or 3 times a month. So who’s calling me disabled?

I push forward through my life with a great deal of determination and most of the time I confidently expect to get better and better. I have learned so much about how to take care of myself, how to manage my various conditions, and I’ve really improved so much. Days like today, where all I can manage is some reading, some hanging out on line, some tv, when I travel from the bed to the armchair to the bathroom to the kitchen, and that’s a major undertaking, days like today can fill me with despair. I may never get any better than this. I have to accept that possibility - not that I won’t keep on getting up and being positive (mostly) and working striving and pushing (and breaking down when I push too far). But maybe this is as good as it gets.

I am researching Migraines and Social Security Disability for an article I’m planning to write. I encountered the blog of a disability law firm who have helped a number of Migraineurs to get their disability recognized, and compensated. Here’s what struck me. In writing up a Migraine Disability case study, Lawyer Jonathan Ginsberg recounted that the vocational witness called in his client’s case testified that although she felt the claimant could do light duty, low stress work, that no jobs existed that would allow her to be absent 4 to 7 days a month. It’s hard to do this kind of research and really stay detached, and reading that I thought, wow, I could easily need to be absent 4 days a month! The fact that I work less than full time, and for a flexible and understanding boss, makes it possible for me to switch hours around and avoid some of those sick days. But I would be disabled under the same criteria that got the woman in that case granted disability benefits!

Then there’s the MIDAS scale. MIDAS is the American Headache Society’s Migraine Disability Assessment Test. A year ago my MIDAS score was 57 - Which is “Grade IV Severe Disability.” I have been retaking the assessment every few months, and I am down to a 30. Great progress! Guess what a 30 is?  “Grade IV Severe Disability.”

I am not knocking my progress, really I’m not. I recently had a reader write in and ask me how to take back her life from Migraine. That’s certainly a phrase I’ve used a lot. Having 5 to 7 Migraine days a month is incredibly much better than having 12 to 20. Being proactive, recognizing our sensitive nervous systems and caring for them, looking at the areas we can impact and working on them, all of these things do make a difference. I am doing better all the time, building up my stamina (though slowly), and managing these days to earn somewhat of a living, which is nothing to sneeze at. But I felt I needed to tell this woman, you can take your life back in the sense of being in charge of your life, but that doesn’t mean you can make the disease go away.

There come those days, like today, when I slam into the brick wall of my own limitations. I worked a long, hard, stressful week this week and today I woke up feeling like I had been pushed through a strainer. Do any of you recognize that one? I’ve felt it on and off for many years, at least ten, and now I recognize it as a sign of a fibromyalgia flare. I feel strained, like my nerves and muscle fibers have been stretched, shoved, pushed, shredded, sieved, including the nerves in my temples that start the Migraines. Days like today feel blank, wasted, and I cried this morning at the prospect of a life ahead filled with days like this.

My disability is invisible, at times even to me, but it’s there. I will keep on striving. And I also need to be with what’s so, that this is who I am. I am this person with a hyper-sensitive nervous system, I do need days of recovery from just the normal everyday days of life.

I know I’m incorrigible, but I have high hopes for tomorrow.

- Megan

Tags: disability, fibromyalgia, MIDAS, Migraine disease, Social Security disability
Posted in Managing, Musings, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Blue Tuesdays

April 20th, 2010

On Tuesdays there are staff meetings at my new office, at 8:30 a.m. That may not be ridiculously early, but it means I have to be up at 7 and racing through my morning to get there on time. The nortriptyline I take as a Migraine preventive makes me good and sleepy, and it’s hard to wake up and move on less than 9 hours of sleep. Today I not only had to be awake but to give a little presentation at the meeting on using Facebook and Twitter for business. I am relearning some things I used to know, like how to get up and go even when I don’t feel up to it. How to push myself through times when my focus isn’t there, or I’m a bit fatigued, or to work with a triptan in my system.

