Pushed myself today (20th March)

Today I decided to see how much concentrating for a bit made things, so I set myself so things to do some of my regular keep myself alive and some extra:

• Usual walk the dog
• Some work on the computer (similar to what I might do at work but without all the people, talking and noise)
• Watch my daughter play touch rugby (which meant social interaction after the concentration)

So during the concentration period I wasn’t too bad, which I often find is he case, perhaps because I’m so focused I don’t have time to react or perhaps 2 1/2 hours isn’t enough time? But afterwards I felt bad, I resorted to the ice pack later as my left eye socket and right temple kicked in and I needed help to stay on track.

But the real question I guess is how much worse is this than a less challenging day and how much worse would it be if I pushed myself harder?

I know if I do nothing then. I can have close to a clear day, but that is such a rare option, this is life! So do I accept an evening of pain, to enable me to get back to a more normal existence around that time?

Perhaps the answer will be tomorrow when we see if the impact of today hits me hard tomorrow too!

• Pain 8/10
• Duration 4hrs
• Relieved by ice pack against eyes and temple

Just another day (19th March)

Just a brief post on how things were today.

I woken to pain this morning, not severe by migraine standard but enough to let me know today would be tough. In the front right of my head but most of the front of my head felt tender from the get go. My right temple pain eased of by midday.

About 11 my left eye socket kicked in with its usual bout of pain spreading and increasing as the day went on.

By the end of the day my eye socket was making it difficult to focus my vision and the pain was becoming unbearable again, and so passes another day.

• Pain peaks 8/10
• Duration all day above 4/10

How much to challenge my symptoms (18th March)

So this morning wasn’t the best, I had some minor tinglings across my left cheek and over my eye, just remnants really compared to yesterday’s riotous attack. And just to make sure I was awake I had a nice brain spike over breakfast sticking in from the left temple, stopping me in my tracks for two minutes and holding me in its grip before passing on its way again as if it was never there.

Finally to finish my wonderful morning off, the pain in and around my eye socket kicked in picking up quite rapidly and spreading around the eye.

Fortunately today wasn’t a day for big plans, and there was anyone demanding my attention in the morning, so I could let all of this wash over me. I just kept to my daily get out and walk and then switched of my brain until the worst had past. I wonder if this is a reaction to yesterday’s busier demands? Accompanying my wife to her hospital appointment, and answering urgent questions from work, digging out documents etc. (not what the doctor has advised until this clears but some questions keep coming).

Anyway by the afternoon the symptoms had all eased back and my head was feeling clearer and better than it had for a while, sometimes doing nothing is a great treatment but it won’t get me back to work so keeping active and testing what I can getaway with doing continues to be my daily challenge.

• Pain 5/10 around eye, brain spike at 8/10
• Duration eye socket 2 hrs, brain spike 1 min

Migraine tinglings (17th March)

So today my migraines took tingling sensations to a new level. I guess I have occasionally had some tingling of the skin, in my cheek and finger tips. But today the tingling had been in left side of face from my cheek right up on to the top of my head going right across my eye. Affecting my periferol vision at the worst times. 

This sensation has been coming and going in waves through most of the morning only going for about 15 minutes and then coming back for 45-60 min. On top of all that I still have the pain, so it’s not like it’s and aura affect, or it might be for a different migraine(?) the pain is behind my favourite left eye and  across the top of my head so the same side as the tingling.

Pain in eye inreasing and concentration and reading difficult, eye watering

As the day has gone on the Tingling has spread across my chin and into right cheek so now It runs from from my left temple down through my eye and up through too my right eye making most of my face feel funny. I’ve never had it anywhere remotely like this before!

• Pain 6/10
• Duration 5 hrs

Fog, muscle ache and more eye pain (16th March)

My brain was in heavy fog this morning, creating a general depression of my thought processes, generally making me subdued and closing me down as I walked the dog this morning, good job I don’t really need my brain to function while I’m walking him. I also noticed that te vision in exteme left side of my left eye was slightly blurred and my eye was watering slightly as I walked along.

I do hope this walking daily is paying off, it’s still taking more out of me than I know it should, I can feel it in my leg muscles when I’m only doing 30 minutes brisk walking, before this all kicked off again I would have been running 5 or 6km in that time. I’m sure there is a link between the migraine attacks and the muscle fatigue, but it’s another chicken and egg, particularly as this migraine episode was kicked off by me being knocked low by being ill.

My eye socket started hurting again around 11:00 it’s like welcoming back an old friend, not one I like much! But it was building again slowly through the day and was unbearable again by 20:00 covering the area around the socket and making the whole side of my head ache. 

