Whimsy Wednesday

Here is another great SNL sketch with Tina Fey. It's funny even if you don't watch the show Girls.




Have a great day!

February Migraine Blog Carnival Now Available

The February edition of the Migraine Blog Carnival is now available. This month's topic is all about love and  headache disorders. Check out all the great posts about friendship, romantic love and even self love.

NBC's Lack of a Specific Olympic Schedule is Shameful

Let me just take a minute to boo NBC's coverage of the Olympic games - a great big, loud, long boo. The reason: instead of airing the events on a specific schedule, all in one block, they give us a 4 hour block of time and tell us which 3 or 4 events they will air during that time. Making matters worse they will show bits and pieces of an event throughout that block of time instead of all at once, effectively forcing you to watch the entire block of time to catch whatever event you want to see. 

Babu Bhatt waves his finger on Seinfeld

I guess the assumption is that our time does not need to be respected and that if we want to watch our favorite Olympic events we have to sacrifice our entire night, every night of competition. What the hell NBC? 

Back in the day, a schedule was made so you could plan ahead and catch whatever events you wanted. You could sit down at the scheduled time and watch ALL of that day's coverage of the event. That was the right thing to do. 

Shame on you NBC for not respecting our time, for trying to manipulate us into watching ALL of the Olympic events and spending ALL night on your station. I refuse to be forced into watching 4 hours or programming and commercials for 30 or 40 minutes of event coverage I'm interested in. 

New Friendships in a Time of Chronic Pain

Relationships are tricky business, even under the best of circumstances. Toss in something as complicated and misunderstood as chronic pain and suddenly tricky sounds like an understatement. All of my relationships have been complicated by my chronic migraines and fibromyalgia but none as much as the new friendships. 

Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson

My situation is maybe a little atypical in that almost immediately after my migraines went chronic I picked up and moved across the country with my boyfriend (now husband) who needed to move for his job. The first of 3 different states we moved to for his career. Translation: I haven't lived near my immediate family or any of my friends since 2006. Fortunately, I have amazing friends back in Minnesota, where I'm from. They are loyal and loving and have not judged or made me feel bad about my chronic pain. Unfortunately, I rarely get to see them. 

I have no real words to describe the loss I feel because we don't live close enough to get together more than once every year or two. 

The logical thing to do is make a new friend or two in my new home city. Something I would have done already if it wasn't for my chronic migraines and fibromyalgia making it so damn complicated.

So why is it complicated? Here are the factors:

1. I don't meet many new people because I am not able to be actively involved in the community (i.e. work).

2. I can't commit to plans in advance and be certain my body will let me participate. Canceled plans and early departures are going to happen more often than not.

3. I can't participate in many activities people love doing - movies, plays, concerts, outdoor festivals or games, parties, sporting events, etc - without triggering a bad migraine and/or fibro flare.

4. I need to find people who can understand and accept my limitations, who are trustworthy, patient, tolerant, loving, quick to laugh and I need to click with them. That click is likely the only thing that will give a new friendship the chance to grow despite my chronic pain.

5. Most women in my age group have growing families and careers. They are, rightfully so, extremely busy with both. Any time and energy they have to devote to building new friendships is going to go to building it with someone who can relate to their current life. I have neither children nor career.

Honestly, I'm overwhelmed and terrified at the prospect of building a new friendship. It's hard to open up to new people about my health situation. It's hard for people to know how to respond to someone like me. It's hard for most people to understand. It's hard get to know someone when you don't see much of them. I often wonder if making new friends is even possible under these currently conditions. Maybe it is possible (anything is possible), just seems extremely unlikely.

Maybe for now, it's okay that I'm not building new friendships. I do have extended family and in-laws in town, not to mention I visit with hubby's friends and their wives on occasion. Plus, I still communicate with my old friends via email, facebook and skype. Maybe this is just the reality of this stage of my life. 

Whimsy Wednesday

Here is a great clip from SNL that made me laugh - hope it does the same for you.



Have a great day!

Some Items That Comfort Instead of Aggravate My Chronic Pain

The whole world feels harsh when you live with chronic migraines and fibromyalgia. Every light, every sound, every smell, every task, every surface, every conversation, every thought...everything can be a trigger and/or exacerbating factor. As hard as I work to surround myself with softness - lots of pillows, comfy furniture, soft blankets and the like - it all still feels harsh. It might sound crazy to the healthy folks out there, but "soft" items are not all created equal. More surprisingly, I've learned that price doesn't necessarily indicate the quality and level of luxury of such items.