Don’t get me wrong, this new job wouldn’t even be happening if my Migraine prevention regimen weren’t working quite well. My Migraines went down by about 60% in the months before I started the job. The challenges of the work routine have them back up a little again, but it’s still significant progress. If I had tried to take on the challenges of this job a year ago, I doubt I could have done it.

I also work an 8 1/2 hour day on Tuesdays and Thursdays because Monday and Friday are my short days and Wednesdays are a day off. That’s just the way we worked out for me to work a 25 hour week. It makes those long days challenging, though. If I don’t sleep well the night before (like last night) and I still go put in a full day, it can lead to an evening Migraine. Right now I am lying down with the laptop, writing to you all after dinner, with a bit of a headache. Trying to see if I can contain it by resting. That works sometimes.

One of the difficulties for me is that I can’t seem to go to sleep and get up at the same time every day the way my Migraine brain demands. I need plenty of sleep, and if I went to bed early enough to make the Tuesday wake-up hour my standard, I’d never get to see my teenage kids or night-owl husband. I’d be best off if I could take a nap to even things out, I think, but short of napping in my car that’s not an option right now.

All in all, I am very grateful to have a job, to be doing professional work and helping people, to be getting some respect and recognition, and earning a living. I am grateful that I still have Wednesdays to keep working at my Migraine coaching. I had forgotten, as a self-employed person for many years, how satisfying it is to leave at the end of a work-day, knowing I had filled the day with doing my best, and that I am done for the day. I am enjoying my evenings more, and allowing myself to relax. Except that these Tuesdays are hitting me hard!

- Megan

Sleepy law student image courtesy of umjanedoan.

Tags: Migraine coaching, Migraine preventive medication, part-time work, sleep hygiene, triptans
Posted in Advocacy, Managing, Musings, Weblogs | Comments (0)

Painflower Blossoms

March 20th, 2010

A malevolent bloom, knife-edged petals in my brain,
an unwanted blossom, unfurling, sculpting pain.
How long beneath the surface were you creeping, unseen?
Tension nurtures, hunger feeds you, worry grows you evergreen.
Each day ill-rested that I drag me from my bed,
pull on clothing, pour down coffee, wear my cares upon my head,
each day pushing, each day working at the work to stay alive,
is another day you’re growing, so to cut me as I strive.
Flower of blood, flower of evil, ugly flower of dawning pain,
Growing stronger, cutting deeper, sculpting patterns in my brain.

- Megan Oltman

Tags: migraine, poetry
Posted in Musings | Comments (0)

Spring & Hope

March 7th, 2010

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

Hope springs. Spring and hope. Spring is sprung. Today was the second of two sunny, 50 degree plus days. The snow is finally melting away and snowdrops are blooming in the yard. Danny and I took a long walk, my second in two days, and talked about what we want to do in the garden this year. And with the improvement in my Migraines and my steady new work schedule, it’s more likely that I will be able to get out and do some of the work.

There’s plenty of yard clean-up to do, but our snow’s not all gone yet and the ground is mushy. We spent a while working on getting a large broken limb out of the tree overhanging our driveway - a limb that threatens to fall on our cars with every strong wind. A ladder, a pruning saw, Danny’s ingenuity and an apple-picker swung on a rope later, he pulled the monster down. It hit the ground with a resounding thud that made me very glad no car windshields were below it. Or human noggins either. What’s amazing is how alive I felt, and how enjoyable it can be to tackle a physical problem like this, out in the fresh air.

I don’t know how much we’ll get done of our ambitious plans - I still have a few days of Migraine black-out each month, and I am battling constant soreness from my fibromyalgia. Yesterday I was more active than I’ve been for a while - kitchen clean-up, multiple loads of laundry and a 40 minute walk around town. I ached all over and slept badly. But I set out to match yesterday’s activity level today - knowing that if I give in to the aches and stay inactive they’ll just get worse.

Danny said when we came in from the yard - “It’s a different kind of tiredness - it feels good.” I remember that feeling, but I don’t really experience it any more. All tiredness makes me ache all over, be it physical, mental, emotional, indoors or out. But my world does open up with the warmer weather. I feel like the whole world has expanded. I want to be out and doing, before New Jersey’s hot humid summer comes and shuts me down again.

