By the way, have you been able to lose any of the weight you regained when you were attacked by the Killer Headache? Do you think you’ll ever talk about the subject? Since many (if not most) of us were drawn to this site by your book and or diet adventures, I think you’d have an eager and receptive audience. And, as a long-time maintainer of an 85 pound loss (more than five years, and holding…) I’d be interested in what you have to say about “rebounding.”

Weight loss? Oh, right, weight loss. I would still like to lose my headache weight, and I do think about losing weight every day, but lately my thoughts have been more preoccupied with figuring out how to live with my constant headache. I have a chronic illness. I will probably always have a chronic illness. I have good days. I have bad days. When I wake up in the morning I don’t know what kind of day it will be, but I soon find out.

On good days, I make my oatmeal and drink my coffee and go to my office. I work happily on my projects, either designing webs or writing words. I probably go for a run before lunch and come back refreshed and think, “I can do this! I can beat this thing! The headache won’t get the best of me!” and I eat something healthy, like a nectarine or carrot sticks. Then I go back to work and by the evening I feel a sense of accomplishment, though my head probably hurts a lot by now from working on the computer all day. Then I watch some TV and when I weigh in the next day I think, “I’m doing so much better. I can really lose the weight now!”

On bad days, I make my oatmeal and drink my coffee and go to my office. I stare at the monitor for a few seconds, then turn on the TV to watch the end of Good Morning America and the beginning of Regis and Kelly. I might read stuff in my Google Feed Reader. I read my emails but don’t have the energy to put together a proper line of thought to reply to anyone. I sigh. I slump. The act of getting out of my chair and walking outside to check the mailbox feels like I am walking through the deep end of a pool, expending all my energy to travel oh, so, so, so, slooooowly, when all I want to do is collapse and float to the top. I tell myself I should exercise because that will release endorphins and make me feel better, just like the doctors have told me. But I don’t want to exercise. I want to lie down on the couch, or my bed, so I do. I’m not really tired enough to nap, but being unconscious sounds really appealing. I feel guilty because if I don’t work, I won’t get paid, and I won’t be able to afford food to eat.

Eating sounds really, good actually, and I’ll start to fixate on something delicious that could momentarily make me feel better, like a Mint Cookie Milkshake from Steak N’ Shake or the Pumpkin Spice Frappucino from Starbucks that just came into season. I tell myself, “No, you shouldn’t eat that. You want to lose weight.” Then I disagree with myself and say, “Who the fuck cares? Life is a ball of shit and I want some fucking ice cream.” I go back and forth with myself for an indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes I’m good and don’t eat the milkshake, if only because the thought of driving half a mile to Steak N’ Shake seems impossible. Sometimes I find the energy and purchase some ill-gotten goods at the grocery via the self-checkout line so no one judges my purchase. By the end of the day, I’m thinking that if a meteor were to hit the planet and cause all life to go extinct, I would be ok with that.

Then I go to bed and wake up the next day, which is either a good day or a bad day. Who knows which it will be? There is only so much I can do to control it. I take my pills. I try to exercise. I try to eat healthy. I drive past the Krispy Kreme and don’t’ stop (except when I do). I’m still fighting it (except when I’m not). On good days, losing 30 pounds seems easy and natural and completely achievable. On bad days, I don’t care about my weight at all, and I’ll take being fat if it means I can have some cookies.

I spend most of my energy trying to maintain an equilibrium. I’m happy if I simply feel ok during the day, not necessarily happy or energized, but not depressed and miserable. That’s how it is with chronic illness. You’re never cured, you just manage it the best you can.

So, yeah, weight loss. Weight loss is great. Woo-hoo, weight loss! To those of you losing weight, I salute you, but it’s not the focus of my life right now. I am just trying to get by, an hour at a time.

People always said life is hard and I would nod and agree, but I did not understand. Weight loss is hard and college is hard and finding a job is hard. All those things are hard, indeed, and I’ve done all those things. I thought I understood when people said life was hard, but I didn’t, because you cannot understand suffering until you have suffered.

