Wednesday, October 19, 2016

A bizarre head injury

Still working on withdrawal from Lamictal (down to 5mg/day, down from 150). Things had been going pretty smoothly, relatively speaking. I had a *great* holiday of Succot with beloved friends, all my kids were home, and I was able to really enjoy myself without much pain or usual discomforts.

Then yesterday, out of nowhere, I was exerting myself physically, maybe a tad more than usual, but not crazy, and I got this intense pummelling headache at the bottom of my skull, in the back. It took about 15 seconds to come on strong, and it was extreme pain. Like being hit in the back of the head with a bat. Took about a half hour or 45 mins to go away after I stopped doing what I was doing. But ever since then, I've had a dull headache that makes me feel incredibly fatigued. It was all day yesterday, and so far all day today. I went to sleep with it last night and woke up with it this morning. I've been taking Advil for it, which, for me, could be problematic because of the migraine/analgesic issues I have. I don't want to set myself up for rebound migraines by getting onto daily Advil, Tylenol, or other analgesics. This is kind of crazy, right? I looked it up on Google (of course), and I think this is what is happening:

http://www.apexllc.org/articles/exertion-headaches/

It discusses three stages of exertion headaches, the first stage is when the exertion headache happens, the second stage can be daily, fatiguing headaches for up to two weeks, the third stage is return to exertion, but that could take up to two months, depending on the quality of rest the person has during recovery. Seriously? Rest for a long time? This is insane. Some people talk about the exertion headache being exactly where mine was; bottom of the skull (but my neck was and is fine). I'd never in my life felt that sort of intense, immediate pain there, and I've exerted myself, even recently, at the gym and other stuff, much more than what I was doing yesterday.

Again, this gets filed under the story of My Life since NF:

What Are The Chances?!?!?!?!?!?

5 comments :

  1. Sorry you have yet another thing to deal with!

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  2. Yikes... still and again praying for you...

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  3. Oh my Lord! All you needed is to discover yet another name to your horrible discomfort... Refua shlema my love!

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  4. It sounds scary. I'll send some prayers your way, Sarah.

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  5. So sorry these are such difficult days for you . Prayers for comfort and shalvah. Love and hugs

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