Mish Mosh Migraines

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Well it’s near the end of January, already –it’s gone so fast! Last night it got cold, not our first cold of this Winter, but I do think the coldest thus far. It was in the very low 20’s overnight, and only has gotten to 37 degrees today so far, 3:18pm Eastern, with a “supposed to” get to of 41 degrees this afternoon.

I’m doing OK but not great. The baby I’ve felt moving some, I do think, nothing major still though. I’m struggling with the remains of a cold –and possibly a migraine today. I’m taking it all more seriously, the migraine thing, trying to keep track of what I eat and what I feel like, and hopefully determine a better way for myself, like I’ve done with some things the last few years, but getting moreso into the natural migraine way of seeking to avoid things that layer upon each other and trigger at some point.

I haven’t been as migraine-prone the last few years as I was before that. My migraines aren’t as debilatating, though I react to them nearly as laid back as I can (relaxing as much as possible, but not staying down, necessarily.)

I’ve had more migraines in this pregnancy than I’ve had before getting pregnant the last year or more.

One thing is potatoes. I stopped having them in the house quite a long time ago, and we were OK with it. I did that for blood type reasons, and seeing how I felt after giving them up. It was a good thing. I didn’t feel as horrible, not over full and icky after meals in general that used to have P’s in them.

Also I had a thing in my wrist that hurt, and it felt arthritic, and went away after being off of P’s for a few weeks. That was a couple of years ago. In November 2006 FIL was here for Thanksgiving and I got P’s to make mashed potatoes since he was there. Since then we’ve had potatoes in the house sometimes, shred and fry them for breakfast, or whatever. I’ve also had some in restaurants just to have something more than meat to eat :rolleyes: so many restaurants are so not into alternatives for people seeking to not eat Potatoes still.

It’s all added up to something in my wrist/hand starting to hurt in the last week and a half.

I have usually had trouble with tense muscles in my neck/back and so many things seem to come into play symptomatically with this: migraines and this thing in my arm now. So I’m turning off the intake of potatoes all the way with me again. I have a list of foods from a website that’s not up and running right now, I had linked it on my other blog a long while ago, and looked recently and did find a cache of what I wanted.

Potatoes are one thing on that list, being part of a list of things I love that might be causation for migraines. (In particular it’s interesting to note my not being on potatoes then being on them again, and my ramped up problems with head and muscles of late.)

Too many other things that are staples in our lives here are on that list … so I need to try so hard to figure out which things are problematic for me, and which things are not. I want to do this for my whole family, for me to be a better me for them, and also for them, my children are sensative individuals and come with historical connection on both sides of their family for allergies, migraines, etc. I don’t want my boys or girl to be overwhelmed with migraines. I started having “headaches” in my childhood, which the doctor poo-pooed as “familial” and nothing he cared to do about it. By the time I was 16 I had debilatating headaches occassionally, which I carried with me into my future life, and self-diagnosed myself as a migraine sufferer in my early 20’s finally. I had episodes of horrible times, very inconvenient, and nothing to aide my assuaging the pain, not understanding what was what.

I finally did develop diffent techniques on my own to deal with them, and one is the aide of my DH, rubbing out my shoulders, neck and back, feet too if I can get him to do that much. If I have a migraine, these things can aide me greatly, and also rubbing my head on whichever side the pain is on can be dramatic relief, aiding my body to relax more, which is key to less symptoms, at least. He’s not always around when I need him though, and when he is around he’s not always ‘in the mood’ to aide me as much as I would like/need.

Right now I’m in a mode of tight muscles, he knows it and will do something for me, but hasn’t had the time to do it today where I need it for as long as I need it, and I really need a whole feet/back/shoulders deal, then into a nice salty warm bath with beeswax candles lit. Ahhh.

Another mode of aide to a horrid migraine that has helped me is icing the pain out. It’s not something that just anyone could tolerate, but I find it a super thing (but we don’t have ice in the house usually anymore, our ice maker isn’t hooked up to water since we moved the fridge to another spot a long, long time ago.) Ziplock gallon freezer bags with cubes of ice, on my neck and top and side of the head if it’s debilatating can be so freeing. Sinking into sleep as the pain is numbed … it often worked well, sometimes less than others, but usually worked really well.

