Autonomic dysfunction

Bugger!

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

Well I didn’t think I could hate 2020 anymore than I did last week and bugger me it had some more treats in store for me. Sometimes even I find it hard to believe the stunts my body pulls.

I managed to have my first migraine with a proper full blown aura in 6 years on Friday morning which takes some beating. I was reading the newspaper online when I became aware of the fact that my left eye was struggling to see the words on the screen, in fact words were missing and the screen seemed ultra bright. I knew straight away that it was probably a migraine but I thought, it has been so long. Maybe it is the sun shining through the window hitting the screen and that’s why I can’t see? I struggled on for a few more minutes the weird thing was when I was looking at the screen my vision was fine. Then I looked across at Mr Myasthenia Kid and half his face was missing. At that point there was no mistaking this was a good old fashioned migraine. The last one of this type I had on my 40th Birthday how’s that for timing?

Hubby immediately sprang into action and got my migraine grab bag so I could take all my meds and then go back to bed. I absolutely hate the aura stage of a migraine which for me can last up to an hour before the headache begins. During that hour the visual disturbance just gets worse and worse, even with my eyes closed in a dark room. There is no escape from it and it leaves me feeling terribly disorientated. I am so grateful to have finally been prescribed sumatriptan, it is my wonder drug as it really does just halt the migraine in its tracks. Some days I feel as rough as a badgers arse, for those of you outside the UK this is what a badgers arse looks like. Other days I may feel a wee bit groggy but after a few hours I can do some bits and pieces and I am not totally wiping out a day. It really has been life changing. However the number of migraines I have been having lately has been averaging around 2 a week and I am heartily sick of having them. Of course it is now leading up to the window that always means migraine time the 18-22nd of each month. I am hoping ( god loves my optimism) that this month I wont get it but who knows? I have had more than my fair share these last 4 weeks.

So that was Friday, which was then followed by an eventful Saturday. About an hour after I got up on Saturday a nice bout of Vertigo started. The room did one spin every so often and when I walked / stumbled really anywhere it felt like I was on a boat. Thankfully I always have a stash of meds nearby for this and to be fair it has been quite a while since I had the spins. I sat down with a coffee and tried to relax and let the medication do its thing. After a while I was bored so I decided to go and sit out in the garden. Big mistake as I went arse over tit over a plant pot ( concrete ) that Mr Myasthenia Kid has so helpfully left in the middle of the patio. Had it been a normal day I may have been able to right myself but with vertigo? Not a fucking hope – apologies for the language today it is just happening. So I tumbled across the patio all the time trying to right myself without success. I realised at this point that I was going to end up crashing through the fence and falling 4ft down onto the patio in front of our shed if I didn’t stop staggering, so with the fake turf on top of the gravel I aimed my dive onto that figuring it would hurt a lot less than landing on the gravel.

Gracefully I hit the deck and if you believe that, you will believe anything. Immediately I was in a world of pain, both wrists, my left shoulder, my left knee, my left buttock and all along the left side of my back.

The only reason I didn’t scream obscenities out loud was because the neighbours children were playing in the garden and I didn’t want to teach them anymore bad language than I had already. Most of it was aimed at Mr Myasthenia Kid for being so stupid as to leave a bloody plant pot right in front of the patio doors! When he knows my vision is a bit dodgy and I can lose the sight in one eye if my ptosis strikes and I can’t open my right eye.

So all my plans of sewing etc went out the window. Instead I spent the day dosing myself up on pain killers and sitting on hot water bottles. My ankle blew up like a balloon, i had to take my slipper boots off because it got so large it was starting to feel constricted. I was bloody furious because I needn’t have fallen and I hate feeling vulnerable like that. I forgot to say the minute I landed on the artificial grass Dembe came rushing over showering me in kisses checking I was ok. Initially he wouldn’t let me get up until he had checked that I wasn’t seriously hurt.

Sunday was spent doing crochet very slowly as my wrists were still throbbing from the fall and my left leg was elevated all day due to the swelling. I still hurt all over but at least nothing was broken. 

Thankfully the vertigo was gone by Sunday morning, my leak is still causing me problems. It is still there and some days the head pain is worse than ever. I am still attempting to pace myself by lying down every few hours but it is difficult when I get absorbed in something to remember to. I only remember when my head starts feeling like it is crushed in a vice and all screens seem to be burning the back of my retinas.

As I am the worlds worst person at pacing myself due to the fact that giving up work due to my disabilities has made me feel like I contribute nothing at all to society, I push myself constantly beyond what is sensible and then end up paying for my stupidity. I feel that everything I do has to be better than everyone else so that people don’t feel sorry for me and that I don’t look weak or vulnerable. The fact that the falls and faints have become much more regular occurrences is making me feel very vulnerable and it is doing a number on my mental health. I have always struggled with never ever feeling anything I do is good enough and probably also a bit of impostor syndrome (find out more here. ) People can tell me that what I have sewn or embroidered is the best thing ever, my blog could be awarded a Nobel prize for literature but I would still be waiting for one person to say that my work is shit. It is hard to live with the constant fear that people will discover that what you do is actually crap. Add in physical disabilities and you have a wonderful mixture of weird ideas running through your head, not only are you not good enough creatively but you can’t even do the stuff normal people do. It makes you feel less than. Which is why I probably do push myself too hard to prove I am worthy of my place within society.

