One pill makes you small
Interesting experience yesterday — a migraine, the second one I've ever had. There was another headache I had a few years ago which I'd thought was a migraine as well, which would have made this the third — but now, after yesterday's has come and gone and I remember what they feel like, I've permanently disqualified that one from the list.
Ok, now that the technicalities are out of the way, the details.
We were on the way back from Mom and Dad's house after not having visited in quite some time. No real reason behind the latter part, I guess... just real life getting in the way as it tends to do. Recent events have reminded me that visiting your parents is pretty damned important after all, and you should do so while you have the opportunity.
Anyway... we were less than ten minutes into the return trip when I noticed an odd shimmering cartoonish outline around some things in my central field of vision, and a blurred paleness along the edges. I assumed it was nothing, perhaps some trick of early dusk's light at worst, and didn't mention it. As we traveled along the effect grew more pronounced, so I finally spoke up, asking Martha if I looked ok. I'd decided I was probably ill and thus maybe looked pale. She said I looked fine to her and asked if I felt ok, prompting me to describe the odd phenomena I was seeing. She said I was likely having an "aural migraine" and recommended I take some ibuprofen as a preventative first step just in case. I did.
We planned to stop in and visit her mom a bit before heading the rest of the way home, and by the time we got there (about an hour later) I'd developed a headache which was rapidly worsening. Which, of course, meant I might as well have taken M&Ms instead of ibuprofen, as it hadn't done anything at all.
There are some families which end up with a sizable collection of various potions for day-to-day ills. Martha comes from one of those families. And, there is also a history of migraines in her family. So her sister — who happened to be there as well — offered something called Imitrex and some other pill whose name I can't recall, saying it made for a nice cocktail which would "knock a migraine on its ass in about twenty minutes." I took both, downed them with water, and hoped for the best.
After we got home, I piddled around some, and noticed that while the pills I'd taken had compressed the pain in my head into a little tiny ball, they hadn't made it go away entirely — and I was becoming sensitive to light and sound. Upon making this discovery I went to bed — fully expecting the drugs to wear off at some point and leave me, once again, with a massive headache.
The last migraine I had was eleven years ago, 1998. It started on a Friday and didn't end until the following Sunday — a full 48 hours later. I spent the majority of that time either unconscious or just awake enough to take care of necessary bodily functions in a mostly dark bathroom. As I went to bed last night, I knew that was coming again, and I wondered if it would be Tuesday or Wednesday when I would next face the world.
It turned out to be this morning. I woke up feeling as normal as one can before 7:00 in the morning, my headache in the past and another August day in front of me.
Having researched this a little (something I never thought to do in 1998, perhaps believing it was an isolated incident), I've learned that there's a genetic component to migraines, and I've got that tendency on both sides of my family. Looking back, I can remember some of my adult relatives getting bad headaches when I was a kid. So it's definitely something I'll need to be aware of the rest of my life.
Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some kind of readily available potion here for when the next one hits. But with only two migraines in an eleven year period, I suspect anything I get will be long expired by then, and I honestly don't know if there's any over-the-counter remedy I can run out and pick up. Perhaps there will be when it happens. Hopefully it won't happen again... but it seems I've been down that road before.
Comments on "One pill makes you small":
I'm really sorry to hear that. I get them too, usually with aura as well, though MUCH less frequently than I used to. For a few years I got a couple a month. Now I would say it's down to 1-3 a year, which is obviously much more manageable. Sometimes sleeping them off is about all you can do, course then it wreaks havoc with your sleep pattern which can be a problem if you suffer from the other lovely, partially-genetic trait of insomnia... :)
# Posted by Lisa on August 20, 2009 @ 09:27:37 EDT.
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On Goodbye, Blossom, Martha said: We can still dress up and go to Laury's. Or Aubrey's. Or even Soho's, if/when I get over being mad.