{"id":1031,"date":"2010-08-26T12:51:50","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T11:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2010-08-26T12:52:26","modified_gmt":"2010-08-26T11:52:26","slug":"it-aint-flu-its-a-migraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/2010\/08\/it-aint-flu-its-a-migraine\/","title":{"rendered":"It Ain’t Flu – It’s A Migraine!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve finally figured out the reason for the repeated flu-like episodes. They’re Migraines From Hell! And not one medic managed to put 2 and 2 together and figure that that the “flu” that starts with the mother of all head & neck pain (headache is far too mild a word for it) in someone with a 40 year history of migraines justmight<\/em> suggest particularly severe migraine attacks.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mind you, neither did I until a doctor suggested that perhaps K’s stomach pain was abdominal migraine<\/a>. As I was recovering from Attack 1 this month, I began wondering if you could get migraine in other places. So I googled on migraine neck pain<\/em> out of curiosity and up popped a whole load of stuff on the subject. Turns out that severe neck pain is a common symptom of migraines<\/a> — especially when the sufferer has a long migraine history (possibly something to do with neck muscles going into spasm in an attempt to keep the head still during the acute pain phase).<\/p>\n

At that point, the penny dropped…<\/p>\n

– Agonising headaches
\n– Neck pain
\n– Nausea
\n– Occurring at weekends
\n– Start around 4 – 6am so that I wake with a full blown attack<\/p>\n

Take out the neck pain and you have exactly the same type of common migraine that I suffered from 20 years ago (with the odd classic migraine thrown in for good measure).<\/p>\n

So what’s changed? Well, the neck pain for a start. I thought the neck was causing the head pain but seems it’s the other way around.<\/p>\n

The other major difference is the recovery period. Twenty years ago, a bad attack took 72 hours to recover from. These attacks take a full week. And it ain’t just a case of the “zombies” either. The nausea takes 4 or 5 days to die down. I get bad stomach cramps, exhaustion, secondary headaches, sore neck (obviously), slightly raised temperature and generally feel pretty awful for a good 7 days<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Went to see the GP (I need drugs — gimme drugs!) and was given…<\/p>\n

Ta da… Migraleve<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Oh — do me a favour! Last time I has anti-migraine medication (yes – 20 years ago), it took ergotamine<\/a> to abort the attacks. And I’m not even sure that would work for an attack that starts well before you wake up!<\/p>\n

But, like a good little girl, I said “Thank you” (after all, I didn’t want to actually come across as some kind of drug-crazed lunatic) and figured I’d at least try them. <\/p>\n

Two days later, I got the opportunity as I woke up at 5:20am with Attack 2. Not only did Migraleve not help one bit, I was violently, & repeatedly, ill about 45 mins after taking it — something that (thankfully) never normally happens to me. Now on Day 6 post-migraine and am still not 100% better, Still very tired — although I have discovered that decongestants relieve the secondary headaches.<\/p>\n

Turns out that R has had the same experience with Migraleve whilst another migraineur<\/a> friend of mine merely shudders if you so much as mention Migraleve.<\/p>\n

So, it’s back to the GP — this time with my eye on triptans<\/a>. In the meantime, I’m scrupulously observing a regular sleeping programme (lights out at midnight — up at nine am) and I’m caffeine-free. Not that I previously had more than 2 cups of coffee a day (3 on special occasions). <\/p>\n

But I do miss my morning cup of coffee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve finally figured out the reason for the repeated flu-like episodes. They’re Migraines From Hell! And not one medic managed to put 2 and 2 together and figure that that the “flu” that starts with the mother of all head & neck pain (headache is far too mild a word for it) in someone with a 40 year history of migraines justmight suggest particularly severe migraine attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1038,"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/1038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackwidows.co.uk\/iad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}