Word for this week is Bugger!

A lovely photo of Dembe to lift your spirits

 

 

End of my tether

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

It seems to be one thing after another at the moment and if you are bored reading it you can imagine how tedious I am finding living with it? The week after my unhappy hump day went reasonably well. I only needed two days on the diazepam and then it was taken as and when needed. I was bobbing along quite nicely until 4.20am Tuesday morning when I woke up with that familiar sinus pain like I had been smacked with a shovel and a distinct lack of balance that let me know Tuesday was just going to be awful. I had a migraine and this one was going to be an utter bastard.


I fished out my neck collar, took what pain medications I could and propped myself up on my pillows hoping that I had done enough to limit the attack to a few hours. However it wouldn’t have mattered what I had done yesterday this migraine was going to rate number 2 on the worst migraines ever – number one having taken place in either February or March and left me with amnesia. I didn’t drink or eat for well over 16 hours because even the thought of drinking made me want to puke and although my stomach was burning, I just couldn’t eat as I again felt so nauseous at the prospect of eating that I just had to ignore the rumbling stomach and hope that I wasn’t sick from being hungry.


I don’t remember a lot of yesterday, I remember at around 9am shouting help because Jay hadn’t twigged that anything was wrong and hadn’t bothered to check on me . He thought I was having a long over due lie on. I couldn’t roll over to grab my phone and I couldn’t think what to shout to get his attention. I was also having diarrhoea at this point (not in bed thank goodness but had resulted in 6 trips to the bathroom where I had stumbled clinging onto the safety rail) which was really fun when any smell good or bad was making me wretch and of course my shit smelt of roses and rainbows LOL! My head also felt like an axe was attempting to cleave it in half every time my head left the pillow. Help indeed was needed, but what could be provided was limited. Hot water bottles and a basin were brought to me. Thankfully I wasn’t sick but Oh how I wanted to be. 


Without being melodramatic the pain was so bad yesterday there were points I wanted to go to sleep and just not wake up. I have been through the agony of a CSF leak and although that was awful there was always some relief at some point. There was nothing yesterday the pain was just unrelenting, the light was too bright but my face was too sore to wear sunglasses. I was sweating and then I was freezing cold. I wondered if I had contracted meningitis. I did actually consider calling 999 for an ambulance but I couldn’t bear the prospect of being poked and prodded, expected to answer questions and be in a noisy environment. You know you are poorly when you don’t want to move and you don’t care that you should be calling for help.


At some point during the morning I heard them talking about oxygen on the radio ( I’m very lucky that I don’t need complete silence during an attack just a darkened room) and I remembered oxygen always helps me when I have a migraine. Another plaintive Help was shouted and Jay sprang into action set up my oxygen machine and got me hooked up to it. He also got me a bottle of water because the orange squash he had given me was turning my stomach and after each mouthful I wanted to bring it back up and more. The oxygen did help it lowered the pain level to an 8/10 instead of the 10/10 it had been since 4.20am


I spent the majority of the day in bed. At 1pm I got up because my back was killing me. That was a dreadful mistake after an hour I went back to bed and straight to sleep despite the pain. I got up again at 4pm and managed to have a drink, then I was so thirsty I couldn’t stop drinking and then I was ravenous with the post migraine munchies. I could have eaten my body weight in whatever food you brought me. I was despite sleeping all day fucking shattered. I went back to bed again at 6pm tried watching some tv but having jolted awake three times in 30 minutes gave up and slept solidly until 1am…..and was then awake for the rest of the night. I managed to get an hour of sleep between 7-8am this morning.


Today is brought to you by the letter C – for Coffee. I feel like I am floating I am so tired. I have managed to sort myself out and have a shower with Jays help. Honestly I was honking after sweating so much yesterday. My autonomic nervous system was going mental. I feel like I have taken too many pain killers as my head is floating and my face feels like it is sticking out 3 inches further than it is. I am going to put a letter together for my gp telling them I can’t go on like this. Just thinking about the fact I will have yet another migraine next month is making me cry. I have been tracking them on my phone and they happen at least once a month and always between the 18th -22nd of the month. It isn’t fair on me for these to continue to happen and it isn’t fair on Jay as he can’t take one day off a month to look after me as I am so ill I can’t do anything for myself. 

People also seem to be under the impression that you have the migraine and then like magic you are back to normal again, in reality it can take me several days after a severe attack to feel like I am functioning anywhere near normal, so it’s not just one day a month I am losing but 3 or 4 depending on the severity.


From what I have briefly read up during the early hours of this morning around 40% of women find their migraines worsen during peri-menopause and menopause. Even in the absence of menses there is still a very slight hormone fluctuation which can be enough to trigger a migraine. Which would be my case. I stopped my contraceptive pill in December as I wanted to see if the menopause fairy had joined me and it has now been over 5 months and there has been no period. Yet my migraines will always occur since stopping the pill between the 18th – 22nd of the month without fail. Occasionally like this month I will get two migraines, I had one last Tuesday, so exactly a week apart. I am at the end of my tether with it. All I want to do is cry but whats the point? It won’t change anything. I need specialist input now so I am going to write to my gp as due to Covid-19 I don’t want to go to the surgery unless I have to and ask if they ever did contact neurology like the doctor said she would and if they had suggested some medication as continuing on like this isn’t an option. I’m at the end of my tether with it.