There’s a light show going on inside my head. The show begins with a coiled-up spiral of refracted light that gradually unravels to the edges of my vision; very Vegas, dramatic, with neon bars lined up into strands that blind me temporarily, like the after-image of a flash bulb. Then the nausea, the upchuck, the semi-trailer parked on my left temple. It hurts to blink.
Everyone’s got their health issue(s), and this is mine. The migraines have gotten progressively worse over the past year with what I assume are hormonal fluctuations, so persistent that I’ve spent the past few weeks hiding like a vampire from the light. Writing has become a real struggle. It’s hard to keep the ideas in order, and when I reread my stuff later there are gaps where I’ve wandered from the point and apparently into someone else’s story. I forget names and places. I forget where I am and what I meant to say. Yesterday I wrote an entire scene in first person that should have been in third. Another time I called my character Alice for several pages before it occurred to me that I was writing about Celia. Imagine writing through your worst hangover, and you’ll get the idea.
My editor is going to have her work cut out for her.
What are your physical challenges?
Photograph by Hedi Slimane
I get stress migraine auras that occasionally blind me–swirl-shared darkness for ten minutes or so until the OTC painkillers and a lie down stave it off. I also get sinus headaches right before it rains and my knees are shot.
Other than that, I’m pretty healthy for a terribly unfit forty-year old sedentary woman.
Should have said, “forty-ish.”
I have been incredibly lucky with my health over the years, too, and I’m grateful for it. Though I do wish the semi would find a different place to park.
Oh Averil, that just sucks. My issue is my jaw…I clench my teeth without knowing I’m doing it and it knots up in my neck, which leads to my back. Every few weeks it seems I’m laid up a couple days with my neck and/or back out. I’m in the process of figuring out things to help. So far I have a special pillow, a bite plate while I sleep, and a little Nerd football to do special exercises with for my neck. I’ve never felt my age, let alone older than my age…these kinds of things do you jn sometimes!
I was thinking I had serious neck problems, but my chiropractor assures me it’s just one of those things…undoing 30+ years of jaw clenching and TMJ. Who knew your jaw could throw out your back eventually?
Back problems to me are absolutely the worst as far as chronic pain goes. I have rarely had issues there but I do know how difficult it can be to find any relief at all. Sitting, standing, lying down . . . every which way, the back still hurts.
My husband has a bite plate and never wears it. Soon he will have stumps where his teeth used to be.
Hopefully the lights and trucks go away soon, and stay away. I know the frustration of a broken body. Some days I bound up the three flights of stairs to our apartment and marvel at the fact that I can. It’s more than a little rush. Every time.
I remember the first morning after my first c-section when I woke up without pain (or a baby under my ribs), and I swear I could have taken over the world that day.
my worst hangovers could not have been as bad as your migraines. not that i’m wanting to start any contests here.
my physical challenge is i’m middle-aged. i generally don’t sleep very well and sometimes the poor sleep goes on long enough to have effects. the other day i was at such a point and was looking at a picture of amber and couldn’t remember what it was called. i thought, amethyst, no it’s not amethyst, it’s not agate, it’s made out of tree resin, i should know it, i should knows its name. this couldn’t have gone on even for as long as a minute before amber came to mind but the thing is, i should have known instantly what the right word was. that evening, i asked susan to drive me home from the office because i was too tired to feel safe at the wheel.
then there was the time nearly four years ago when i was going through a serious period of poor sleep and wandered around for weeks taking brilliant photographs with an empty camera.
then there are my lungs. i stopped smoking five months ago but the toll on my lungs from smoking for almost forty years is ineradicable.
if i had any advice about migraines i’d give it to you but i don’t so i can’t. i do hope they abate.
No! Not the empty camera. That’s real pain.
Insomnia is miserable. I’ve had occasional bouts and found it incredibly frustrating, like chasing an orgasm that wouldn’t, uh, come. (Not that a man would know what that’s like, since coming comes so easily to you. Three tugs in the shower and off you go. But I digress.)