I have been suffering lately. I have been suffering since the evening of February 17th, 2008 when I got a headache that has never gone away. Some of you probably laugh a little and think, “Ha, that’s weird. But it’s just a headache. How bad can it be?”

It is bad. It is very, very bad.

It has made me cry so badly that my wailing has made the cats run into my bedroom. It has made me come home numerous evenings and binge eat as a temporary way to ease the pain. It has made me go out to the parking garage during work and cry in the back seat and idly think that I could jump off the roof of the building if it gets unbearable.

And through this all has been the knowledge that I may never get better. No one seems to know what is causing my headache. None of the pills work. None of the eastern or western medicine is doing any good. I read stories about people who have had headaches for 10 or 20 or 30 years and I know I may join their ranks.

So, I have alternately been seeking a cure and also trying to learn how to cope with this unknown disease that may be with me for as long as I live. (Hopefully a long time. I was not seriously considering suicide and since I started anti-depressants have not even idly considered it as an option.) Still, it is hard. It is very, very hard. I truly understand that word now.

I have also not been taking care of myself. I have not been eating well and I have not been exercising. I know these things are important and would benefit my overall health, but I feel so overwhelmingly miserable on a daily basis that food is one of my few comforts and exercise seems a chore as difficult as swimming around the globe. (Which, of course, would be great exercise.) I know I need to do better in these areas, but I am focusing most of my energy on just getting through the day, on keeping my job and my health insurance that I need so desperately right now. I would love to lose weight, but I just don’t have the energy for it right now and it is hard to make it a priority when so many other things need fixing first. I can’t move the furniture when the house is on fire.

I have been trying to keep my momentum and keep living the life I was living a year ago. I’d like to be that girl again. But I feel like I’m sleepwalking through my own life, that I’m just going through the motions, miscast as the lead in someone else’s play. I would like that sense of normalcy back. So I try. I do what I can. But I also have to remember I have the right to do less than humanly possible. Otherwise I go a little krazee, as was evidenced last night.

I haven’t been talking about my struggles too much on the blog for a couple reasons. First, I didn’t want a hundred different opinions on what I should be doing. I know they are just voices of the caring, but they pull me in a hundred different directions until only shredded remains are left. This place has gotten so big lately that I don’t always feel comfortable sharing everything anymore, knowing someone is bound to misunderstand me. It does not feel as safe here as it used to. There are hypodermic needles on the playground.

Secondly, I like to act as normal as I can, to live as much of my life that I can, although lately I have been living a half-life, unable to do the things I want to, to feel the ways I used to. This blog used to be called “Half of Me.” I am now (a little over) half my weight, but due to my illness I’m living half a life too. I fake it well. I greet people warmly in the elevator and I smile at my doctor’s appointments. I tell jokes and goof around. They would say, “Jennette seems perfectly ok! She’d never take a header off the roof!” It makes me look around at my coworkers, at the people in line at the grocery store, and wonder how many of them are faking it too. There is so much suffering that goes unnoticed.

It might get better. I’m seeking help. I’m still seeing doctors. I’m trying to get by. My family and friends have been awesome, cooking me dinner and doing my dishes and checking in on me and listening to my whining. But I don’t know what will happen. I might be sick forever and that will be that. I’ll have to figure out how to live with this chronic pain. I’ll have to learn to do the best I can with what is left of my life. But at least there was a year there, when I was working out and eating well and I was healthy, when I felt really good and the world was full of so many possibilities. I was happy then and it was nice. I’m glad I had that year.

And to anyone who thinks there is something noble about my suffering, about the way I carry on so bravely in the face of insurmountable odds, fuck you. There is nothing noble about this. There is just pain – meaningless, endless pain. There is no purpose to it, no greater meaning. It will change me and test me, no doubt, but I don’t want any congratulations for the fact that I still carry on. I do it because I have to and death is not an option.

So, on Friday I leave for vacation. I’m going to the Quaker Oatmeal Festival in Colorado because God knows I could use a fucking vacation. I will try to have a good time even if the high altitudes make my head explode. And by God, I promise to eat a shitload of oatmeal.

