![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
THIS is why I hate getting older
Nov. 16th, 2008 12:06 pmEvery time I hear someone get all outraged over people who hate getting old, and how they should be happy and embrace their wrinkles and changes and all that crap, I want to beat their faces in. There is nothing fun about this. Especially as I inch toward the dreaded menopause -- this perimenopause thing is bad enough. I used to battle migraines on occasion, but the pills I was taking tended to keep them away from me. The past couple years, though, it seems like almost every that time of the month is met with all kinds of body problems, the worst of which is hideous migraines the likes of which I never had to deal with before, and now I've even experienced the notorious cluster headache, which I have to say is quite possibly almost as bad as the blocked bile duct that sent me to the emergency gall bladder surgery two years ago. It's a tossup as to which one was worse.
I've spent the past few days with one long migraine that temporarily went away thanks to Imitrex (once I could finally keep it down) just long enough for me to take my friend out to dinner for his birthday. He was mocking me for not having enough energy to do something else and I said, "I started out my morning by vomiting, being blind in my right eye, and having so much pain I wanted to stab myself to death just because it would be different pain." People who haven't had these kinds of headaches, a real migraine, just have no idea. The word gets tossed around easily by people who have regular headaches (which themselves can be almost as evil), but they just don't know what it's like to have this thing take over your life for days on end.
Yesterday I couldn't even keep my Imitrex pills down but finally stopped vomiting around 11, and then I fed the cats because the poor things were just frantic for food, and had to go back to bed, not getting up till around 1. I missed not only the No on 8 rally downtown, but an entire two days of gorgeous weather that I could have so used to get out in the yard and tidy up and prune trees and shrubs. I still have some residual pounding when I move fast, but it was nice to wake up and not be blind and having to puke.
Last night, when I really should have been working on Yuletide fic, I alternated between trying to get all the stuff off my TiVo that's been piling up and playing around on fanlore. It's hard trying to create entries for my microscopic fandoms, since I know so little about the fanworks in most cases, or what I did know is now long gone. I don't want the pages to be all about the canon, but most of the time that's all I can write about.
I also popped up to PCC and decided while I was there to look at some of the herbal remedies and see if there was anything for migraines. I picked a feverfew/lavender blend. I don't know if it helped or not, but I took some first thing and am still taking some today, just to get my system used to it. The Imitrex ... I don't know. It works, most definitely, and gives me some reprieve, but for about a half hour I feel so weird that it scares me: my extremities all become numb, my heart beats too fast, I get dizzy and heavy-headed at the same time, and I can't really even stand up. I have to make sure I have a fainting couch nearby because that's what I feel like I'm going to do. It sounds like it can be a bit iffy to use herbal remedies with one of the migraine drugs, but I dunno, when you're desperate, you're willing to take chances. I may talk to my doc next year about injections instead -- I loathe the idea of an injection with my freakishly sensitive skin, but then I wouldn't vomit the (very expensive) pills right up before they can help.
Anyway, losing days of my life to this crap is why I hate, hate, hate getting older. Headaches aren't the only thing, either -- there's the skin breakouts, the intestinal distress that always follows the headaches, the aches and pains... the weight gain you can't ever seem to get off. Even your feet get bigger. What's up with that, man? I do not like it one bit. Sadly, there's only one alternative.
I've spent the past few days with one long migraine that temporarily went away thanks to Imitrex (once I could finally keep it down) just long enough for me to take my friend out to dinner for his birthday. He was mocking me for not having enough energy to do something else and I said, "I started out my morning by vomiting, being blind in my right eye, and having so much pain I wanted to stab myself to death just because it would be different pain." People who haven't had these kinds of headaches, a real migraine, just have no idea. The word gets tossed around easily by people who have regular headaches (which themselves can be almost as evil), but they just don't know what it's like to have this thing take over your life for days on end.
Yesterday I couldn't even keep my Imitrex pills down but finally stopped vomiting around 11, and then I fed the cats because the poor things were just frantic for food, and had to go back to bed, not getting up till around 1. I missed not only the No on 8 rally downtown, but an entire two days of gorgeous weather that I could have so used to get out in the yard and tidy up and prune trees and shrubs. I still have some residual pounding when I move fast, but it was nice to wake up and not be blind and having to puke.
Last night, when I really should have been working on Yuletide fic, I alternated between trying to get all the stuff off my TiVo that's been piling up and playing around on fanlore. It's hard trying to create entries for my microscopic fandoms, since I know so little about the fanworks in most cases, or what I did know is now long gone. I don't want the pages to be all about the canon, but most of the time that's all I can write about.
I also popped up to PCC and decided while I was there to look at some of the herbal remedies and see if there was anything for migraines. I picked a feverfew/lavender blend. I don't know if it helped or not, but I took some first thing and am still taking some today, just to get my system used to it. The Imitrex ... I don't know. It works, most definitely, and gives me some reprieve, but for about a half hour I feel so weird that it scares me: my extremities all become numb, my heart beats too fast, I get dizzy and heavy-headed at the same time, and I can't really even stand up. I have to make sure I have a fainting couch nearby because that's what I feel like I'm going to do. It sounds like it can be a bit iffy to use herbal remedies with one of the migraine drugs, but I dunno, when you're desperate, you're willing to take chances. I may talk to my doc next year about injections instead -- I loathe the idea of an injection with my freakishly sensitive skin, but then I wouldn't vomit the (very expensive) pills right up before they can help.
Anyway, losing days of my life to this crap is why I hate, hate, hate getting older. Headaches aren't the only thing, either -- there's the skin breakouts, the intestinal distress that always follows the headaches, the aches and pains... the weight gain you can't ever seem to get off. Even your feet get bigger. What's up with that, man? I do not like it one bit. Sadly, there's only one alternative.