Hubby and I have two sets of sheets for our bed. One sheet set we got on sale at Ikea for $20 (regular price was $30 or $35). The other set is from Kohls and was priced at $180 (it was a gift from my MIL - even if it was 50% off I would never spend that kind of money on sheets). The Ikea set has a lower thread count and predates the Kohls set by about 2 years BUT these cheap sheets are softer, feels much better on the skin and have held up better than the more expensive ones. The Kohls sheets are stiff, even after a couple years of regular use, and have been pilling. 

Thread count is one of those tricks companies use to justify charging more for their products. And while thread count can have an impact on the softness and durability of sheets, the more important factor is the quality of the cotton being used. The bummer is that I don't yet know how to determine the quality of cotton from the packaging provided but you can bet as soon as Ikea opens a store in our area (only 2 more years :) I'll be getting another set from them. 

Thomas O'Brien Towels from Target

More recently I found unexpectedly soft and luxurious towels. In the past I've splurged on the good towels because I really do want quality that will stay nice for a long time. Traditional towel wisdom says that Royal Velvet and Ralph Lauren make great towels and they do compared to some. But I've never felt anything as wonderful as the towels we got recently on clearance at Target ($6 for the bath towels, regular price was only $10). They are Thomas O'Brien Vintage Collection but really they are little slices of heaven. I just want to get lost in their thick, soft cottony splendor. They are not excessively shedding the way most new towels do, in fact, they don't produce any more dryer lint than the towels I've had for years. No joke, I've never experienced towels like this before - didn't even know what I was missing. If only everything were made from the same material my world wouldn't feel nearly as harsh as it does now.

These are small things in the grand scheme of life but for someone like me, who is constantly bombarded by pain from everyday items, finding some products that comfort instead of aggravate my chronic migraines and fibromyalgia is truly priceless.

Now if only I could find the perfect pillows and sofa. 

The Agonizing Decision To Treat A Migraine

To take my Triptan or not to take my Triptan - This is the question I'm constantly faced with. Having a rescue medication that takes the edge off the migraine pain in my coping toolbox is a big deal. The problem is that I hate the way it makes me feel. You may remember a while back I wrote about some of the crazy side effects I get in addition to the expected side effects when I take Sumatriptan (Imitrex).

Honestly, some of these side effects scare me. My migraine doc has assured me that I'm okay and it is nothing to worry about but I tend to think he is a little too cavalier about the whole thing - or perhaps I'm just a worrier and nothing he says will reassure me. But these meds are vasoconstrictors and I get the chest tightness, pains in my neck and even in my legs most of the time when I take it so I feel like a little worry is perhaps valid.

Being in all that pain scares me too. Back when I first started getting migraines as a young kid I was certain I was dying - nothing could hurt like this and be okay. All these years later, armed with the knowledge that my migraine pain is not cause by my brain exploding and seeping out through a growing crack in my skull, the pain still scares me. I still can't believe the horribly intense pain of a bad migraine is not the result of some catastrophic event. And since the pain went chronic, a new fear has taken hold. What if I can't escape the pain, ever. What if I can't handle it?

I can't treat every migraine so am I always trying to conserve my rescue meds and simply ride out the less severe migraines. Of course, it's hard to tell which ones are going to be less severe until it is too late to properly treat the migraine. It's a gamble - a tiresome game that I've been playing for the last 8 years now.

At times I've gotten overly confident after a handful of days pass without the need of my rescue meds and have begun to think that I should stop taking them altogether and just deal with the pain. Of course, as soon as I have that thought I get a really bad migraine. I might ride it out for a day, hoping that a night's sleep will take care of it, only to wake up in the morning feeling worse than the night before. Desperate for some relief, scared it will never come, feeling exhausted and beaten down, I'll take my rescue med, curl up under covers and pray for some relief. If relief comes it will only be temporary and by bedtime the pain will be returning and by morning I'll be right back to where I was the day before. A pattern takes shape and it may go on for several days or even a couple weeks.

Every single day of this kind of pattern I'm faced with the difficult decision of when to take my Triptans. The worst part about trying to decide is not knowing what, if any, impact the Triptans may have on my health. All I know is that each time I decide to take one it is because I'm at the end of my rope and I feel like I can't handle the pain on my own. Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm fearing the day will come when my rescue meds no longer work.

On the surface deciding to treat a migraine sounds like an easy decision but it has become a far more complex matter over the years.