To all of you with chronic illness - wishing you hope this spring, and that you may enjoy the fresh air and growing things. What do we live for, what pulls us forward, but sublime and ridiculous hope with each new day?

- Megan

Tags: Alexander Pope, fibromyalgia, gardening, hope, Migraine disease, New Jersey, Spring
Posted in Musings | Comments (0)

Botox for Head Implosion, not Explosion?

February 17th, 2010

A new study of 18 Migraine sufferers reported in the Archives of Dermatology Monday indicates that Botox may be helpful for those who describe their pain as “crushing” or “eye-popping.” That’s an interesting new distinction. So, not so good for those of us, like me, who walk around saying “My head explode!”

It’s hard to say how significant a study of 18 patients is, and previous reports on Botox for Migraines have been mixed at best. This study reports an average reduction from 7 Migraines per month to 1 Migraine per month, among those who responded to the Botox. You can read a bit more about the study here: Does Botox Stop Some Migraines? in the Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune. What really interests me, though, is the fact that the description of the pain itself is indicative of whether the Botox will help or not. Pain is so subjective, and so difficult to measure, it’s fascinating that there could be a correlation between how we experience the pain and the mechanics of our Migraines.

I’m imagining a time when you can describe your pain, and get a specific treatment for it. Head imploding? Try this. Head exploding? Try that. What about that one where little people with grapefruit spoons are trying to scrape your brain off the inside of your skull? I hate that one.

- Megan

Tags: Botox, migraine, Migraine treatment, pain
Posted in Current Affairs, Medicine, Musings | Comments (3)

Fibromyalgia - a New Context

January 7th, 2010

The context in which we look at an issue can make a huge difference in our way of perceiving and interacting with the issue. When I began exploring the on-line world of support for Migraineurs and chronically ill folks, I came very early upon Teri Robert’s site, Help for Headaches, and there on the site, she had this badge:

I wondered at the time, was this really empowering, to emphasize having a disease? It is a disease, but we can have an impact on our own health by developing an awareness of our own systems, and learning to relax and calm their reactivity. I had spent some years learning that myself and that’s what I wanted to share with others.

The more I looked at it, though, the more I got Teri’s point. I realized that for the many of us who have had our condition minimized and scoffed at, the recognition that we have a disease is empowering. Our problems are real, and biologically based; our pain is real. We live with the consequences of having a hyper-reactive nervous system. For those of us who have wondered what was wrong with us, if we were crazy, if we were somehow bringing the pain upon ourselves, it is empowering to recognize that we have a disease, not just a headache! Starting from the context of a disease, we can learn about it, learn what impacts our disease for better or worse, learn to manage the disease, and to manage our life with the disease. Acceptance is the first step, and gives us a foundation to build on. It makes it possible to move forward. We can say, “Okay, I have this disease. Now what? What am I going to do about it?”

For over 15 years, since I was pregnant with my son in the fall of 1994, I have been living with fatigue, lassitude, body aches, on and off difficulty concentrating, frequent sinus infections, difficulty fighting off disease, and, in the last 10 years, ever increasing Migraines. I have gone down many paths to address these issues. With regard to the Migraines, I learned a great deal about the disease, worked with doctors to find medication and supplement combinations that helped me, and learned to practice relaxation to calm my system. My Migraine frequency is down considerably. Not so the fatigue and general pain issues, however. I have tried many different nutritional regimens, and learned a lot about what foods are most helpful to my body. I have gone great lengths to balance my hormones, and have definitely seen an improvement in my overall health and stamina through doing that. No matter what I did, however, the fatigue and pain issues did not change much.

