Hi to all my family, friends and fellow bloggers and readers. Those of you that have a RSS feed to my blog, at least I can take heart that you’ll be alerted whenever this site is updated. For those that don’t, I’m sorry if you came here every so often looking for the next entry that never appeared. Get a RSS feed reader; it’s so worth it!

Now I can give a rundown on what’s been happening to me that prevented me from writing here for awhile. Maybe first and foremost, I can say that I encountered… well… a case of the “blahs”. I just didn’t feel any motivation to do anything. I wasn’t even updating the ASCS site and I need to do this soon; It’s waaaay overdue for an update! The only things that have been keeping me going this last month is work at my day job, my other hobbies such as Sudoku or cubing, and Christine and the birds. Maybe it was depression kicking in or it was the change of seasons or something else… I just don’t know. All I know it that I seem to be shaking off whatever it was. Maybe I just needed a change of pace. I seemed to have known that I needed to do something to break me out of routine, so a few weeks ago I scheduled a vacation week in October. It will be for the dates 10/7 to 10/13, and it couldn’t come any sooner. I need to have some time to myself.

Remember my post on networking sites I belong to? Well, now I have yet another networking site to cultivate; I’m now a member of Facebook. I have to admit, it’s a pretty cool place to be on the ‘net, provided that you know some people on there in the first place! It actually does beat out Myspace from a usability standpoint. Plus, there are some anti-harassment features built-in to user pages and no one, by default, can see your user details without being added as a friend. Aside from third-party webapps that are added to Facebook every day, there’s not much customizability compared to MySpace, and that is actually a good thing; I’ve seen too many youngins put up bad code on Myspace that ends up crashing other’s browsers… or worse.

I’ve been getting into some really good music lately; so much that I’ll have to make a different post about it. I’ll not bore you to tears with it… yet! Other than that, for awhile I was blowing my brains out on Sudoku puzzles. I had just acquired Electronic Arts’ “Sudoku” game for my iPod, and it’s a fantastic add-on for my favorite gadget. The puzzles, even on Hard setting, aren’t unsolvable to us mere mortal with our limited minds, but they’re a good challenge nonetheless!

Healthwise, I’m doing ok, as is Christine. Unfortunately, both of our respective dads are going through some dicey health issues. Those of you who know us, please say some prayers and keep them in your thoughts. I won’t elaborate what’s going on in here, but I’ll let anyone know if they ask. Other than that, since this blog acts as a migraine journal of sorts, I’ll just mention here that, yesterday at two in the morning, I had one of the worst sinus-triggered migraines I’ve ever had in recent memory. I was doing so well, too; I hadn’t had a migraine since mid-June. This one took two of both Excedrin Migraine and Aleve gelcaps to get it down to a whisper, as opposed to the roaring pain that made Christine wake to my whimperings. Thank God I was ok for the rest of the day, if not a bit out of it.

Oh… on a quick note, I successfully completed/solved a 7×7x7 cube, via a program called CubePuzzle. That elicited a good sense of accomplishment, seeing as it took me longer, but I did it without having to resort to any hints! I’ll probably try it again soon… I’ll use screenshots to record my progress to show off here, if I do.

Take care, all… and I’ll try to write more! Cheers!

When you have to be at work with a growing migraine and you don’t have your painkillers with you, it gives another facet to the meaning of “dread”. When you’re in the department by yourself because your partner is on vacation and this happens, it does the same for the meaning of “helplessness”.

This one was a migraine with a sinus headache trigger. These are the kind that start out in the morning as a fuzzy throb, then builds and builds and builds until you’re ready to cry. Two Tylenol helped quiet the pain down… somewhat. Then at the tail end of my day, I felt like my head was going to explode from the front on through the back and neck. Concentrating on driving in a hot-as-hell car only made it worse. When I got home, all I did was take a mix of one Aleve gelcap and one Excedrin Migraine, then crawled upstairs into bed and whimpered.

An hour later, and the pain went down far enough to enjoy what was left of the day.

I’m so tired now!

Technorati Tags: Esoterik, Migraines

Remember the entry back in the beginning of October when I was suffering a rash of migraines that were so bad, it prompted me to make a special category in my blog specifically for these little monsters? Well, the cool thing about that month was that the next week after that entry was my vacation from work.

Usually I get migraines from one every two months to two a month. That whole string of migraines was certainly related to stress and sleep deprivation from work. During vacation, I didn’t suffer at all. Better still, the weeks at work so far have been free of head pounders. So, it seems tension headaches will trigger migraines in me if the stress level is bad enough.

Anyways, the week after vacation, I went to a general care doctor, seeing as I haven’t established a PCP in this state since I moved here 3 years ago! I told him my problems, he ran some tests (they had to break out the EKG), and concluded slight hypertension. He gave me a low-level beta blocker called Propranolol, which is also used to prevent moderate cases of migraines, and told me to go get a cholesterol screening. Also, I need to establish a cardiologist out here (fun, fun!).

