Health is Wealth

I have chosen to be open about a lot of my struggles, personal, physical, and mental. It is no secret that I have the knees of a geriatric former paratrooper and anyone who has grappled with me has felt my right knee grind together like some rusty gears. Hell, I just posted a picture of the over 30 mL of fluid my orthopedist drained from the dumpster fire that is my knee. Even my “good” knee really isn’t good, it’s just not obliterated like the other one. I had to get 4 syringes total in both of my knees as treatment only 2 days before stepping on the competition mats yet again. But I am used to this, and I have accepted that this is just a part of my every day life. Until I get my total knee replacement, I will continue to be in pain every single day, and though I will never be able to move like I used to when I was fighting MMA, there are work-arounds. Luckily I am a black belt, and have developed a game for my Jiu Jitsu that I can still manage and adapt to without causing too much stress on my knees. Plus, adrenaline is a hell of a drug, and helps me when I am in the throes of competition.

One of the struggles I have not discussed on my blogs in depth, but is known to those in my life is my chronically debilitating migraines. While I was always prone to headaches, I would never really experience a migraine except for maybe once every couple of years if that, and they were considerably mild. Over the passed few years however, this number has increased to several times a year, to a few times a month, and now 3-4 times a week. When I say migraines, I am not talking about a painful headache or light symptoms. I am talking about incredibly debilitating, life-altering symptoms and effects that leave me unable to function. I get the full blown migraine, complete with all 4 steps (prodrome phase, aura, headache, and postdrome phase). I am on several different medications including an abortive triptan, bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), a nasal spray, a monthly injectable, anti-nausea meds, and botox treatment. The only thing that has truly significant helped has been the Botox treatment, and even then it has only lasted for 5 weeks without a single migraine. Everything else seems to lessen them at first, and then after a few weeks my migraines return as normal. Even the abortive triptans only work if I am able to take them at the very beginning of the prodrome phase, otherwise I still suffer from the adverse effects.

My prodrome phase has a few different levels. At the very beginning, (sometimes 24-48 hours in advance), I will feel some subtle mood shifts, but I am not always able to attribute that to an incoming migraine. I will also develop frequent urination, but I do drink copious amounts of water so I will only notice this as an oncoming migraine symptom if I haven’t been downing water. I will also sometimes have frequent, unexplained yawning, problems concentrating, trouble sleeping and staying asleep, and night sweats. Again, this can be harder to distinguish because I have never been a truly great sleeper. If I am able to take a triptan here, I can halt a migraine in its tracks. Unfortunately, sometimes I develop these symptoms overnight and by the time I wake up in the morning it is already too late for the triptan to truly work in time. I am currently trying to teach my very smart dog to alert me if she can sense one coming (by training her sense of smell to pick up on my saliva’s chemical changes altering its scent) so that I can take medication in time. Once the next stage (aura) begins to develop, the medication will no longer be truly effective.

My aura is weird. I sometimes slur my words and have confusion with trying to find the right speech (transient aphasia). My balance is also off and things become hazy. The worst lately has been when these occur in the middle of the night. If I keep having to get up to use the bathroom as the prodrome phase wears off, I am usually exhausted as its the middle of night, I am disoriented, groggy, confused, and have no balance. The other night I ran into our glass tv stand, hurting myself, and then picked up the heavy tv set. I have also been having memory loss during this stage recently, and can not recall things I did or said during this time period which has been a little bit scary. At the end of this phase I will become exceptionally sensitive to light, sound, and smells, and also quickly get nauseous. Then comes the headache. Sometimes, the headache is a dull pain, and sometimes I get occipital neuralgia which will send shooting and sharp pains into the occipital region at the base of my skull into my neck. It is awful. If the nausea gets so bad here that I vomit, rather than alleviating my pain it actually makes it 10x worse. I have been completely incapacitated on my bathroom floor in the past, unable to lift my head or move.

The first time I had a full blown attack like this was one of only two times I went to the ER (the other being when I blew out my knew and tore 4 ligaments in it). I was so scared that something was severely wrong. Because of that trip, I learned if it gets this bad to take my triptan, my zofran (anti-nausea), and some Benadryl (it is part of the Migraine cocktail). However, lately, even this combination has not been helping. I usually was able to wear my ice pack headache cap, take those meds, and go to sleep, and then wake up and be alright. Lately though, I wake up and still be dealing with a migraine. I am not going to lie, it has me feeling pretty defeated lately. I am always so scared to suffer an attack during travel and inconvenient times, that I always make sure to keep medication on me and in my car. I even got a migraine on our honeymoon. Another warning sign of an attack is if certain foods become unappealing to me, the thought of even drinking alcohol turns my stomach, and I generally feel bad. An over the counter medication like Excedrine would do nothing, and I can’t even stomach the thought of swallowing an unnecessary pill. I also can no longer stand the smell of hot coffee. Oddly enough, cold is fine and I still drink my cold brews, but hot coffee makes me queasy just thinking about it.

I have another round of Botox in a few weeks, and will discuss my new worrisome symptoms with my neurologist. My poor, loving husband has witnessed firsthand the detriment this illness has had on my life. I have become a shell of who I once was, and some of my symptoms have scared him as much as they have me. There is no “struggling to work today with a migraine” as you simply can’t function. I can’t drive during certain phases, or form coherent sentences, or even hold my head upright. I can’t read, or look at a screen, or eat or drink a thing and am working hard to suppress the nausea. And if I get the full blown excruciating pain, I am a wreck. I never thought I would miss the days of my frequent and painful headaches, but at least I could still function with them even though it wasn’t very fun. The postdrome phase always feels like a terrible hangover, and has my eyes watering nonstop. And then I struggle to recall any of my memories from the past few hours. I have no idea what truly triggers my migraines, or why they have been increasing in frequency and worsening over the past few years, but I just want them to stop. I want to feel better, and live without fear of the next impending attack.