Many people with Migraine also have Fibromyalgia, and as I got to know more people with Migraine I heard a lot about the other disease as well. My reaction for quite a while was, “Oh, I probably have that one too, but I don’t want to know about it.” It felt overwhelming to me to have to deal with another diagnosis. I practiced active avoidance. Then I saw Dr. Young at Jefferson Headache Center and he listened to me talking about my fatigue, and he pressed the Fibromyalgia tender points, and I gained a new context. Thanks, Dr. Young!

I’m not kidding with the thanks. It was just like Teri’s badge above, the pieces of a puzzle came together. I already knew that my central nervous system had some serious processing issues, well this was just another manifestation of that. In addition to having my neurons fire off and produce Migraines in reaction to certain stimuli, I have an increased reaction to pain and exertion. If I bang my elbow, the pain moves out in ripples from the point, increasing for a time like an echo in an echo chamber. If I expend more muscular energy than usual, my muscles ache for days as if I had the flu. If I am active and push myself either physically or mentally, I have a kind of fatigue that is beyond tired; it is the bone-weary exhaustion of someone who has been pushed beyond the limits of their endurance.

I have gained a lot from the context of having another disease - Fibromyalgia. I have gained a community of fellow sufferers, who care, who understand, whose wisdom and experience are available to me. I have gained the relief of knowing that I am not lazy, or losing my mind, or fundamentally bad, I am a person with a(nother) disease. And this context helps me to find solutions. I know now that stretching helps, and I can push myself to stretch when my muscles hurt and I really don’t want to. I know that my fatigue is not something to fight or to cover over with caffeine, but that it is a signal to rest. I know that getting some gentle exercise each day, and gradually increasing my exertion, will help me. I know that there will be better and worse days, but that each day can be handled, one at a time.

I haven’t posted for a while, and I’m glad to say that my new Migraine preventive is helping a great deal. My Migraine frequency is down by about 60% over the past few months. The medication also helps to damp down my anxiety and makes me very sleepy. It seems to increase my REM sleep, which is a sleep stage that Fibromyalgia often steals away. Sleeping better definitely impacts the Migraines; it also makes me less fatigued and less anxious. So at the same time that I have taken on this new diagnosis, Fibromyalgia, I have seen some of its symptoms decrease.

I’m learning this one. It’s a listening to my body, to my inner sense of myself, in a new way. Similar to the way I already listened, a familiar tune but in a different key, perhaps. The biggest gain from the new context is another level of self-acceptance. I am not a bad person trying to be good; I’m just a sick person learning to be as well as possible.

- Megan Oltman

Tags: disease management, fatigue, fibromyalgia, migraine
Posted in Communicating, Managing, Musings | Comments (0)

How do we Celebrate and Still take Care of Ourselves?

December 14th, 2009

For a number of years, my husband and I hosted a big post-Christmas holiday gathering for my extended family. This gathering had gone on at my parents’ house for many years prior. Each of the smaller nuclear families (mine, my siblings’, aunt & uncle & cousins’) would have their own Christmas Day at home, and then sometime afterwards everyone would get together for a big collective meal and gift-giving. Since we all live several hours apart, this would generally turn into a weekend-long extravaganza, with many people sleeping over for several nights. The part where we were all together generally involved 14 - 22 people.

My family gets along well, and while some readers may roll their eyes at the thought of so many relatives gathered, it has been a largely joyous occasion. When my parents sold their big house and moved on to an apartment and then a retirement community, my sister took on hosting Thanksgiving and we took Christmas. We cut the expense, noise, tumult and confusion of the gift giving by drawing lots for gifts to adults, and cut the cooking difficulties by doing some degree of pot-luck.

But… I went on hosting these events some years beyond when some family and friends were questioning my ability to do it. I have been living now for about 14 years with chronic illness, and when hosting big events, there have been predictable outcomes. I would wear myself out, either with clean-up and preparation, or with running around taking care of the guests in my home, or with cooking, or with trying to keep up with the mess generated by my husband’s enthusiastic (delicious) and whirlwind cooking.