If it’s a headache that won’t go away, one seemingly working thing was to do the ice, and make sure I get to the point that my body just shivers and I get a cold shiver rise from my feet to the top of my head, and at that point it can be a turning of the pain to calmness and relief.

Another way is to take a hot shower and then stand out in the bathroom without toweling off and get that shiver started.

I’ve not had much to do with those things the last few years. I started using Excedrin and find it works some, or well, depending. I don’t want to continue on it though, being pregnant. So I’ll delve back into the natural ways I dealt with pain before as much as I can, keeping up with muscle rubs before getting a migraine, if possible, and relaxing and being as into eating better as I can (avoiding all low-blood sugar events as possible being key, and avoiding triggers, whatever they are for me in the food department.)

I have to say though, get rid of milk, cheese, tomatoes, just those three (that are on the same list as the potatoes) I can’t imagine doing. Especially the cheese and tomato. Eek!

I know that my headaches aren’t totally hormonally connected, not sure how much they are. I know I feel triggers with environmental things, lights and sounds and such can trigger it for me. Allergies don’t aide me, no doubt, either.

So what am I making for dinner? Cheesed Stuffed Mannicotti w/marinara/meatsauce — :rolleyes:

Maisy

4 responses to “Mish Mosh Migraines”

  1. Tamara (AK) Avatar
    Tamara (AK)

    ((Maisy)),

    Hope you are hanging in there and even feeling better. 🙂 I have forgotten – how many weeks are you?

    It’s that time of year when I think of all my southern friends and how close Spring is for them…and think I need a plane ticket to fly *this* coop! LOL Any gardening plans this year?

    The AKan “Lurker”

    Reply
  2. Maisy Avatar
    Maisy

    Thanks for stopping by! I love comments, get them and give them rarely, but that’s OK, it’s the way of this “introvert” that I am. 😉

    I’m still getting migraines, but not overwhelmingly so ones. I have tried a few things that were on the wikipedia page I found about migraines, and one is an “ice cream” trick to get rid of the pain, sort of the “ice cream headache” thing, recreate that to acually get RID of the pain of migraine.

    I have used it to reduce one migraine for sure, make it “in the backround” and not disabling me from doing anything, though I still could see it and feel it in other ways, but that was interesting … I have used that trick again and I think it did work, with some other things and so, I have a pint of vanilla organic ice cream in the freezer just for me to have one small spoon here and there for a migraine.

    My muscles are still tight, they are hard to get rid of and I’m trying still to get DH to rub them regularly so we can see if that helps.

    The “hand/arm” thing is still here, but it’s not as “bad” as it was before, though still bad enough. It’s weird, I can feel it all the way up my arm and around my shoulder and down my back a bit to that “spot” that is my bain always, about right next to my mid-shoulderblade, midway bewteen my spine and actual shoulderblade.

    It’s not always doing it, just mostly when I use my hands to type or write or stir something (cooking) for more than a short time, but it’s only a sort of tingly thing now, when the first week of it, it was horridly tingly. In any case, if I sit back or lay down I can feel it in my arm, just doing nothing but nothing, from laying or sitting back. It goes into my hand eventually in those cases too, but it doesn’t do it right away, not any of it in any sort of pattern for sure, except that “to do certain things, it will come eventually, no doubt”.

    In every case though, I can feel it connected to my back, that area it where it ends.

    It’s the reason I haven’t blogged lately, I hadn’t even turned this laptop on until yesterday, a full week off of it. It’s absolute though that it’s not as bad as it was earlier on, but it’s a deeper pain that I get in my arm and joints along the pathway it takes to my back, like at night, in bed. I have to sit up to sleep some, try this and that way, sit forward and read for awhile, get up and walk around a bit.

    It truly feels alot like other things I’ve had in the past, that always resolve themselves at some point naturally. Not that I have them often, not at all, just here and there over the years a few to a couple more times, all different places, but similar in so many ways. FWIW

    Other than that I’m OK, some days more productive than others, my usual way anyhow. 🙂

    —-

    Garden plans, yes, sometime in the past months I’ve written some on that, since being preggo I think [edit: here is that post – Gardening 2007 ]

    DH promises to help me this year and we’ll hopefully have a big garden full of tomatoes, green beans, red peppers, and lots more, lettuce, broccoli, sweet potatoes, green onions, etc.