It is not like my headache, which no one can see. They might notice the zoned out look in my eyes or notice me rub my temples, but otherwise my chronic pain is invisible. When I try to explain what is wrong with me, they don’t understand. They’ll say, “How are your headaches?” using the plural. They don’t get that the headache never goes away, that it’s just one headache, not many. They try to empathize, but they don’t really know what it’s like, and I’m thankful because I would not wish the experience on others. They can say “That must be awful,” but almost no one can say, “Oh, yeah, I had a headache for a couple years too.” It’s weird. It’s unusual. People don’t understand it. They don’t know what to do for it. Take an aspirin. Get acupuncture. Have you considered TMJ? It might be your vision. The chiropractor can fix you, I’m sure. Do you have a neurologist? No one knows what to do. No one knows how to cure me. There is no guarantee that it will pass eventually.

So even though I breathe through my mouth at night and awake to a dry tongue, I’m enjoying my cold. I’ll take my cough drops and I’ll keep my tissues close and eventually it will go away. I know this. I understand it. I can name it. I wish the same could be said of all things.

However, there have been times in the past couple months when I’ve not been grateful to be in possession of my brain considering how badly it has been hurting. It’s made my life suck. Oh, let me count the ways.

The emotional toll

When I started crying alone in the parking lot of the doctor’s office in the rain last April, I knew I was starting to lose it. There was so much snot running down my face that I had to reach into the back seat and grab a white t-shirt to wipe my nose on that I’d been planning to give to Goodwill. Later I cried on the phone to my mom who felt bad that she couldn’t kiss the receiver to make the pain go away. I’ve laid in bed wondering if I’d have a stroke in the middle of the night and die, which would suck, but at least would stop my suffering.

Several people have told me they admire my level-headed, sensible approach to weight-loss. So, the fact that I’ve been blowing snot on t-shirts for the poor should give you a sense of how far gone I’ve been in my worst moments. One day I was so befuzzled after two hours and three different attempts at finding an open lab to do my blood work, that I turned the wrong way down a one way street.

The eating

My headache is like being locked in a room with a TV that is endlessly looping a movie starring Tom Green or Adam Carrola. It’s absolutely awful and I can’t turn off the TV, but I can sometimes tune it out. In the same way, my headache always hurts, but I can sometimes ignore it. I’ve found that the best ways to distract myself are to 1) keep psychotically busy or 2) eat pleasurable things. (Hence, the weight gain in my sidebar this month. That’s seven pounds of pain, baby.)

The intravenous drugs haven’t done shit, but the cookies n’ cream milkshake from Steak N’ Shake sure did make me feel better. I mean that in all seriousness. After I’ve been in pain all day, if I eat a bowl of ice cream or a chocolate bar, I genuinely feel better for those few moments. The agony is drowned out by the other sensations, like turning up the radio to drown out the sound of your neighbors having sex. Last month I was chomping on some chocolate chips, knowing I should stop, but also knowing that as soon as I did the pain would come back. Chronic pain or extra calories? Headache or huge jeans? I really don’t know which is worse.

I started half-seriously thinking about starting a drinking habit instead of binge eating, but I didn’t know how alcohol would react with some of my headache medications, whereas blueberry bagels don’t seem to cause fatal drug interactions.

The laziness

It’s hard enough to get myself to exercise when I’m feeling fine, but when my head feels like it’s imploding, good luck getting me to pull out my weight bench. I record all my exercise on a wall calendar. Flipping back, I can see that my Pilates and weights sessions started to drop off in frequency a week or two after my headache started. After a month, they disappeared completely and I was focused only on completing my training runs for my half-marathon. After I finally ran the race, I barely exercised for three weeks.

Thankfully, I have exercised regularly for the past two weeks. It’s felt really good, getting back into the familiar routine, almost like I have my life back. I believe the exercise makes me feel better too (even though running two miles is never un-painful). Activity is good for the body and lying around wasn’t helping make the pain go away anyway.