Have you tried warm milk? (Bah-dum, dum.)
in fact, sort of. milk. yogurt. exhaustion. all three help.
I am sorry to hear this, Averil. It makes my heart hurt for you.
I am lucky… nothing as yet, only the slowing down as a result of advancing age.
Slowing down has a dignified air about it. Strolls instead of sprints, that’s not so bad.
XO
Pobrecita! Feel better soon. Biofeedback has helped me with quite a few physical challenges.
I have never investigated biofeedback, but you’ve got my attention. I’m all for natural remedies wherever possible.
I can’t sit for long. My tailbone starts to ache. My back has gotten so bad that if I stand, hold my hips, and push in opposite directions, my spine cracks like I’m shuffling a deck of cards. But this can’t compare to a migraine, I’m sure. The closer the pain is to your head, the harder it is to handle, I imagine.
Sheesh, Anna. I don’t think spines are meant to do that.
Do you ever write standing up?
You must take magnesium Averil! We have a family history of migraine and I despise them. Oh yes! The semi-trailer grumbling, crashing through gears. Ask for magnesium OROTATE, I swear it’s what you need. Your head will thank you and you will be able to bear the lights. XX
I’ll give that a try, Cat, thank you!
My daughter has a friend, only 11 years old, who has them, almost every other day. So incapacitating. It hurts my head just to hear about them. Many hugs to you and try to take it easy.
I have terrible circulation. In the winter months my toes turn red and I spend my days soaking them in hot, steamy water. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn one day that they had simply broken off my feet.
MSB! That sounds miserable. Makes me want to start knitting socks for you.
XO
I have a sister and a coupe of friends who also endure migraines, so I sympathize with you. From their experiences I know this is one of the worst afflictions one can have to deal with.
My problem is my hands. I never learned to type. Started as a journalist, pounding out stories with two fingers. Now I use five (thumb for spacebar). But all that hammering has taken its toll. I often wake up numb from my elbows to the tips of my fingers. When it gets especially bad I wear these clunky braces to sleep. Have already had carpal surgery, so I just try to manage it. Amazing what one can get used to.
I’m beginning to feel grateful that none of my problems are bad enough to require surgery–especially when the surgeries are ineffective. But why not learn to type, Joe?
Oh Averil, may the lightshow subside. I used to get them regularly and can remember hanging over a toilet bowl just hoping to be sick and get rid of that horrible pressure in my head. Now only very rarely, but I remember them well, you poor gal.
I hate that you used to get regular migraines, but I’ll admit that your story gives me hope that mine will eventually go away. Thanks, Lyra.
The creaks of getting older are mine, but I too have known migraines in my past and, oy, my friend–I wish I could send real healing your way. And knowing all that is on your plate and the story in your head that won’t be silenced and doesn’t understand that its creator can’t think straight so would be it please be a nice story and just sit quietly in the corner for a while?
Can anything be done to help?
Stories are fickle that way, aren’t they. Ignore them and off they go, never to return.
I’ve tried different medications over the years, but most of them require a full stomach when I’m too queasy to eat. Plain old Advil for me, which does help with the pain if not the light show. And I’ve figured out some of the triggers, like white print on black background, anything that flashes, too much coffee without food, etc.
Ah well, this too shall pass. And I do feel better today.
XO
I suffered from terrible migraines for years, but particularly when I was going through menopause. However, I did get fantastic advice from one physician (I was then the wife of the hospital’s CEO, so they paid a lot of attention to me — those were the days of wealth and prestige, all of which I tossed aside.)
The doc also suffered from terrible migraines and he’d determined that one of the triggers for a lot of people (not just him) was sinus — given that this is the season when allergies start up, it’s likely to be a component of yours. His answer was for me to take a 24 hour Sudafed — I ended up taking only the 12-hour because the 24-hour jazzed me up too much to sleep. You now can only buy this from behind the drugstore’s counter, but you don’t need a prescription. I will tell you that a known side-effect of 12 and 24 hour Sudafed is ANOREXIA. It used to cut my appetite in half and I always lost weight.
