zen.org Communal Weblog

Today I experienced (am still, sorta) my first migraine headache. The morning started with a splitting headache. Not enough to incapacitate, though—able to make some muffins for breakfast, make tea, that sort of thing. But after breakfast it started getting worse. The headache became stronger, and then came the nausea. (We’ve ruled out the possibility that I’m pregnant.)

I lost my breakfast and gave up on any chance I’d be able to do anything today other than stay lying down. I took some aspirin, which is supposed to help, but it didn’t make a big difference for me this morning. I dropped some Solpedine this afternoon, which perhaps only coincidentally seems to have reduced some of the throbbing.

Over about 3 hours I nibbled away some toast and drank some water; we figured there’s a chance some kind of dehydration was contibuting to this. Finally after staying in bed for more than 9 hours, it’s subsiding a little. The head still gets an axe crashing through it when I glance too fast in a different direction, or I move in any way that involves my neck muscles working very hard. Weird.

What really helped was being able to listen to a bunch of podcasts on Elana’s iBook. I could just lie on my pillow, my eyes closed and a hand at my left temple, while listening to a variety of podcasts being played by the laptop. It’s quite similar in enjoyment to listening to books on tape. I have Donna Tart’s The Secret History, a long-standing favorite book, on a bunch of tapes. If this pain continues tomorrow, or it recurs soon, maybe I’ll consider using those tapes too.

A guy I worked with many years ago (not that many, but it feels both like 2 days ago and 20 years) regularly had to stay offline from his telecommuting because of intense migraine headaches. Maybe I’ll drop him a note for advice.

Of course I’m also curious about the role of my recent ophthalmic migraine in all of this. Over the last few years, perhaps every six months or so, I get hit by this funky vision thing where I see this bunch of bring strobing/flashing lights in my peripheral vision. Until now, there’s been no physical headache with it, just the unnverving vision of lights. (Hello X-Files.) But it was at most a week ago that I last had them; now this splitting headache, eyes sensitive to light, and vomiting. Hmm. We’ll see—I’m going to have a doctor make sure the ophthalmic problems aren’t evidence of anything funky with either retina.

I hope this goes away soon! You can only hack on so much code with your eyes closed…