Tag Archives: migraine

An Interesting Article on Migraine and a First Hand Experience

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This is the latest issue of New York Magazine; I’ve been reading it for years. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I don’t know why I still subscribe, but I always enjoy doing the crossword puzzle. Yesterday, my day wasn’t great: I thought I felt well, but as I was doing some work, my eyes stopped converging and I felt a vertigo attack coming on. Some of the vertigo attacks have been beyond awful. Thankfully, I have only experienced horrendous seasickness attacks from that kind once. I have had severe vertigo at the dining room table, at my desk, away from … Continue reading →

Memorial Day Migraine

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  Out of the blue, vertigo began: this is vestibular migraine. Not my worst episode at all, thankfully , and it will eventually pass, and I will feel better, until the next time. The signal: my eyes can’t converge. Each one sees something else. Focusing on one point can help as long as this isn’t a major attack. What I call a “major” attack is the feeling that I am hurtling through space in a twirling, tossing space capsule on a full stomach, a high fever, and my eyes feel like they don’t belong to me. There will be a … Continue reading →

Blank. I Was Going Blank. When a Migraine Looks Like a Stroke

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I think my life got to me.  Just go to me. People all around me are aging…myself, included. Just to rewind a bit, my mother was found to have macular degeneration by my ophthalmologist who sent her to a retina specialist. It was a long, tough day which lasted a good four hours. During that time, interviews took place, photos were taken and diagnosis were made. And the diagnosis was that my mother is now legally blind in the worse eye, and in need of treatment in the better one. Treatment for her better, “wet-macular-degeneration-eye” is a shot…in the eye. … Continue reading →

Counting Cures Before They’ve Hatched

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I had a great health week last week; I managed to make it from Saturday the 19th after two ocular migraines for almost one week without any form of migraine. I had begun a plethora of methodologies to eradicate my almost two years of intrusive visual migraines. Therapeutic massage and acupuncture along with a Chinese herbal tonic were regular. And don’t forget all the Botox injections at the neurologist. I added the Cephaly machine, Gunnars’ computer glasses, a regimen of magnesium and vitamin B12, and “cell salts.”  (see this blog: Kicking Migraine’s Ass). With all the intervention I figured I … Continue reading →

Kicking Migraine’s Ass

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I’ve been at war with migraine headaches of all kinds and have been trying everything I can to win. The neurologist injected me with six vials of Botox in my head, shoulders and neck; that’s three large hypodermics. And I was still getting ocular migraines. I have been going for acupuncture twice weekly, I took two week’s worth of Chinese herbs which I deemed my daily dirt martinis. The headaches persisted. I was getting head “aches” with pain and the persistent, pit bull headaches of the not painful ocular migraines which usually leave in thirty minutes. Sometimes they would come … Continue reading →

Gray Matter Update

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  Just stopping by for a little right/left brain report: I am getting one kind of a migraine or another everyday; I am going to acupuncture twice a week. Between the treatments and herbs, now finished, the episodes appear to be shortening, but I still get thirty minute episodes; it’s unpredictable; I had a double dose of Botox at the neurologist, six vials. There was a new “configuration of placement;” all over the head and into the shoulders and neck. Now I have a stiff neck. Still waiting for an impact on frequency of episodes. I had two retinal migraines … Continue reading →

Part 76: Brain, Brain Go Away

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I finished with a “real” (cluster/pain) headache–THREE days, this morning after I had a strong cuppa. Then took an Imitrex. Then got TWO successive ocular migraines. Therefor: Imitrex does not prevent oculars, nor does, so far, acupuncture and related treatments. An hour ago the visual disturbance was on the left side, now it is on the right. (It is perceived that way but close one eye or the other, it is seen with both eyes=BRAIN SPASM). This has become the new norm. When I have a pain headache I am good for nothing. I suspect that the Botox treatment is … Continue reading →

Dining on Dirt … Mushroom Martinis

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Last night … Here I go, folks…first dose (1 pack) of the tonic prescribed by and made by my acupuncturist who is licensed in Chinese medicine. She has a huge cabinet of all kinds of Chinese herbs which are selected and brewed over a four hour process. It was the consistency of thick prune juice and tasted and smelled like I crawled through the forest primeval on my face. Very organic. Barks, roots, leaves, cinnamon bark, fungi that probably grew between an old man’s toes. I did it. It went down. Feels OK but I really have to brush my … Continue reading →

Back To the Future For Me

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  I thought I’d stop by between migraines and visits to doctors. I had check-ups and annuals from head to toe, a visit for virtually every body part over the last week, plus a tweak at the orthodontist; the week ended at the office of a new acupuncturist.   I spent two visits over two days at an ear, nose and throat specialist who specializes in vertigo at the request of my internist. After hours at Dr. S’s office including a full battery of tests (the final one launched an ocular migraine) the diagnosis was: “everything is normal.” Never mind … Continue reading →

Carry On

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Next stop on the migraine trail was, at the recommendation of the neurologist, a visit to an opthal-neurologist who declared my optic nerves were fine. He was a busy doctor of stature, serious, maybe too serious. I wanted him to smile, to make light of it all, to tell me he had the key. He didn’t. No smile, no key. A healthy optic nerve is a good thing, we know that. So the migraine story continues and hits the wall. There are two kinds of ocular migraines going on and there is from what I can see, read, learn about: … Continue reading →

What a Headache

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  I have suffered with headaches since I was a child. I have had sinus headaches that pounded at my face and teeth, cluster headaches that latched onto my head like a pit bull and that wouldn’t let go for days, tension headaches that made me feel like a tourniquet was going to twist so tightly I’d snap, migraines that made me want to jump off bridges. There were days when I would work in my dusty, Board of Education windowless and airless office and have to take six Extra Strength Bufferin in a day to survive. In later years … Continue reading →

The Aura Continues…Blame It On The Mafia

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      Curiouser and curiouser.  I am going back to the topic of ocular migraine aura. (see this blog) I have been keeping track of the episodes and becoming disconcerted. After a significant lessening of occurrences for a few months, and the taking of Petadolex which appeared to be working, the auras are coming back in full force. Sometimes two, three times in a day or in an hour! I consider a good day just dealing with gold lights zooming through my field of vision. It is the strangest feeling and the strangest event. What I think is so disconcerting … Continue reading →

Part 18b: The Aura

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                       The weirdness of ocular migraine aura Since September, around the time my mother began to become unstable, I have been having episodes of ocular migraine aura. Almost all of the “episodes” have been in my home and most seem to have a light trigger. It has been triggered as well by computer screens and cell phone screens. The “aura” usually begins to present as a small blind spot that grows into a black C-shape with gold zig-zags. it starts out tiny and then expands, so that perception is that something from afar is approaching. The C-shape can face … Continue reading →