Monday, May 17, 2010

The agony of weather patterns

So, I've mentioned before that I suffer from migraines - sometimes frequently, sometimes occasional, always frustrating. I've written about the migraine hangovers. I would do anything to cure myself. ANYTHING! (well almost anything).

Anyway, this afternoon I was the unlikely victim of a migraine attack. I ate my lunch. Started to feel hot and sweaty and very, very, very sleepy. It only took me about ten minutes to figure out what was happening, and after rummaging in my purse I realized I had no migraine specific drugs, so I took two pain killers and quickly packed up and headed home.

Good thing. The evilness waited until I got home to hit. I had a three hour power nap (which I woke up from about 45 minutes into it to discover the migraine was gone) and then went and collected my kid from daycare. The unhappy parts of the migraine hangover, besides the fog and the inability to do anything that requires concentration, is that my patience evaporates. I didn't find this out until I had a kid. But little things that I'd normally ignore or not even notice were driving me nuts. Luckily said kid wanted to colour when we got home, so we set her up to colour and I made dinner, which, also luckily, was just leftover that I had to heat up. By the time the kid's dad got home from work, well, I was feeling quite peachy!

But the most frustrating this about this particular migraine is that there was not really ANYTHING I could have done to prevent it. I was well rested. I ate at the prescribed times so that my blood sugar didn't do crazy stuff. I was well hydrated. I ate the right stuff. I can't control the weather. More and more often I'm finding that the weather is the cause of my migraines. And it's frustrating beyond belief that there's nothing I can do about it.

Besides the classic, auraless migraine, I also get a strange kind of migraine. I thought the neurologist was kidding when he diagnosed it, but he wasn't. It's called a silent migraine and while it usually presents with an aura, mine don't. Probably because I normally don't have an aura with my "regular" migraine. (Aura+Migraine=horrible horrible horribleness for Shannon. Please.Kill.Me.Now horribleness). I get all the symptoms I would normally get - weird speech, clumsiness, difficulty comprehending even simple processes, aversion to food, drink, light and sound - but no headache.

I'm not sure what triggers these either because sometimes it's not until a day or two later that I realize that was happening.

Maybe it's the weather.

Or not.

But in any case, discussing the weather isn't boring for me any more!

Do you get migraines? How do you treat them?

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