Headaches
I've written before about my history with headaches. I've been a headache sufferer since approximately the onset of puberty. I'm like the farmer with the leaky roof from that old joke: When asked why he doesn't fix the hole in his roof, the old farmer replies, "Well, when it's rainin' it's too wet to fix it, and when it's dry it's just as good as any man's house." After a lifetime of inadequate insurance and poor experiences with doctors, I've become sadly accustomed to waiting through discomforts and only taking action when faced with prolonged, extended discomfort that crosses into the realm of "really bad."
I have gone through extended periods, many months at a time, where I have no headaches at all or only your typical, run of the mill, mild headaches that are easily relieved. During those periods, I willingly forget about the last "big one" and go about my usual life.
Last night I was awakened from a dead sleep by an intense headache centered, as my headaches often are, around my right eyeball. I've had some really bad, crawl into a dark room and hide headaches in my life, but I can't recall ever having had a headache hit me in the middle of the night and wake me out of a sound sleep. I tried in vain to fall back to sleep for at least an hour, writhing around in the bed hoping for the relief of unconsciousness. In addition to the headache pain, my heart was pounding and I felt what I can only describe as hot chills, a prickly-sweaty kind of feeling. It was awful. Mercifully, I did manage to fall back asleep as the pain abated a bit, but it was such an intense and unpleasant experience, I have to admit that it's in my best interest to make some repairs to my metaphorical roof before the next rainstorm hits.
Over the years I've flirted with the idea of trying an elimination diet to see if I could narrow down some of the triggers for my headaches; a quick googling fingers red wine as a common culprit and I did have quite a bit of wine last night with friends. Stress is, of course, one of many factors that also triggers these headaches and I've always had plenty of that. Since my stress isn't likely to just magically end, I'm going to have adjust my exposure to some of the other triggers if I want to press my advantage.
I have gone through extended periods, many months at a time, where I have no headaches at all or only your typical, run of the mill, mild headaches that are easily relieved. During those periods, I willingly forget about the last "big one" and go about my usual life.
Last night I was awakened from a dead sleep by an intense headache centered, as my headaches often are, around my right eyeball. I've had some really bad, crawl into a dark room and hide headaches in my life, but I can't recall ever having had a headache hit me in the middle of the night and wake me out of a sound sleep. I tried in vain to fall back to sleep for at least an hour, writhing around in the bed hoping for the relief of unconsciousness. In addition to the headache pain, my heart was pounding and I felt what I can only describe as hot chills, a prickly-sweaty kind of feeling. It was awful. Mercifully, I did manage to fall back asleep as the pain abated a bit, but it was such an intense and unpleasant experience, I have to admit that it's in my best interest to make some repairs to my metaphorical roof before the next rainstorm hits.
Over the years I've flirted with the idea of trying an elimination diet to see if I could narrow down some of the triggers for my headaches; a quick googling fingers red wine as a common culprit and I did have quite a bit of wine last night with friends. Stress is, of course, one of many factors that also triggers these headaches and I've always had plenty of that. Since my stress isn't likely to just magically end, I'm going to have adjust my exposure to some of the other triggers if I want to press my advantage.
What, there's no stress fairy that makes stress magically disappear? They *lied* to me!!
Seriously, though, good luck with the trigger diagnosis. The challenge is that humans are very good at connecting dots that were not meant to be connected (hence, superstitious behavior).
Are your headaches migraines (by the medical definition, whatever that is, not the commonplace way of just saying a headache is a migraine to get sympathy)? Have you had a history of heart murmurs or anything like that? Science News had an article a week or two ago about a link between heart defects and migraines; fix the heart and the migraines decrease in frequency by 50%.
Spike
I hear ya, sister. I've had just one wake-me-up-and-wish-for-death headache in my long history of 'em, when I was a freshman in college. I heard someone moaning in anguish and woke up when I realized it was me. That one was a classic migraine, though — light sensitivity and all that. I ended up curled in an interior hallways of the dorms where there were no windows and I'd unscrewed a lightbulb.
For several years I gave up on painkillers altogether, because I decided I'd really need them when I broke my foot or something. I've had some luck localizing my facial and head muscles and "stretching" them to diminish some of the awfulness. For those eyeball-piercing headaches, I press my eye with my palm, and that seems to help.
But I don't drink red wine, really, and I *do* drink to allevaite headaches, so its likely our two kinds are unrelated, I guess.
Time: wasted. :)