A One Year Anniversary of Sorts

I don't know the exact date, but sometime in April 2008 was my last visit to the Emergency Room for a migrane. I never ever thought that I would make it through one year with no hospital visits. I have been battling these vicious headaches for over fifteen years!

Over the years, I have tried various meds to no avail. Finally, last April, after an especially horrible bout with a series of migranes, my ER doctor put me on sinus meds because he felt that half my problem was allergies. I walked around in a daze for about a month because I'm in the ten percent of Reactine users who experience drowsiness. A switch to Aerius solved that problem.

I now take allergy medicine everyday -- especially from March to the first killing frost. It has made an incredible difference not only in the frequency of my headaches (a lot less often), but the severity of them. If I get what I feel is going to be a doozy, I can take my heavy duty migrane med (Maxalt), and at the very least function -- if not get rid of it altogether. At other times when I have nagging pain that I know is not going to escalate, I can take Fiorinal. It can sometimes throw me a punch in that I feel a little loopy or on the other end jittery, so if I know I have to be driving anywhere, I will take Advil migrane instead. It is often, but not always effective too.

I make it sound like I'm a real med taker, but I spent so many years putting off taking any medicine as long as possible that I often caused more grief than I needed to. I would rather live with regualarly taking something that works for me than live with the debilitating fear that I am going to be feeling rotten on a vacation, for a family get-together, when my children most need my full attention, etc. It has been a wonderful feeling to know that we can go somewhere now and the first thing that I don't have to think of is where the nearest emergency room is provided I couldn't somehow manage to ride out seventy hours of pain instead. I've done that before and it is not pretty!

So I raise my glass of delicious unsweetened fruit juice, to being hospital room, writhing in pain free, for one year! Lord willing, I will be able to toast a two year anniversary a year from now!