My challenged immune system would hand me an illness or infection a majority of the time. Or my sensitive nervous system would react to the added stress and noise and confusion by hitting me with a major Migraine. Or both. I would try to compensate by planning better, systematizing everything. This would both create more work for me and make my husband crazy due to my micro-managing. And then there were the crowds themselves for gift-giving or major meals, where I never do well. My head would be spinning in no time, my anxiety level would hit the roof with the noise and over-stimulation, and I would become cranky and short with people. I would spend some part of the celebration closed up in a room by myself in pain, and inevitably the guests would have to pick up a lot of the work it took to get through the weekend.

We moved four years ago to our current home, which is about 35% smaller than our last home. We did a huge renovation on this house and part of our planning was around how to accommodate a big crowd for Christmas. The time we have been in this house, however, has been the same time period as the worst of my chronic Migraines. We hosted one Christmas two months after moving in, with many things still in boxes and the construction not quite complete. We hosted  one other year. When we put many tables together to sit down for a meal, you could not leave your place at the table without 2 or 3 other people getting up as well.  When we tried to open presents in the front room with the Christmas tree, some people had to stand in the next room and look on. Another year we tried doing an abbreviated gathering when some family members were away, only inviting a few others. I had mixed feelings and was not clear with everyone about this, and hurt the feelings of those left out.

Last year, with tears and soul searching, we bowed out of hosting. We went to my sister’s for two big holiday gatherings, and we’ll be doing it again this year. My home will stay quiet; our Christmas day will be simple and relaxed; we will be with family in a less stressful space. But… I miss having my family here. I miss sharing my life, my things, my space with the people I love. In answer to the title of this post, this is what we are doing to celebrate and still have me take care of myself. But… I’m running  2 weeks at a time without a Migraine these days, and have more energy, and I have to admit I am thinking about how to take the whole thing on again - maybe next year. We’ll see.

How do you celebrate and still take care of yourself?

- Megan

Tags: chronic illness, holidays, Migraines, self care, Stress
Posted in Communicating, Managing, Musings | Comments (1)

How much Pain?

December 2nd, 2009

My daughter had her wisdom teeth out yesterday. Once the anesthesia wore off she started feeling pretty serious pain. She took her first Lorcet and called me on the intercom about half an hour later, sounding panicked - she needed more pain meds, right now! We got her some ibuprofen, but tried to explain that the meds take a while to take effect, and to give it a chance. Today she is in bed with a swollen face, pain and nausea, quite miserable. We’re bringing the ice packs, the medications, the mushy food, and trying to comfort her the best we can.

I’ve been thinking about the nature of pain. At nineteen, my daughter has never had surgery before, never had a broken bone or other serious injury, and the only serious illness she has had was the chicken pox at age four. Her pain today is real and I can’t be the judge of how much pain she has. Her pain may be worse because unfamiliar. When I was her age, I had had: Migraines for at least six years, a broken arm, stitches on my face, major abdominal surgery, the mumps, the chicken pox, scarlet fever, the measles… Pain and I were old acquaintances (I won’t say friends). I have written before about how you never get used to pain. Pain is, in some ways, continuously and horribly new every time, every moment. But at the same time, pain can become familiar, and for that reason, perhaps less frightening.

The most severe pain I can remember was when I broke and dislocated an elbow. I went into shock, I believe from the pain. Both my labors were quite painful, as I had an unproductive pattern of contractions, which came two or three in a row without pause, and each set didn’t do as much work as one normal contraction. Childbirth pains are different, I think, because any pain you experience is for something, something big and very important, and you know there is an end in sight. At twenty-nine I fell and herniated a disk and lived for years with nagging, stinging pain in my low back and right leg. I have also had Migraines where the pain was so intense I felt moment by moment as if I could not stand one moment more, where all I could do was rock myself and sob, to quote a Migraine buddy of mine. I also had my wisdom teeth out at twenty-two and I don’t remember how that pain compared, but I do remember two miserable and very drugged up days.

I have learned, though, that something changes when pain is familiar, when it is not mysterious. Yes, frequent severe pain is debilitating, exhausting, dis-enheartening beyond belief. But at the same time, with familiarity it can lose some of its power over us.