Missing out on fun

A couple weeks ago, I could have seen a sneak preview of the Indiana Jones movie for free, but I had to come home to do a drug treatment. Last month the band Stars was in town and I wanted to go see them, but I felt tired from suffering all day and I didn’t want to be stuck in a smoky room that could inflame my headache. Several times I have been out with friends or coworkers and I can’t help thinking, “This would be a lot more fun if my head didn’t hurt.”

The hopelessness

I used to wake up and feel happy driving around town or running errands, but at my worst I was just trudging through as best I could and trying not to go more than two weeks without doing the dishes. I wanted to stay in bed all day or curl up watching TV on the couch. I watched the TV show House and I started cheering on his Vicodin addiction. (I fully support your narcotics habit, you crabby doctor, you!) My attitude to live life to its fullest became Operation: Just Getting By. It was shocking how quickly my life completely unraveled. It sucked the happy right out of life.

While I try to keep a positive attitude, living in constant pain beat me down over time. Some days I felt like fighting and other days I felt like lying belly up on the floor playing dead. I think of Jack Baur from the TV show 24 when he’s been tortured by the Chinese for years. Jack didn’t break, because he’s Jack Baur, damn it! But I was ready to tell the Chinese all our nuclear secrets if they would give me acupuncture.

On the bright side, I feel like I can now empathize with people who suffer from chronic pain and depression better than I ever would have been before. You really don’t know what it’s like until it happens to you.

The money

MRI’s aren’t cheap. When I was watching those episodes of House, he started ordering MRI’s and CT scans and I literally yelled at my TV, “OH MY GOD! Do you know how much that’s going to cost?!?!”

The medical system

Oh, yeah, this has been fun. Filling out lots of form, getting lost in medical facilities, trying to figure out who to see and what type of doctor could help me, hoping this would be the magic test that would diagnose my problem, the long delays between prescribing a test and getting in the schedule to take the test.

Retelling my medical history to several different doctors has been like playing that alphabet car game. You know, the one where the first person says, “I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing an apple.” And the next person brings something with the next alphabet letter like, “I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing an apple and bagels.” Then the next person says, “I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing an apple and bagels and cream cheese.” Except in the medical system it goes, “I have a headache and I tried antibiotics” and then you tell the next doctor, “I have a headache and I tried antibiotics and beta blockers,” and then you tell the next doctor, “I have a headache and I tried antibiotics, beta blockers and I’m willing to try crack cocaine if it will help.” It’s gotten to a point where I don’t know who I’ve told what or if I left out a part of the story because unfortunately I did not try things in alphabetical order.

But now I’m feeling better, if not fantastic

So, that’s what was going on behind the blog for the past few months. During April I kept thinking, “Dear God, how am I ever going to get through May?” But as I discovered, being incredibly busy helped because it didn’t leave me time to think about my headache. At the end of May, things started to slow back down to a reasonable pace, which left me plenty of time to think about how I’d gladly bash my head against a wall a couple times if I thought it’d stop the God damn pain. 2007 was a really great year and every day I drove home from work happy and excited, but I’d also think, “You’d better enjoy this feeling because something shitty is bound to happen to you eventually.” And it did.

But, the last two weeks have been okay, partly because the pain has lessened and partly because I’ve stopping hoping that it will go away anytime soon. It’s me and my headache for who knows how long – maybe for the rest of my life. In my research I discovered there are people who’ve had headaches for decades. I might one day be one of them. I will still keep looking into fixing my headache, but I’m sort of tired of dealing with the search for the cure right now. I’m taking a break.

Chilling out the past couple weeks has helped. I didn’t think I was that stressed despite the fact that I was training for a half-marathon, promoting a book, working a full-time job and writing a blog, but looking back and comparing it to how I feel now I’m thinking, “Um, yeah, maybe I was a little bit stressed out.” I was just so used to being stressed that I didn’t realize how bad it was until it let up. Sort of like how now my headache probably isn’t all that less painful than it used to be, I’m just so used to it that I don’t think it is as bad as I did when I first got it. If it were to go away, I would probably be surprised to realize how crappy I feel, just like I was surprised by how much better I felt when I first started eating healthy and exercising.