• Pain rising to 7/10
• Duration 3 hours at peak but 12 hours from start to finish
• Held ice directly over my eye, which provided some instant relief

Beating a moving target (15th March)

Fighting migraine seems to be a battle against a moving target. 

I thought I even had a grip on that concept but even the moving target seems to shift!

•  4 years ago when my migraine shifted from being acute (as it had been from the age of 14) to being chronic and many of the symptoms and types of attack changed.
• And again 2 months ago when the gears changed again and what I thought I had a grip on, slipped from my grasp again. Shifting form; refusing to respond; locking in again.

But it surprises me again now, having started to grow acustomed to this prolonged or perhaps repetitive attack, understanding how to limit its impacts on me, how to cope what I can and can’t manage to do, the sands have shifted again beneath my feet.

I’ve had two of the best days for pain I suspect particularly around my left eye, so I should have been feeling up beat about things, but instead the last couple of days my brain has felt so heavy, so thick, like it is filled with slurry. It is starting to impact my mood, my concentration and my emotion. My family is feeling the brunt of it. I’m becoming temperamental, unable to cope when things are difficult, one minute wired to a short fused and and the next firing information in overload. Unable to cope with the business of everyday life I phase out, switch off, walk away or avoid situations. 

This repressive weight on my brain feels constant and continuous always encasing me in a fog.

• Pain 3/10 at worst and isolated to the eye socket
• Duration not longer than and hour

Other Migraine Symptoms? (14 March)

As I have said in my recent entries, I have started to notice other symptoms now. One of which seems to be a constant weight or fog in my head. It seems like thinking h is hard, things are more difficult to follow and everything is more of a struggle. Now I’m not sure what is the cause of this, is it;

• A side affect of the medication I’m on that is simply the result of the dose and duration at has now built up (200mg Topiramate per day and 50mg Atenanol)
• Depression kicking in from not being able to work as a result from the constant migraine attacks
• My brain just being tired and drained from the battle (I know mine hasn’t been as long as most)
• Another affect of the migraine, perhaps a sign that it switching phases, even optimistically that it has moved to a more post dromal phase, since my migraine attack doesn’t seem to be following normal timescales!

 I still had pain around my left eye today, however it was lower than has been normal for recent times which is good news. Conversely I still notice that I am struggling to follow relatively simple discussions or decision making processeses, particularly when tired, having to step out and let others decide, because I can feel my head stuggling to cope, I can feel the pain building, so perhaps I am just preventing the pain better?

• Pain 3/10
• Duration 1 at most

Ice pack came to the rescue (12th March)

(Not my best post just some rambling thoughts)

Today I spotted a new thing, perhaps because the pain in my eye was a bit milder, but I noticed my vision was “twitching”, I think that is the best description. It’s not my vision doing anything particularly dramatic, I can see fine and it’s not like a nervous twitch. However I can feel a quivering.

Later in the day it all became too much again and I had to take the ice pack to bed to give my head some rest.

• Pain 7/10 at peak
• Duration peak lasted 2 hrs
• Needed ice

Chicken and Eggs? (March 10th)

Today I woke up early and I’m trying to work out whether the pain in my head distrusted my sleep or if my lack of sleep caused my head to kick off again. Which comes first the chicken or the egg?

So having started like that it was a bit of a rough day, the pain was there from the start around my left eye and up that side of my head and only spread as the day went on. Apparently it was obvious I was out of sorts, as a friend only spoke two words to me as I collected my daughter from school, spotting I was struggling and realising that social conversation was not an option. (Fortunately she knows me and my migraine problem well enough!)

But all day was a battle settled slightly after an hours sleep but never cleared.

• Pain 6/10 eye socket and temple (spreading across forehead)
• Duration 14 hrs

Explaining migraine to medical professionals (9th March)

Today I had a meeting with occupational health who was asked to assess the following:

• Is work the cause of my migraine
• Is it contributing to my migraine
• Am I fit to be at work, if not when will I be
• Are my migraines likely to impact my ability to do my job

It interesting to see how a little knowledge of migraine can make it difficult to answer these questions. Having read other people’s experiences of migraine and compared them to my own and having looked at what other people are doing in their lives, it makes me realise how diverse the implications of migraine are and how different the impact may be on different lives and careers depending on what you do and how you do it. 

However, given that he had 15 minutes to explore my symptoms and scenario I doubt we would have got too far!

Anyway concentrating on that conversation had its usual impact on ,y pain levels around my left eye (might have made a useful case study for him in understanding the issues to resolve in getting me back to work).

And they rose again later in the day as they usually do between 16:00 and 19:00.

• Pain 6/10 at peak
• Duration 2hrs and 3 hrs