Saturday, June 25, 2005

Migraine: My Pain, My Bane

There it came again. 22nd June. Half way through MSNing, I can't even look at the computer screen properly anymore. Some bits look blurred off and the lights in the room became way too glaring. It's as if someone adjusted the contrast level to unbearable limits. It was coming. After the half-hour painless tiny window which I hurriedly bathed and dried my hair, I popped a panadol actifast and sent myself straight to bed.

Panadol actifast doesn't work against migraine. I became more and more sensitive to the lights and noises around me. Simple voices screeched and scratched my senses. The pounding headache took on a different form this time. My right eye and the whole patch around it felt so dense. It was so very dense that some sort of blackhole inside my head, right behind my eye, seemed to be sucking up all of my energy, all my sensations and all of me. I felt numbed, pained and frustrated all at the same time. And there's nothing I can do about it. It's the beginning.

The rest of the night passed in pain. That horrible dense,heavy, hurtfully numbing pain. I can't describe it. It hurts right behind my eye and that area right in front of the eye feels so numb. An unreachable patch that I can do nothing about. And there's the bitterly acidic and putrid mess that churns around in my stomach to such an unbearable level that I had to let it all out... only to leave a cramped-up bloated hollowness in my stomach.

Really thankful to have mum make me warm glucose as a temporary filler for my tummy.

There goes. Pain at the back of my left eye. Acidic violent churning in my stomach. Off to the toilet to release the sour mess. Slump back into bed. More thumping dense pain, more churning... off the toilet...

I must have gone for about 4 or 5 times before I fell asleep. Woke up at 1 the next to tell inform some people that I can't be at lab, can't be at a dinner, can't be at outing, can't be at a session... can't be everywhere. I just slept through Friday. The pain went away, more or less, as long as I moved gingerly. The only unsettling thing was the bland tastelessness in my mouth. There's also the nausea... real or psychological? I have no idea.

But there's something I'm really sure of: Having someone right beside you through the whole thing is therapeutic in itself. I wonder if this applies to all other situations... like pregnancies/child labour and what nots.

Here's more on migraine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migraine
http://www.migrainetrust.org/

Long morbid entry indeed. Migraine-- My Pain and my Bane.
(PS: Don't mind my grammar / sp. Can't stare at the screen too long.)

4 comments:

Chang said...

Maybe u shldnt even take panadol in the first place.

Seriously i'm abit anti-panadol. Take too much ur body kinda gets "addicted" to it.

Then sooner or later it's effectiveness decrease, cos ur problem grows resistant to it.

Me JT said...

hahaha... are u anti-medicines? Im starting to doubt the effectiveness of panadol. eeks. But Im still supporter of po chai pills.

Julia said...

yes yes, po chai pills! the best. but would it have been worse if you didn't take panadol?

Me JT said...

panadols work v well with common headaches tho. But not migraine. shrug. heez.