Disgruntled Julie is very disgruntled this morning, indeed. You see, at some absurdly early hour, Disgruntled Julie was awoken from her nice cozy, rare state of hibernation with a searing, blinding headache -- a migraine. This is disgruntling enough on a normal day, but particularly so as Disgruntled Julie has just recently become aware of the effects of which her daily migraine medications are taking on her daily life -- AND THEN SHE GOES AND GETS A DAMN MIGRAINE. Fine, the constant tingling in the feet range from mildly annoying to "OMGIAMGOINGTOCUTMYFEETOFF" and the fact that my vision has gone from perfect and never needed glasses to squinting to try to see anything is a wee bit frustrating, but the memory loss, depression, somnolence, and ability to ONLY spell words phonetically (which I had always been able to spell perfectly fine up until a few months ago) seem to be a rather steep price to pay to STILL BE GETTING MIGRAINES. Yes, yes, I know, the point is that I now get them every other month or so, rather than every other week, and it is an improvement, but on my prior migraine medication I didn't get them at all! And the only side effect was that I gained 35 pounds in 3 months! I still stand by the fact that I'd rather wind up 400 pounds and migraine and other side-effect free, but alas, my doctor begs to differ that it is best for my overall health to not resemble a small whale.
And thus, this morning, I dragged myself out of bed, blindly tripped my way into the bathroom (have I mentioned that I get vision loss with my migraines? awesome!), found my Midrin, and begin the one-an-hour pill-popping procedure. By 8:30, I acknowledged that I was not going to be functional enough to make it to lab meeting, so I sent an e-mail off to my PI telling him as such, and crawled back to bed. With the pain, of course, I couldn't sleep, but laying there in the dark sure beat sitting through a lab meeting and having to pretend to be a human. But next thing I know (admittedly, a few hours later, but before the pain relief had kicked in and before I'm ready to face the day) -- the fire alarm for the entire condo building goes off. Because that is JUST WHAT YOU NEED during a migraine -- nice, loud bells and some super bright flashing lights, to boot. Can't a girl get a break around here? A nice, dark sanctuary to wait out her misery in peace? I mean, seriously. DAMN YOU ALL! And thus, not knowing if it was some kind of test or an actual fire, after contemplating burning to a crisp but deciding I couldn't handle the 20 minutes until they turned off the alarms, I speed dressed and worked my way down to the lab, where I can sit in misery slumped over my desk, and wait in an upright position with all the lights on for the Midrin to kick in. And the first person to ask with any sort of assistance with an experiment is getting a nice middle finger aimed in their direction, and some words to match. But please forgive me.... after all, it's not me.... it's the bitchiness from my fantastically working preventative migraine medication talking.
Monday, September 29, 2008
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I take Midrin too, and I've found that my eyesight has gotten worse in the last year. I only take it about once a month or so, which sounds a lot like what you are dealing with.
ReplyDeleteThe way I read your post sounded like your vision problems are year round, not just during migraines? Is that a common side effect?
I hope you feel better. I know exactly how you feel and it really sucks. Hang in there!
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ReplyDeleteI only take Midrin when I actually have a headache, and I haven't really noticed that it causes many side effects, aside from a bit of dizziness and nausea, though it is far better from battling the migraine with nothing.
All my side effects come from Topamax, which I take 2x/day, everyday, as preventative medication to keep me from getting migraines -- that's what causes my vision problems (and yes, all the time, not just during migraines). I can't speak to the Midrin causing problems on its own, since the Topamax causes such strong vision problems above and beyond what the Midrin would cause just when I take it.
The Topamax is really, really nasty stuff. I hate being on it, and wouldn't recommend it to anyone, except that my migraines come with complete loss of vision (not just blurriness or double vision) and I was getting them every 10 days or so, and they would last 2-3 days, and that's just not functional for me EVER graduating when my experiments often require me to be in the lab for 7 days/week for months at a time.
Oh man, that is awful. I get migraines *occasionally*, and know how crippling they can be. I hope they can find another medication for you to be on as the cure doesn't sound so hot either. :(
ReplyDeleteHope you are feeling better soon!
that sounds terrible - get better soon!
ReplyDeleteI hope you feel better soon. Topomax sounds like a crappy drug (a friend of mine takes it for the same reason and has similar side effects). I hope you get through this soon and find a nice cave to wait out the pain in.
ReplyDeleteoh my freaking god, that completely sucks. My friend went through several trials of different medicine marketed for migraines but didn't get any relief until she got put on one of those anti-depressants that happens to help with migraines. It also had the fun side effect as an appetite suppressant. Can't recall which one it is, but I'm guessing that you are familiar with most of the migraine medicines out there.
ReplyDeleteI was just going to say, "sounds like Topamax" when I read your comment where you confirmed that that is what you take. I take it too, but luckily not a high enough dose to cause the tingling. I had to add an additional med this year (grad school is bad for migraines) and I have noticed that I do have these lapses in spelling now... Good to know school is not making me less intelligent. Well, maybe it is. I hope you feel better asap.
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