One of the worse things about this experience has been the feeling that I had no control over my life. I was in pain, gaining weight, not exercising, and unable to work as hard on my promotions as I wanted to – and it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was victimized by my central nervous system.

But I haven’t eaten any milkshakes lately. And I’ve been hitting the trail. And I can lift almost as much weight during my strength training as I used to. Things started spinning down into a tailspin for awhile there, but I feel like I’m pulling up on the stick now. We’ll be flying normal again soon, if with a bit of turbulence.

I hope the stewardess will serve painkillers.

SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

There’s no doubt that I get down when the weather is bad and winter in Indiana lasted about 20 years this season. I bought a special light to sit in front of for 10 minutes in the morning. It helped me feel a little less depressed, but my headache didn’t go away. Also, we finally kidnapped the sun back from the southern hemisphere this month, so I don’t think it’s SAD.

New office

I got my headache a month after I started a new job. I’m not going to blog about work because we’ve all heard stories of people being fired for that and God knows I need the health insurance. I will just say I’ve investigated possibilities and I don’t think it’s anything work-related, be it stress, lack of natural sunlight, or a toxic environment.

Eye strain

I stare at computer monitors all day, so maybe it’s eye strain? I adjusted my monitors (yes, plural) at work so they are at the correct ergonomic height. I also moved them so they are the same distance from my face and my eyes do not have to refocus between distances when I look from one screen to another. My work stations are sufficiently lit and no one else is having problems. Also, if that was the cause wouldn’t my headache go away on the weekends? Just to be safe, I bought a new home monitor this weekend with better resolution and contrast ratio. Think I can write it off as a medical expense?

Posture

I don’t always sit up straight at the computer. It’s possible a bad ergonomic position could be causing my neck, shoulders or back to tighten up and cause my pain. But again, if that was the case, wouldn’t the headache have gone away when I was traveling during the past few weekends? I’m trying to sit up straighter anyway since good posture can’t possibly hurt me.

Stress

Stress has been known to cause headaches, but I don’t feel that stressed right now. May was crazy, but I’m through most of that and my head still hurts. Plus, the headache started in February when I wasn’t that stressed either.

LASIK

I had LASIK surgery back in June, so could it be that? I did some googling and I couldn’t find many reports of headache after LASIK. Some people got dry eyes which caused headaches, but there were no situations like mine. It also seems like that problem would have developed right away and not 9 months after the surgery. My vision is so good that I can see all the little leaves on the tress as I’m driving around town, so I don’t think it’s eye strain. I will probably schedule an eye appointment eventually to be sure, but this seems like a dead end.

Marrying the wrong man

Erin recently mentioned she got a headache after she married the wrong man. It sent her to the emergency room thinking she had a tumor. I haven’t married anyone recently, so it’s not that. (BTW, congrats on the engagement, Erin!)

Lack of exercise

I record all my exercise on a wall calendar. I flipped back to February right when I got the headache and that’s when my Pilates and weights sessions started appearing less and less. By the end of April I’d ditched both of those and I was just barely keeping up with my half-marathon training. After the race, I only ran 2 days in the next 3 weeks. God knows it’s hard enough to make myself exercise when I feel good. It’s significantly harder to make myself go to the gym or insert a Pilates DVD into the player when my head hurts all the time.

However, lack of exercise can only be hurting me, so I’m going to focus much more on this. I’m going to try to exercise in the mornings when I don’t feel as drained. After I’ve been conscious and in pain for 12 hours and worked a full day, I really don’t feel like going for a run. In fact, I’ve decided just to focus on work, exercise and keeping up with the blog. There really isn’t room for anything else in my life right now. I’ve exercised 3 out of the 4 last days, so this is going well.

Neti pot

My mom gave me a neti pot. For those of you unfamiliar with this device, it’s shaped sort of like a teapot. You fill it with water, tip your head, and pour the water through one nostril and let it stream out the other nostril. Yes, it is as comical as it sounds. Here’s a video!

It sometimes works for people with allergies. I don’t think my headache is allergies, but I will give it a try.

