I had a migraine last night. One of those fortunately rare headaches that feels like the someone has opened your skull and is pounding on the soft matter therein.
It's strange, I've been having these headaches for about a decade now, and they've gotten into a pattern. First I have a mild headache that feels like someone is squeezing my head from behind. Those headaches aren't serious, and I have them far more often than I have my migraines. But when it's going to be real serious, I can tell by closing my eyes.
There's a flicker behind my vision, and I can't see it that early into the headache without closing my eyes. So when I get a mild headache that has stuck around for almost an hour, I start to check it by closing my eyes every few minutes. If it's going to get worse, I see a flicker on the edges of my vision when my eyes are closed.
It's hard to describe what I see. It's like a fire licking at the edges of my sight, but not quite like that either.
If I see that, I know I've got anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half before the big one hits. It's very nice of my body to give me enough warning time to go home and hide. That's what happened yesterday. I was at work, and at about 4 pm I started to see the signs of a biggie and let my boss know that I really needed to go home.
Along the drive home, the minor headache started to get worse, and the flickering started to show up even with my eyes open. By the time I can see it with my eyes open, the flickering has almost changed into a pulsing. It never quite gets into a pattern, but it seems less wild than before.
Once home, the most important thing I can do is drink as much water as possible. It sometimes reduces the length of the pain, and sometimes seems to help with the recovery.
When it hit at about five pm, I just felt really weak first. Then any light at all hurts. And I'm not talking just pain, I'm talking HURT. Even a tiny bit of light feels like a spike being driven into my eyes and up into my brain. I usually grab a towel and wrap it around my eyes. Last night I just got into bed and pulled the blankets across my face. I couldn't breathe very comfortably, but anything is better than the pain at that point.
It's impossible to sleep. Impossible to think straight. Every bit of your body and mind is aimed at simply reducing the pain any way it can. At some point, the phone rang. At some point hubby-Eric came home. As the pain finally started to fade about 8 pm, hubby provided some food for me. Then it was back into the bed to try and recover.
The night was long and partially sleepless, and this morning the pain elves were still rattling my skull. But now I've got to go to work, and I hope I can survive long enough to fully recover. Sadly, it usually takes a couple of days for the effect to fully wear off. I can still feel an angry tightness inside my head.
Ah well. Off I go.
0 comments:
Post a Comment