    It’s mid-Febuary and our usual “last frost date” is mid-March — we’ll get prep things going in March, but I won’t put things in the ground until later, I think it’s best NOT to get things out in Spring right when everthing is going nuts, that is also when the worst bad stuff if starting up, and so it might be a better success on our part, I’m thinking, to start everything indoors and let it all get big and healthy and ready to transplant later, after the initial “flush” of Spring.

    We have “two” growing season too, being in the South, so we’ll do more stuff later as Summer winds down.

    We’ll be putting in totally new areas for the gardening this year (2007) so that will be the outdoor prep we start with pretty soon, and get it weed free before we plant. I am looking forward to soon going to the stores and getting the things needed to start seeds inside, and look through all the cool seed things that are out there now. Just going to Home Depot even, there are good organic and old-fashion choices to be made. 🙂

    I haven’t started seeds inside, myself, ever, though my Dad did in PA, years ago. It will be fun. I hope I can do this all naturally, with “organic”-like ways to get good growth and fruit development, and combat foes of disease and bug.

    I always have high-hopes in my head planning of things, and truly hope my plans for Gardening 2007 will be 75% as good as I’m thinking of, at the least.

    I’m gearing up in my head though, and excited thinking of it and looking forward to some warmer days (though this winter hasn’t been that bad, but has had many cold days this past month.) I see the buds on trees, plants outside, more and more getting ready for spring, and as soon as it’s time they full plump up, it’s my favorite time of year in some ways, the pre-flush, it’s like Christmas Eve, sort of, the mounting anticapation, magic brewing in the air … life about to bud out into fullness.

    —

    As for hour far along I am, about 22 weeks, due around June 18th, I think. I haven’t been to my midwife yet (soon-ish.)

    We’ve got lots of stuff to go through to get ready, all my “baby” stuff is mostly in the garage and some of it mouses have probably gotten into. It’s been over 6 years since the last baby was a baby, so … I will be needing to replace somethings. Our strollers were chewed and ickied up, I know, which is sad, I had two really nice ones. All that baby gear the mousies love to chew and go poo on.

    I’m looking so forward to being able to cloth diaper again! It’s a chore that I love, chaning baby, getting the diapers washed and dried and folding them, and just using them, seeing baby in them. 🙂 I hope I don’t have to replace any of that, but DH doesn’t even know where he put them in the garage, nor what they are in, to my dismay.

    Everything just went in there at some point after our 2000 Sept. baby, since we didn’t have any others come along until the other year, over 4 years after, but that ended early, so now this one is very hopeful and we almost feel like we are starting over with baby stuff.

    Also, our youngest now is 6. He’s the eldest any of our children have been when a new baby arrived. Our eldest will be 11 when this one is born, he was 4 when the now 6-year-old was born. He (the current baby of the family) is not so keen on losing the “baby” spot it’s seeming from his ‘con-baby’ comments of late. I’m trying to make him “pro-baby” actively now, and I think he’ll come around soon. He’s special because he’s HIM, not because he’s the “youngest” –so he has nothing to worry about, though he’s naturally doing so, for some inate reason. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Becky Johnson Avatar
    Becky Johnson

    Hello sis,
    How are you? I am hoping that you are well. Just wanted you to know I am keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.

    Reply
  4. Maisy Avatar
    Maisy

    Thank you Becky dear. I am doing alright not too shabby, not too great, if that makes sense. 🙂

    I have something going on in my back or neck that connects to my right arm an it’s being a tough cookie to get resolved, home made trials of remedy. I haven’t ever gone to any professional about tight muscles or pinched nerves, so I’m doing my normal thing and dealing with it best I can.

    I appreciate your prayers! I’m feeling very fat (pregnant) for the last few weeks, it’s all getting closer to the end … June isn’t that far away — 🙂

    Thanks for stopping by. Love to you and your family. ((hugs))

    Reply

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