TMJ/Jaw clenching

My brother had TMJ (Temporomandibular joint disorder) awhile back, which means something goes funky with your jaw. It’s usually accompanied by popping and clicking, which I don’t have, so I doubt it’s that. I have noticed I sometimes clench or grind my teeth. Is that causing the headache or am I wearing down my enamel because of the pain? I’m not sure. I’m scheduled to see a dentist next month and I’ll pick his brain about my brain’s pain.

Gum chewing

I chew too much gum. I started chewing gum with xylitol because it helps prevent tooth decay. My dentist recommended it after he plugged 12 cavities and I confessed to how many sodas I drink. I sometimes pop a stick of gum to prevent me from eating. It’s stopped me from licking the batter in mixing bowls several times. However, I’m sure using the muscles in my head to chew for an extra hour or so a day is not helping my headache. I’m trying to cut back on the gum, but like the caffeine withdrawal, it’s hard.

Artificial sweeteners/Diet

I’ve heard artificial sweeteners cause headaches in some people. This has never been the case with me, so I’m not sure why something like that would come on suddenly, but I’m willing to consider it. I’ve cut back to two canned sodas a day. (Yes, I said “cut back.” You don’t want to know how much I used to drink.) I really don’t know how I could eliminate aspartame and Splenda from my diet entirely. This would be a huge step, getting rid of diet sodas and who knows what else in my diet, so I’m putting it off. So many foods have artificial ingredients that I’m not sure what I could eat if I had to cut this stuff out. I’m pretty sure my favorite yogurt would be off limits.

Which brings me to the next possibility: diet and food allergies. There are certain foods that have been known to trigger headaches in other people, such as yogurt and chocolate. Notice how it’s never asparagus or celery that screws you over? I really don’t want to eliminate yogurt from my diet because I like it so much. As with the artificial sweeteners, if I start cutting out everything that might be triggering my migraine, I won’t have much left to eat except for lettuce and zucchini. I don’t know how far I can go on that.

Other miscellaneous suggestions

Readers have also suggested I may be low on magnesium, suffering from depression, or have polycystic ovary disease. I’ll check into this.

Acupuncture and Chiropractors

These are two other possible treatments I’m looking into and will probably pursue, if only because they’ll probably make good blog material. If I let someone stick needles in my face, I’ll bring my camera along and try to get a picture of my pinhead impression for you.

As you can see, there are about 50 bazillion possible causes for headaches. And there are another 50 bazillion possible treatments. So, I’ve added 50 bazillion things to my to-do list which I shall be investigating for who knows how long, or at least until my headache goes away. If you have any thoughts, other possible causes or recommended treatments, the comments are open. Thank you to everyone who has been sharing their stories and kind words the past few days. It’s meant a lot to me to know I’m not the only one who has had to deal with chronic pain. Thanks for your support. My readers are the best.

Over-the-counter painkillers

Like most people, I didn’t immediately reach for the intravenous drugs, I reached for my medicine cabinet. During the first week I tried ibuprofen, acetaminophen, naproxen, and aspirin (not all at once). These are also know as Advil, Tylenol, Aleve, and um, aspirin. I also tried different combinations and potencies of these, like Excedrin Tension Headache and Tylenol Migraine Pain Relief. They didn’t do shit.

Allergies

Okay, so maybe it’s allergies? I tried several cold/sinus/flu medications and even went up to the pharmacy counter to get the stuff you can make crystal meth out of. I snorted God-knows-what up my nostrils with a nasal spray. My doctor gave me a ton of Allegra-D. All the pseudoephedrine, doxylamine succinate, dextromethorphan hydobromide, oxymetazoline, and fexofenadine did nothing but make me wonder how they come up with these wacky names for drugs.

Migraine abortives

Somewhere before or after all that, I went to the doctor and got a shot of Toradol (ketorlac tromethamine), which is supposed to stop migraines. They may as well have injected me with saline. I also tried a pill called Imitrex (sumatriptan) which is supposed to abort a migraine as it’s coming on. Again, nothing. My head still hurt. I have been on a beta blocker for at least 5 years as a headache preventative. We tried upping my dosage on that, and again, nada.