What do I mean by that? This is difficult to talk about. Pain is real, but at the same time our experience of it is subjective. It’s not “all in our heads” in the sense of being imagined. It is not produced by neurosis or by being weak or hysterical. But at the same time, we can change and effect our experience of pain. When my Migraines became very frequent, I learned a practice of deliberate relaxation, based in yoga, biofeedback and guided imagery. A part of the practice is to look at pain head on - to be very aware of the experience of pain. Not to fight it or try to pull away from it, but to meet it, recognize it, describe it and observe it. In that process we get some detachment from it. Sometimes we can reduce it significantly, or make it disappear. Even if that doesn’t happen, we can make it much easier to bear.

I teach these relaxation techniques to Migraineurs and others with chronic illnesses because I believe we can truly make a difference for ourselves when we learn to focus inward. I believe we should fight for better treatment, strive and work to understand and manage our own systems, but when faced with pain we must practice a kind of acceptance. I’m not talking about being a doormat or giving up. I am talking about looking the pain in the eye - saying yes, there it is, it feels like this, it is this much better or worse than any other pain, it is located here, it behaves like this. Observing it, allowing it to be and allowing it to fade.

I’m not saying this is easy. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you should “just” learn to live with it. There is no “just” about it - it’s hard and takes continual work. I use relaxation zealously in the tough times and then I slack off, and have to pick it back up and get back in practice when the next challenge comes along. Overall I have developed an awareness of my system and its ups and downs. I have less pain in my life, and the pain has less effect on me, than before I began these techniques.

There may be some kind of threshold level beyond which the rules change, or become distorted. I haven’t experienced really frequent or chronic severe pain. Six years ago my Migraine pattern suddenly increased, from a monthly menstrual Migraine plus one or two big ones a year, to three or four major Migraines a week. That was the closest I have come to experiencing truly chronic pain. And three or four times a week I felt something like the panic I heard in my daughter’s voice yesterday. Nowadays pain doesn’t panic me. I may get cranky and resentful, but sooner rather than later i say to myself, Okay here it is again. Be with what’s so, and do what I can to help it ease or pass.

I am learning a new kind of pain as I adjust to fibromyalgia. My body has become a pain amplifier, and a small pain can grow outward with ripples over a day or more until I hurt everywhere. I am having a flare-up today. I ache from head to toe. I am grateful that despite the allover aches, I don’t feel the constant severe pain I hear of from some with fibro. I am practicing what Migraines have taught me, to pace myself, to push only gently, to be with the pain, not to fight it, to know that this too shall pass.

I’m hoping for a better tomorrow, for me, for you, for my daughter. In the meantime, I will be with what’s so. My arms ache and I’m going to rest now.

- Megan

Wisdom tooth image courtesy of Steve Montgomery; broken elbow image courtesy of H Dragon.

Tags: fibromyalgia, Migraines, pain, pain levels, pain management, relaxation techniques, wisdom tooth extraction
Posted in Managing, Musings | Comments (3)

Laid low by my Sinuses

October 19th, 2009

I just spent a lovely weekend visiting my daughter at college. She is very happy, working hard, very much at home and thriving. And I have to say the weekend was a success story for me, because I managed a marathon week of preparation and a rather strenuous trip with only one mild Migraine. We flew out Thursday evening and were scheduled to take off at 8 pm, but due to winds and rain our flight was delayed 3 hours. On the other end there was a delay in getting to the rental car facility and then we had 50 miles to drive. We got into the hotel at 2 am, and got up before 7 to meet my daughter at an 8:30 class. My husband had a difficult night with his breathing, which meant he snored quite a bit, so I really didn’t sleep more than a few brief dozes. It’s amazing that I only had a very mild Migraine in the middle of the day, and taking a triptan and lying down in the college library for 40 minutes, followed by a nap at the hotel later on, took care of it for me.

