Whew, Thank Heavens for Doctor Mom...
I awoke early this morning, around 4AM, with the beginnings of a migraine. Who in the heck wakes up with a migraine? I know if I don't do something about it immediately, there's no turning back, and I don't know about you, but I personally loathe vomiting. So I trudge through the house looking for good drugs in my folk's cabinet, to make the still low grade pain go away.
I thought it was over.
This evening, I was cooking with my Mom and suddenly I lost all peripheral vision in my left eye and got dizzy. It was if the peripheral vision were caught in a strobe light. I stopped what I was doing, took off my glasses and said to her, "You're not going to believe this, but I think I just lost vision in my left eye."
I covered my right eye and I'm trying to assess exactly what I can and cannot see. I'm in no pain, just getting dizzy and I realize it truly was only peripheral, but the vision left in that eye without strobe light effect, was pinhole in diameter.
Immediately my Mom said, "You're getting a migraine" and got Excedrin migraine in my hand and had me lie down. I kept saying, "But I'm not in pain!", but she was insistent.
Within 15 minutes after taking that Excedrin, it was gone. So I guess whatever it is, it's still lurking out there. I can't imagine how much pain I would have eventually been in if she hadn't been there and caught it.
Now I know.
posted by Bou | 10:35 PM
7 Comments:
Yeah...they're wonderful little buggers aren't they! The fun part, you don't always have pain with them or lose vision, there's not always a consistency to their pattern.
I get pressure most frequently (feels like steel rebar going into the back of my head with rotating vice grips). When my eyes start to get sensitive to light, then I know I'm almost at the 'no return' point. When I can smell other peoples perfume and cologne without them getting near me...time to go home to a dark room and take heavy drugs.
Excedrin Migraine works great when you can catch it as quickly as possible. Midrin works well too and Imitrex is the heavy hitter. When none of those work and I get to go to the hospital for reliefe...hello dilaudin (sp?). That stuff doesn't knock it out, but it makes me just not care. That makes it my 'wonder drug'.
The joys of coastal living!
Waking up with a headache is nothing new to me. In fact, I had one so bad I was afraid to lift my head from the pillow once. If you don't have excedrin handy, my suggestion would be take some extra strength tylenol or advil with a caffinated beverage (coke or coffee or tea) since that's the only difference between excedrin and tylenol. I would get it checked out, though if you're freaked out.
Nah, migraines don't freak me out. I've been having them since I was 9. I had just never had my vision go first. That was different, but obviously something that will occur again.
When I was pregnant, I had them so bad I would just lay on the floor, unable to lift my head up. Blech. No thanks.
My concern was since I had never lost vision, and high blood pressure runs in my family, was that I might be having a TIA. My Dad had one at 45, and he's on BP meds now. But we took my BP and it was the standard 90/60, so I knew for sure it was a weird sort of migraine.
Excedrin and a Mountain Dew...if caught in time... will do the trick.
Fortunately, I've never had the honor of suffering through a migraine, so I guess I really can't comment.
Aaahhhssshit! I guess I did anyway. :)
So far I've only had one migraine that I know of, and it really sucked.
After it cleared up I actually went online and asked "Wow, was that a migraine?"
My temple felt like an icepick had been shoved into it, I had that checkerboard/strobe effect going on in my perhipheral vision, and I felt physically ill.
Took some Excederin Migraine (that I just happened to have laying around after a girlfriend left it here) and it cleared up in about 20 minutes.
Definately freaked me out, and if it never happens again it'll be too soon.
-S
Wow. Take it easy. We'll be driving back Saturday... so give me a hollar if you need a distraction. Happy New Year!
Hope you are fully recovered, Bou!
I've only had 2 [that I know of] and those were triggered by shifting hormone levels... Thank you, perimenopause! The most recent lasted for 3 days, but it's only because of other bloggers that I knew what to do about it! Nasty buggers, migraines!
pamibe
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