Sinus infection

Well, the pain seemed to be in my sinuses, so could it be a sinus infection? I did a round of antibiotics and again, I was still in pain. I went in for a CT scan of my sinuses and that too was clear. Getting the CT was like riding a really weird ride at the amusement park. I got to lay down on a bench that slid in and out of a spiraling circle. Too bad there weren’t any cotton candy vendors in the lobby.

Caffeine

Perhaps it’s caffeine? God knows I drink a lot of sodas, so I started drinking caffeine-free pop and switched my coffee to decaf (which I know still has some caffeine, but it’s not that much). This seemed to help a little, but I also wanted to take a nap on my keyboard during the day. Soooo…I got a cup of coffee and then I bought a caffeinated soda and I was back on the stuff again. But later the pain was getting to me, so I cut back again. For awhile. And then I started up again. Right now I’ve gone off of it again, but damn, it’s hard. When you go off caffeine for two weeks and then you drink a cup of coffee, OH MY GOD, I imagine that’s what doing crack must feel like.

MRI

Next up was an MRI to rule out anything serious. Honestly, I never thought it was a brain tumor (and the radiologist agreed). Brain tumors usually present with seizures and speech problems, none of which I was having. MRI’s are very, very expensive. (Think over $3000.) The MRI was recommended at the beginning of April. Due to insurance stuff, it was going to be much cheaper to have the MRI in May. So, I decided to wait it out. I wasn’t counting down to my half-marathon or my book release party at the beginning of May, I was counting down to my MRI. Until a week and a half later when I was lying on my couch in pain, amazed at how quickly my life had completely unravelled, and decided the health of my bank account was less important than my own health. (Have you bought your book yet? Support my migraine fund!)

When I scheduled the MRI, they asked me if I weighed over 350 pounds and I was so grateful that I was able to say “No.” Otherwise I wouldn’t have fit in the machine, which is very LOUD and strangely musically rhythmic. I’m surprised STOMP hasn’t used an MRI machine in their stage performance. The machine is probably too expensive for theatre people to afford. Also, my veins are very tiny and tend to roll around, so I spent 20 minutes in the machine and 20 minutes getting stuck 4 times when the nurse tried to inject me with contrast material.

Neurosurgeon

After the MRI, there was one small abnormality, so I saw a neurosurgeon who told me I just had a cluster of veins in one spot that is uncommon in general, but normal for me. No action was required and it wasn’t causing my headache. We probably would never have known about it unless I’d had the MRI for other reasons. He also did several tests that involved me touching my nose with one hand and walking across the room, which made me wonder if he was testing my brain or checking for a DUI.

Massage

My mom’s friend is a massage therapist and she kindly offered to give me a massage. The massage felt nice and I was very grateful, but the headache persisted. She also tried working a few release points that are supposed to relieve headache. This is not what you think of when you think of massage. This stuff hurts. But it hurts in sort of a good way. Sadly, it didn’t work.

Intravenous drugs

At this point, I finally started seeing a neurologist who specializes in headaches. His office is darkly lit and quiet and it took me at least 20 minutes to fill out all the forms detailing all the crap I’ve tried to get rid of this damn headache. He prescribed an intravenous drug treatment to try to abort the headache. Two weeks later, after the insurance and scheduling got sorted out (not like this was urgent or anything. I’ve only been in pain for THREE MONTHS.) a nurse came to my apartment, stuck an IV in my arm, shot me full of a drug known to stop headaches and taught me how to do two more nights of treatment. Again, this did absolutely nothing except turn me into a person who stores heparin in the bottom of her fridge, right on top of the eggs. Blood thinner omelet, anyone?

And that, my friends, brings us up to present day. God only knows if my headache will ever go away. As I write this, it’s not too bad. But I just did a whole bunch of nothing over Memorial Day weekend. I don’t know how I’ll feel when life resumes and I actually have to do stuff.

Tomorrow: a list of other causes I’ve considered and treatments I may try because I’m getting desperate. We’ll cover eye strain, teeth clenching, stress and more!