Rumors of the thermonuclear detonation of my skull have been greatly exaggerated

[unixronin]

My head did not, in fact, explode and strew flaming radioactive death over southern New Hampshire yesterday....   it just felt that way.

It started out sometime around, I think, 1000 or 1100, with visual aberrations that were making it hard to read my monitor.  I thought at first it was a visual afterimage from looking out the window at the sunlit snow, except it wouldn't go away.  Then about twenty minutes or so after that, the headache started, and 20 minutes after that it felt like my head was coming apart.  I already had a 1515 doctor's appointment scheduled for a physical, but I was clearly in no shape to drive; cymrullewes left work early to take me to the appointment, which we got to around 20 minutes late.  I was able to walk from the car into the waiting room, but about three minutes later when the time came to go back to the examination room, I could no longer stand, and after I fell down trying, they took me back in a wheelchair.  The nurse did the usual vitals, my doctor checked me out briefly, then they sent me over to the ER for a CAT scan to rule out aneurysm.

It turned out I spent the next seven hours in the ER on IV fluids, morphine (three doses), and anti-nausea drugs (two doses of one, one of another) while they did a CAT scan, studied the results, did a spinal tap, and studied the results from that.  For the first couple of hours, I kept getting muscle spasms in my legs, and my left hand kept tingling and going numb.  Finally at about 2330 they told me I could go home; they wheeled me out to the car, and the moment we started moving, I had to tell cymrullewes to pull over so I could open the door and throw up, wondering what in hell my body was still finding to throw up with.  It managed to find enough to throw up three more times before we got home, then again after I got inside and sat down.  After that, though, I felt up to eating a tub of peach yoghurt, and that stayed down.

This morning, I have a residual headache and my eyes still sort of ache, so I'm taking it pretty easy.  I just made a pot of tea (cream and plenty of sugar) and a soft-boiled-egg sandwich to start replenishing fluids and blood sugars and all that good stuff.  cymrullewes is staying home from work today because we don't know how functional I'm going to be or whether it'll come back.

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Wow. Scary, man.

*hugs*

-Ogre

[bbullock.livejournal.com]

Weapons-grade migraine.
Glad you're feeling better, and I hope it lasts.

[plutosonium.livejournal.com]

And no more useful information from the docs except "We know two things it isn't?"

How freaking scary. Feel better soon, and may this never happen again.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, more to the point, I suppose, "We know it isn't either of these two things that could kill you."

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

This is what I hate about modern medicine - it isn't modern enough. It's a trial-and-error guessing game, based on an imperfect knowledge of the organism, and administered haphazardly by error-prone humans.

Oh, and the space-search of potential afflictions is limited principally by time and money.

[kayre]

Wow, what a frightening experience.... I'm glad you're feeling better, and hope this doesn't repeat!

[bfly.livejournal.com]

Jeez, how horrible! I'm glad you're OK. Hope that bugger doesn't come back.

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

I was wondering what that loud, squishy noise was yesterday.

*KER-PHBBBBBT!*
"What was that?"
"Oh, just unixronin's head exploding."
"Great."

Eat salty things, have more yoghurt (marathon barfing sessions can really upset your GI fauna), stick to the BRAT diet for today, drink plenty of fluids.

And stop exploding your head! Sheesh! ;)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

BRAT diet?

I just went to get a second round of yoghurt and found we're out of peach. But cymrullewes just boiled eggs, so I'll make myself a second sandwich. With a little more salt this time, I under-salted the first.

BRAT

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Bananas, rice, applesauce, and tea.

Re: BRAT

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

That.
Sometimes "tea," sometimes "toast," depending on who's telling the story. ;)

Easy things to digest.

Bananas may be a bad idea

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Though unixronin hasn't had problems with dietary triggers in the past, bananas contain significant amounts of tyramine, a protein which is a known migraine trigger. A banana is what finally decided me that I had to cut tyramines in my own diet. 20 minutes after I ate one last December, I had an absolutely vicious migraine, and while I was reaching for my Fioricet, I suddenly had a vision of the page I'd recently looked at that listed all the foods rich in tyramines.

Re: Bananas may be a bad idea

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

Noted. Understand I know exactly -squat- about migraines, I was coming at the "GI Sick" side of things. Bananas are loaded with potassium, which a body that has ... dehydrated itself ... needs. But if it'll trigger another bout, then -- Hell. Pedialyte. :)

[midiamin.livejournal.com]

Migraines almost always suck. In addition, first migraines can be terrifying. I take it you've never had one before?

bram452 had a migraine a long time ago, and his friends took him to the hospital where the docs tried to kill him with an overdose of (I think) thorazine. "Hm. That didn't help? Well, here, we'll dose you again." After the fourth dose, his friends pointed out that he wasn't grey when they brought him in, and upon realizing his blood pressure was now terrifyingly low, the docs decided to cut that out. (Ah, Albuquerque...)

I've been told that once the pain kicks in, there's basically nothing that can be done. IME, the best way to ride it out is sleep, assuming you can sleep when invisible gnomes are trying to pull your skull apart with crowbars and insufficient explosives. If it happens again, you'll recognize the preliminary symptoms. That's the time to get some meds in you (a healthy dose of ibuprofen for me) and hit the sack. Since you don't live alone, you might also want to warn your household that if you are awoken before the pain subsides, you may have to kill anyone who happens to be nearby, and if you do they shouldn't take it personally.

Now that it's past (and hopefully it stays there), take it easy for a day, avoid stress where you can, wear shades if you need to and try not to sneeze.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

We4ll, it's not entirely past. Right now I can take about an hour of bright light sources of any kind before my head starts pounding and I have to go lay down in a darkened room again.

[midiamin.livejournal.com]

That's probably just after-effect. It's hopefully inaccurate to say one's brain is bruised after a migraine, but that's how it feels to me. My braincase is sensitive to pretty much everything the day after, and not in a good way.

I mentioned wearing sunglasses because I generally have to wear mine indoors and out for the 12-24 hours afterward. Anything over dim light hurts too much. If I'm wearing shades while sitting at my desk at work, people give me funny looks for exactly as long as it takes to say "migraine." If you haven't yet, try it. If you're worried about not getting enough light during the day for other reasons, don't worry; you'll likely be on speaking terms with bright light tomorrow.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "bruised brain" sums up the feeling pretty well, along with "bruised eyeballs". And yes, I too am becoming one with the tao of dark glasses at my desk.

[claire.livejournal.com]

Eeek! I really hate migraines (lucky I only get one or two a year) and have only had one that bad before. It was, well, not fun ;)

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

Migraines suck. I hope that you don't have another one and if you do experience another that the docs find appropriate drugs to reduce/alleviate the pain.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

~hug~ the first paragraph is too fuckin funny! i'm glad ta hear yer doin better!

[disassembly_rsn]

Jesus.

That sounds awful.