After that visit, on my following work days up until now, I haven’t taken the medicine. I wanted to give myself some time to get used to the beta blocker’s side effects. I had to take Coreg several years ago, and I remember it making me very legarthic. I hated it! At work, I’m known for my speed and urgency. I don’t like the idea of anything slowing me down! However, this last week I’ve been under more and more pressure and, last Thursday while at work, I had a tension headache going into the red-line territory.

So… now I’m taking the Propranolol. I’ll see how I do at work and how good it may be in controlling the threat of migraines. If it starts slowing me down too much, or giving me any problems in driving a car or powered equipment, I’ll have to tell the doc that it’s a no -go.

Whosoever reads this around the post time, please pray for me! Hopefully, I’ll do fine on this stuff.

Tags: Migraines, Propranolol, Esoterik, Beta Blockers

Well, here’s my second official Migraine entry.

Thursday night I heard that the barometric pressure has been going whacky due to impending storms in the area. So… no wonder it seemed like my sinuses were ready to explode. This kind of pain and pressure triggers migraines in me (along with lack of sleep and too much chocolate!). I know this because regular sinus pressure is felt in the front behind my eyes and forehead. I never feel pain anywhere else when that happens. Well, sometimes if I let it go for too long or if the pressure is really bad, it triggers a migraine that encompasses the back of my head and neck and sometimes one side of my head.

This is exactly what happened Friday morning as I was getting ready for work. I immediately took two Excederin Sinus meds and two Aleve. Safe for now, right? Well, I was until later on during the day. The pressure pain came back later in the afternoon and it wasn’t too bad. I thought, well I’m going to go to sleep soon and everything will be better. After dinner, I was on the computer reading up on Dragonforce (more on that later!) when my head felt like the back of it just exploded! I took two more sinus pills during dinner just before this happened and I thought this would be enough. Ordinarily, I’d be asking for the bottle of Excederin Migraine but that has caffeine in it and I needed to sleep. This was excruciating… I’m talking crying, moaning, whimpering and afraid to get up. When I did get up, I instantly regretted it (another explosion of pain) and flopped back down. I begged Christine to get me some Vicodin, stat! An hour later, a couple of dull aching spots remained.

Wow, did I sleep well! I slept until 10 this morning. I must have really needed it because, like I said, I have been sleep-deprived this past week and my migraines have been going on and off for seven straight days. Every day, pain or not, my left eyebrow was in a near-constant state of twitchiness. That’s also a migraine indicator or warning. Today I feel great, with no twitches, so I guess the sleep did wonders for my condition. Let’s hope my upcoming work week goes better because of this!

I also hope I don’t have to resort to Vicodin again anytime soon!

Tags: Migraines, Sinuses, Vicodin

… I think you’re gonna dread it!

Ok, the Alice Cooper moment has passed… moving on!

Some of my friends and family know that I suffer from migranes. Usually, I may get one once or twice a month. Sometimes, two months go by without one and I count myself fortunate when that happens. I don’t know or recall any of my family members getting these killer headaches, other symptoms included with the package. Christine, my wife, is blessed with rarely ever having to deal with this particular agony. However, she has known me for eleven years and cannot count how many times she’s seen me with my eyes tearing, clutching my head, whimpering on my bed and praying to God to please “make it stop!”

Lately, I have had the unusual occurrence of migraine attacks for six straight days. The first day was just a moderate headache, quelled with asprin. Each day thereafter was another incident in growing severity. Today, two Excederin Migraine pills, which worked on the last couple of day’s attacks, had NO effect even after a couple of hours. I had to go home early from work and supplement with rest and two Aleve tablets. It did the trick, even though it made the nausea a little worse. That’s another unusual occurrence; I rarely ever have nausea accompanying a migraine… just sensitivity to sound, sometimes light and dizziness, and an inability to think properly.

An hour or so ago, I was feeling well enough to jump on Google and search out some info. I found M.A.G.N.U.M., which has a site devoted to “migraineurs”, and some of the info helped, if it didn’t scare me a little. I wanted to find out more about male migraine sufferers, but most sites on the M subject cater to women or are too clinincal for my tired and aching brain to read through. Women migraine sufferers outnumber their male counterparts as much as four to one. Also, one of the long-held myths is that men don’t get migraines. While being rare, I knew two male co-workers in the company I work for who regularly experienced attacks, one of them diagnosed as chronic. He even shared his supply of prescribed T-3 (Tylenol with codeine) with me when I had a bad episode on an overnight shift. Anyways, I also searched for blogs written by migraineurs. I found a good one, put a introductory comment in there, and thanked the writer for keeping up a good blog.

The whole point in all this nattering: This blog, in addition to being a vessel for whatever I feel like writing about (see the headline at the top of the page), will also be supplemental as a “migraine journal”. Hopefully through the entries, I’ll be able to pinpoint what works best for me in my battle with these head whallopers!

Time to rest some more. Thanks for reading my blatherings!

Tags: Migraines