A Migraine Prodrome?
While on my run this morning, I started feeling really, really weird. I sometimes get this super strong “déjà vu”* sensation, and that was happening so severely this morning that I actually had to stop running for a second and just try to let my brain chill out before I could continue. I also just felt off all morning, and the combination of these things made me think that I was going to end up getting a migraine sometime soon.
And so guess what happened this afternoon?
Fortunately I was done with the ASHA adjudication meeting that I had to go to in the morning, but unfortunately I was about two blocks out from my office and on the way to FreshCo. Another fortunate thing though was that I noticed the vision stuff right as it started, which means I took some Excedrin immediately. The faster I take the meds as the vision stuff begins, the better it seems to do in terms of making the actual headache part more bearable.
So that was fun.
At least it didn’t happen while I was running.
*It’s not déjà vu, but that’s the closest thing I can think of to describe it. It’s almost like what I would describe a smell to be like in terms of how it permeates my sinuses and head, but it’s obviously not that, either.
Ugh
Had my first migraine in a while today. I don’t know why the frequency has dropped off so much lately, but I’ll certainly take it. Last year around this same time I was having one almost every other week. I don’t think I’ve had one since March this year.
I wish I knew what triggered them.
VAXXED TO THE MAX
Nate and I finally got our COVID bivalent boosters today. Which is great, because it means better protection against COVID, but sucks because I’m SURE I’ll get some nasty side-effects for at least the next few days. I’m ready for it.
Edit: annnnnnd a migraine. Great. But it’s the first migraine I’ve had this year, which is actually pretty good. I was getting them weekly for a while there.
Migraine!
Yay!
ANOTHER MIGRAINE
WHY HAVE THERE BEEN SO MANY THIS YEAR
YOU get a migraine! And YOU get a migraine! And YOU and YOU and YOU and
Hey brain, you wanna chill with these? Especially with the semester starting soon?
(Please?)
MI-to-the-GRAINE
Heyyyyyyyyyyyy guess what?
ANOTHER MIGRAINE
I have no idea why I’m getting so many of these lately, but here we are.
Maybe I’m just freaking out about the upcoming semester and this is how my body is dealing with that.
Ugh.
You know what’s better than a migraine?
Being five miles out on a walk and getting that sweet, sweet scintillating scotoma aura in the middle of your vision and you have to deal with partial vision loss for 30 minutes and then the migraine itself for another several hours and then that fuzzy, out-of-it post-migraine feeling after that.
THE FUN NEVER STOPS I TELLS YA
On a completely unrelated note, my job title has apparently changed. I am no longer a “lecturer” but am instead an “assistant professor (teaching).” Which sounds WAY cooler, so I’ll take it.
If I actually get tenure when I apply for it I’ll become an associate professor.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ScotomaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I know I’ve posted about scintillating scotomas on here several times before, but I just found this video:
I had no idea Herschel experienced these. That’s kinda cool.
Also, that drawing at 3:34 is ridiculous. That’s exactly what they look like (except in real life they, you know, scintillate).
Super interesting.
Migraine time!!!
Ugh, I had a migraine today.
I really shouldn’t complain about them; as far as migraine sufferers go, my migraines are quite few and far between. And when I do get them, I luckily don’t get the classic hypersensitivity to sound or light.
The migraines have changed since I first started having them, though. At least the non-headache stuff has. When I was younger, the tips of my fingers always used to tingle before the migraine itself started. That doesn’t happen anymore. And I’ve always had some post-migraine “brain fog” that lasted for a little while, but that seems to have gotten worse over the past few years. It lasts longer and is more intense. It used to seem to last a few hours, but now it lasts for a day or so. Which sucks.
Anyway. Could be worse, so I’ll shut up.
It’s the FIN-AL LEC-TURE (da-na-naaaa-na, da-na-na-na-naaaa)
WOO THIS SEMESTER IS OVER
Has it been an exceptionally stressful one? Yes and no. Yes because we switched from being online to in person IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEMESTER LIKE WHAT THE F and no because it wasn’t really any busier than most of my semesters.
Last semester, however, was brutal. And all the semesters since COVID have had their share of extra work. So I think I’m just really, really burnt out.
PLUS I haven’t been able to go back to Moscow since December 2019, and going down to Moscow is a very physical stress relieving activity.
So yeah. I’m glad I’m not teaching in the spring semester, ‘cause I need a few months to just chill back out and get ready for the summer and semesters beyond.
Edit: YAY A MIGRAINE WHAT A GREAT WAY TO END THE SEMESTER THANKS BRAIN OL’ BUDDY OL’ PAL
Burfday
One year closer to death, awwwwwwwwwwwwww yeah!
Also, I had a migraine tonight, because HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU LOSER
That’s all. Screw all of this.
Guess who got a migraine for Christmas?
ME!
(I’m so freaking special!)
I also got a book about Coldplay and one of their concerts on DVD! Thanks, Nate!
Yay, a migraine!
So I was just in the process of typing up some nonsense blather for today’s blog post (because let’s face it, that’s most of what these posts are nowadays) when my vision started going. You know what that means…a migraine!