It really helps and I hope you’ll try it. I know you’re hiding from the light, but another bit of advice I got from him was to walk a lot. The increased blood flow through the head definitely helps.
Anorexia? Bring it on! Though I will say that I have already lost 11 pounds since moving to Portland–a few more and I’ll be at my fighting weight.
I do think there’s some environmental component, though I haven’t had sinus problems or anything like that. But the frequency and intensity of the migraines has picked up over the past few months and I doubt that’s a coincidence. Probably there are several different factors contributing to the light show.
I never had any evidence of actual sinus activity — it could still help — I didn’t have a runny nose, sneezing, pressure up there or ANYTHING. The Sudadfed nevertheless dried it up and my headaches got much better.
Oh dear, Averil. Feel better.
Cataracts. They move around, which means they come and go. One cloud has been over my right pupil for about 3 weeks now, which makes it hard to read for very long, and also hard to read signs. It was especially tough during my recent travels, having to find my way through airports and train stations, and sitting on planes for hours on end without reading much.
Are they waiting for it to “ripen” and then remove ‘em?
I would lose too much natural function if they remove them now (peripheral, etc…). The surgeon wants me to wait until I truly can’t take it anymore, and I’m not close to that.
Had mine removed last year and new fancy lens implants and it changed my life. And I mean that literally. After a lifetime of horrible, no good, very bad eyes, I can see without any glasses or lenses. And the colors! It’s a marvel. Hope that’s in your future too.
Thanks, Mary Lynne. I hope so too!
Anything that gets in the way of reading has to rank right up there on the Suckometer. You’ve had surgery for the cataracts before, right Teri?
I know I’m not old but I’m getting closer every day. In the days after I went to the amusement park this summer I was sore and achy and brittle. Roller coasters were once just roller coasters but now they are instruments of delayed pain. But at least when I was at the top I could see the lake and I was weightless for one delicious second.
Oh man, I tried to do a somersault a few years ago and thought I would break my neck. I just lay there afterward, laugh-crying on the carpet.
My knees are my biggest physical challenge. These days it’s taking some sort of synthetic WD40 for knees in a shot to keep me walking any distance or up any stairs (and me with a two story house). My other physical challenge is keeping my butt in the chair to write. I’m considering a seat belt.
A seat belt with a padlock that opens only when you’ve hit your writing goal. I think you should patent it, Mary Lynne.
I’ve had migranes before, so I understand your pain. My sister still has them and takes prescribed medication that helps, but makes her feel very dull and sleepy.
It’s nippy here again, so I remember now why I hated winter’s cold so much more than summer’s heat waves. Cold makes my arthritic knees and wrists hurt, sometimes like they’re being hit with hammers. Bad for sleeping, exercising and writing, so I’m bracing myself.
Oh, and you’re in a cold climate too. Stay warm, Ré. (Another pair of knitted socks, coming right up.)
Merde. That’s terrible. Do you have a good neurologist who you can see? There are some really good newer treatments now.
I’m a giraffe with a spine of glass but in the big picture, not too bad.
Ah, Bobbi. I’m an American. Neurologists are for people with health insurance.
Okay. I forgot about that. Try this. The second (timing is crucial) you feel it coming on caffeine load plus rapid release extra-strength Advil or Tylenol + no sound/light for 15-20 minutes.
Got it. Thank you so much!
My ailments…my fucking age. I’m thinner (lost 92 lbs.) healthier than I’ve ever been and yet that I see an end to all of this sucks. I should have started further back from the finish line. Makes the race longer but would have had a better chance of catching up.
Hello, Wry, nice to have you visiting today. Ninety-two pounds is a major accomplishment, especially in middle age and beyond. I haven’t tried to lose weight for several years, and it’s a helluva lot harder this time around than I remember. I used to be able to drop five or ten pounds in a couple of weeks and call it done, but now it takes months. (Patience, Averil. . .)