It’s been unseasonably cold here in the East, and out in the upper Mid-west where we were as well, and I have encountered a number of people with colds. I started sniffling out there, and noticed the air was drier than I’m used to. We flew back last night and got diverted to a different airport - all flights into Newark were canceled due to more high winds, and we had to call a friend to get us at the airport, and got in pretty late.

I guess the strains on my stamina - two flights, two late nights, a lot of running and hustling through airports, and even two enjoyable but busy days when I was on my feet a lot - showed up in a weakening of my resistance. I didn’t have a flare up of body pain, like I sometimes do when I exert myself, and I didn’t have continual Migraines, which are common for me on trips where I fly. i have to say my Migraine management plan is working well. I just succumbed to this infection.

I woke this morning with a sore throat, swollen glands, green post-nasal drip, and a feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. My old familiar friend the sinus infection. Only one of dozens I’ve had in the last 14 years. My nose isn’t particularly congested, it’s all back in my throat. It amazes me to be laid low by something that is nearly invisible, some microscopic invasion of small cavities in my head. No major cold preceded this, just a few days of an itchy nose and a need to sneeze. It seems like other people get great goopy colds and I encounter the virus or whatever it is and it immediately runs into the back of my head and starts this secret war on my system. It’s not that I want my nose to run, it’s just continually hard for me to believe in the thing that knocks me out. I lie around a few hours and then I think I must be well enough to get up, after all, I have no fever, no stuffy nose, no headache, nothing but a sore throat, and then I get up for a moment and ka-boom! Where’s the truck that hit me?

I did a lot of work last week, to get out Thursday afternoon, and leave all work behind for the weekend. Of course I didn’t accomplish everything I planned (the day that happens I can retire, I guess!), and all day today I have been thinking about the things I should be picking up and getting back to today. I barely have the mental stamina to write this, let alone do anything else. I think of something I need to do and then say “Umm…” and forget about it. The infection dulls my brain. I know I just need to rest. For today I am staying in bed and drinking lots of tea and juice and water and taking loads of vitamin C and echinacea and zinc. I have all kinds of important things I want to tell you about - topics for posts backed up, and a newsletter to get out. But… not today.

- Megan

Tags: Migraine management, sinus infection
Posted in Musings | Comments (0)

Return of the Dizzy Dame

October 5th, 2009

Wooo! The world is spinning! No, it’s not really much fun. A year ago when I was first seeing my former neurologist I was being evaluated for vertigo, which I was experiencing very frequently. I had an ENG (Electronystagmogram) - a test to determine if my vertigo is vestibular (inner ear-based) or brain-based (Migraine associated), and the results indicated that I had some of each.

At the time I was experiencing vertigo nearly daily, strongly during and after Migraines, but also at changes in position, walking up stairs, turning, etc. It was August and September of last year when the problem was at its worst. I started Topamax in mid-September, and the vertigo seemed to quiet down and leave within a couple of months. I thought the Topamax was clearing up the vertigo. But since then I have gone up to 75 mg of Topamax and back down to 25 without any change in the amount of vertigo. I’ve been on 25 mg for the last 4 1/2 months now. I am going to eliminate the Topamax in a few weeks, as I have been phasing in nortriptyline for the past month.

For the last week or so I’ve had a sudden return of vertigo. It came in with the pro-drome of a long Migraine last week, and has yet to leave town. I can’t imagine it is related to the Topamax, because I haven’t changed the dosage in months. I don’t see dizziness listed as a nortriptyline side effect anywhere. It’s not constant at this point, but I can’t hang my head over, or bend or straighten up quickly, without getting very dizzy. I’m actually wondering if the vertigo could be related somehow to seasonal allergies, since my fall pollen allergies are kicking in right now as well. I guess a call to my new doctor is in my future.

When I was a kid my brother and sister and I used to spin around and around in the living room until we got so dizzy we would collapse on the carpet. Why isn’t that any fun any more?

- Megan

Spinning break dancer image courtesy of Katie Weilbacher.

Tags: migraine associated vertigo, nortriptyline, Topamax, vertigo
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