So I guess that’s what I’m goingt to blog about to day.
(I suspect I’m goingn to have to go back in here and correct a whole bunch of typiocs, considering I CAN’T SEE HALF THE DAMN SCREEN…or maybe I’ll leave ‘em in for that sweet, sweet authentic “blogging while having a migraine aura” experience.
Ya sure, let’s do that.)
These freaking auras are usually the worst part of my migraines, since there’s really nothing I can do about them but wait for them to pass, wich typically means sitting around with partial vision (someotmies no vision) for twenty to thirty minutes before it starts coming back.
But I guess I’m lucky, because a) the aura lets me know that the actual pain part of the migraine is coming, which allows me to take some Excedrin in time so that b), the actual pain part of the migraine isn’t too bad. I also never get light- or sound-sensitivity and only rarely get nausea, so as far as migraines go, mine aren’t too bad.
BUT HEY, I REALLY ENJOY BEING ABLE TO SEE.
A fun exercise: I just scrolled up a few pages to get a nice full page of text and took a screenshot, then put that screenshot into Paint and erased everything I couldn’t see when looking straight ahead at the page. Wanna see?
Supa fun! Right now I don’t have the dancing ring of color around the edge of that “no see” zone, but that always comes later.
(Edit: now I’ve got it! Right on schedule.)
So yhah. I’ve also got spagnetti going and who knows ifI’ll be able to competently drain it and put it on a plate rather than dump the whole thing on the ground. I certainly couldn’t see my Excedrin bottle eclear enough earlier to check if I needed to take one pill or two. I’m preety sure it’s two. I hope it is, ‘cause that’s what I took.
THE END!
Edit from a few days later: lol, typos. I’m leaving them in.
Well this has never happened before.
I had not one, not two, but THREE migraines today.
THREE. WHAT THE HELL.
The first one happened in SCIE 301 around 11, which was the first time I’ve ever had one while lecturing. The scintillating scotoma started about 20 minutes before class was supposed to end. The scotoma is actually a good thing, because once it starts, I know I have about a five-minute window to take some Excedrin before it’s too late for its effects to lessen the migraine pain. Knowing I had office hours later that afternoon and another class to teach at 4, I had to pause the lecture and apologize to my students as I explained the situation and took a few Excedrin in front of them.
Great look.
The Excedrin deadened the actual migraine part, which is always good. But by the time my calculus class was ending at around 5 PM, my vision was starting to go wonky again, indicating another migraine was starting.
Which it did. And I had to text my mom and ask her if she could look up the drug info on Excedrin to see if it was safe to take an additional dose so close to the first one. It wasn’t, so that was fun.
And then my brain was like ONE MORE TIIIIIIIIIME! and I had yet another scotoma around 7 or so, followed by another surge in headache pain.
So yeah. Super fun. Also kind of worrying, because I’ve never had more than two migraines in a week’s span, let alone three in a single day. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Edit: I guess that was a one-time thing? Haven’t had a migraine since and it’s now April.
MIGRAINE PARTY 2K19
It’s been a little while since I’ve had a migraine, but it’s been quite some time since I’ve had a migraine as bad as the one I had today.
Lately* my migraines have involved short (10-15 minutes) periods of mild vision loss with either no actual migraine headache following the restoration of vision or a relatively “mild” headache instead.
But today’s migraine was rough. My vision was almost completely gone for half an hour or so and then I got a killer headache afterwards. It was gross. It certainly made it hard to work, haha.
And now I have the post-migraine “fuzzies” where I feel like I’m in a bit of a fog. Not sure if that’s from the migraine itself or the meds, though.
Either way, BLAH.
*I really haven’t had very many lately…three or so in the past few years?
Let’s get down to business…to defeat…the nuns!
You know what sucks? Migraines.
You know what also sucks? Ocular migraines. An “ocular migraine” occurs when blood flow is reduced to the eye or the blood vessels in the retina spasm and results in partial or complete vision loss in the effected eye. How long the vision loss lasts varies from person to person, but it usually lasts about half an hour to an hour.
Ocular migraines can also precede good ol’ regular migraines or can occur with a good ol’ regular migraine.
I’ve talked about my ocular migraines on here quite a few times. For me, the partial or complete vision loss in one eye is my signal to take some Excedrin, ‘cause Big Boy Migraine Headache is angry and will be taking a sledgehammer to the inside of my skull very soon after my vision returns.
But now? The signs that I’ve come to recognize as the start of the ocular migraine (tingly fingertips, that small blind spot that grows and spreads) have happened a few times without the ocular migraine (or actual migraine) following. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but that’s caused me to take Excedrin when I didn’t need to, which is something I really don’t like. Hell, I don’t like to take medicine in general, but if I take it and it turns out I didn’t need to, that really bothers me.
Such a small dose of Excedrin when I don’t need it is probably not going to hurt me, but it’s the principle of the thing, yo. Now I feel like I have to wait until the ocular migraine fully kicks in to justify taking Excedrin, which at that point is really pushing it; if I don’t take the Excedrin early enough before the migraine headache part starts, it doesn’t do anything to help the pain, and then everything sucks for about half a day.
So yeah. Just venting, sorry!
*angry huffing*
So this week has been awful.
But luckily I have a ridiculously incredible fiancé who picked up some super colorful flowers for me on his way home from work today, just because he knows things have gone south for me over the past few days and he wanted to show he cares.
I can’t wait to marry this man.
Two other completely unrelated bits of news:
- I had a scintillating scotoma migraine this morning. It’s been awhile since I’ve had one of those.
- I want you all to hear 2016’s first five-star song. It’s incredible.
Social Time
So today was “math/stats graduate student department orientation day” and what happens to me a half an hour before I’m ready to go to campus? A freaking migraine aura! So I stumbled around all my unpacked crap to find my Excedrin (luckily it was accessible), stumbled around trying to get dressed, then finally got to the math/stats building with help from my mom, ‘cause I couldn’t see a damn thing.
I also learned that while neither sound nor light bothers me when I’m having my aura (or the headache following it), riding in the car makes me want to puke up my soul.
Luckily, my vision started to return about an hour into orientation and I’d taken the Excedrin early enough so that I didn’t have a SUPER bad migraine, and by 11 or so I felt back to normal.
The universe is sure giving me a rough time about Grad School Part 2.5, lemme tell ya.
MY SPECIFIC TYPE OF MIGRAINE AURA HAS A NAME!
I shouldn’t be surprised by this, of course, but it’s nice to finally put a name to it.
The aura I get before I have a migraine is called a scintillating scotoma, which is a super cool name for a super crappy experience. What happens is this (this is actually so accurate it’s scary):
Then it spreads to the periphery and then, for me, everything goes black for up to half an hour. However, from what I’ve (hastily) read (over the past few hours), the total blindness thing doesn’t seem to be very common.
That freaking flashing color thing, though…
WELL, CRAP
Today was the first Saturday in about a month where I didn’t have like 2,000 things to do. So I had it all planned out:
- General “screw around” time in the morning
- Long walk once it got dark or, if inspiration struck, slow but longer walk on the treadmill desk + writing
- FALLOUT 3. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW BIG OF AN URGE I HAVE TO PLAY THIS AGAIN ALL OF A SUDDEN
- Drawing!
- “Screw around time”: evening edition
So what did I end up doing?
Sitting uselessly in my chair waiting for my DAMN VISION TO COME BACK THANKS TO AN ALL-DAY MIGRAINE AURA.
Granted, sitting and listening to music is an enjoyable thing to do, and I did get a few ideas for my long story in Fiction (as stupid as they were), but seriously? I had a schedule, brain, you rebellious little fart bucket.
I guess I should be glad, though, that it happened on a day where I didn’t really need to get anything done rather than on a day where I had stuff to do ASAP.
But still.
Noooooooooooooooo
Calc III is over. :(
It’s a sad day! It was one of my favorite math classes.
I just seriously hope that the answers to the 10-question final were 4, 1, 4, 6, 6, 1, 6, 55/23, 4, and 1, because that’s what my answers were. We’ll see. I gave myself a 60-point leeway to get an A with my homework and midterm scores and I don’t THINK I made 60 points worth of mistakes, but who knows. I’m fantastic at screwing up. I missed one point on the midterm because I completely abandoned a negative sign like two steps into a cross product. FAIL!
Also, migraines suck.
Ugh, I had a bad dream last night.
Well actually, I had two dreams last night and only one of them was bad.
The first one involved fat dudes and Office Depot. So it wasn’t bad.
The second one, though, involved my eyesight. It started out where I’d be looking at something and then whatever was in my direct line of sight would start to break apart into the visible spectrum like a rainbow halftone print. Then things progressed to where the thing in my direct line of sight would break into the spectrum and then all the color would vanish, leaving me with a greyish blur vaguely reminiscent of whatever object it used to be. Then finally the center of my field of vision was totally gone. It wasn’t black, but it was like a huge blind spot and the only things I could see clearly were at the very edges of my peripheral vision.
Now that I think about it, that’s actually kind of what happens when I have a migraine, though by the time I reach TOTAL BLINDSPOT TAKEOVER I’m usually lying down after chugging a bottle of Excedrin, hoping the pain doesn’t come.
Ha, maybe I had a migraine during my sleep. Can that happen and the person not be aware of it? My migraines don’t last very long, so I probably would have been over it by the time I woke up if that happened.
Anyway.
I posted this quite awhile ago on here, but I’m posting it again ’cause it’s relevant and it gives you an idea of what pre-migraine is like for me. The spazzing rainbow ALWAYS happens right in the center of my field of vision, though, and then everything goes blind spot on me.
I feel lousy.
Bleirgh.
So today I had my first migraine since last December. Totally lost my vision for a bit. Miraculously made it home.
Then I willed the migraine away with MIND POWERZ!
Actually, it probably was the Excedrin.
But I like to think it was MIND POWERZ!
Then I spent the rest of the night doing math, which is usually fun but much less so when your head wants to fall off.
Soooooo…you get this.
Eigenblogger 