Well, I’ve not really had a chance nor felt like posting any entries lately. Hopefully I’ll get back to that soon. Angel has started summer school so we get to talk some after he gets home, he’s gotta take care of another class in July then in August he’s doing some EMT stuff. He’s still planning to come out here this year as far as I know so hopefully that’ll work out.
My migraines have gotten out of control. My Maxalt rarely aborts them (though at times it will but maybe one out of 8 it will). The past month I’ve been in the ER about 5 times, which to me is 5 too many times. My neurologist still has no open slots until the date scheduled for my appointment. The only reason for the ER is that most of these migraines when it gets to the pain phase (where the headache starts) the pain is severe, I have nothing here I can take for the pain and when it gets that bad I can’t lie down to try to sleep it off, I can’t really function, thus the injection of Dilaudid. Unfortunately its a very addictive opioid. The only disadvantage other than addiction is the risk of a rebound headache cause of the drug leaving your system and the fact that though it makes the pain tolerable it doesn’t fix the fact that the migraine is still going.
Today I saw my primary care doctor and he stated the normal deal that we’ve extinguished our options really and just gotta deal with the neurologist. One of the ER docs which I happen to see almost every time I’m there wants me to push for Stadol nasal spray to deal with the pain rather than an expensive trip to the hospital and all that. I’m weary of bringing the topic up because of the idea of drug seeking especially with such a powerful drug. It would be used in those times where the abortive drug did not work to stop the migraine and when the pain is severe.
Anyway, he prescribe Lyrica, which is an anticonvulsant and is used to to treat neuropathic pain among other things. This is being used for 2 reasons, one to see if it helps with the migraines (as anticonvulsants can help stop migraines from occurring) and to also help my back/hip/leg pain. Just started the Lyrica tonight so we’ll see how it does.
I had some injections on the nerves of my spine on Monday, relatively painless and quick. Got in around 9am, waited while Adam ran rampant around the office, went back to their holding area (Dr. Sullivan’s holding area is much nicer in respect to more room), waited for a bit finally saw the doctor who was saying since my pain doesn’t really seem to have a cause that can be found (though apparently 50% of back pain goes undiagnosed from what he said), but we’ll try this and see how it helps.
The first few days after that there was a great deal of discomfort after the local wore off, mostly down into my tailbone area so made sitting painful. The steroids seem to have started working some as there’s not as much pain in the area around the injections but there is still some pretty bad leg pain and in the low low back and butt, so hopefully it’ll work its way there and take care of it.
Dr. Sullivan’s office called today. I was informed my anemia is pretty moderate now, my hemoglobin is at 10.4. An all time low for me. I am pretty loaded up on B12 though but I still need to take that every other week. Monday I start on iron injections again for 4 weeks to see if that will help, if no change infusion is being considered again. I’m also on a new iron pill which I’m pretty sure it’s what I was on once before being put on what I was on at the time it was changed to the new stuff. The new medication is Tandem Plus, once daily. I go back to see them on the 19th to probably get a colonoscopy setup for my 2 year check up, see if any polyps have spawned, among other things. I’m sure thats going to be fun to prep for this time. The last time I had one scheduled the prep didn’t work out too well as I wasn’t cleaned out good enough so getting the scope even past the transverse colon or to the ileocecal junction would not be possible, though they did do an endoscopy that day for me to stretch and burn the ol’ esophagus.
My reflux was horrible today, as it has been these past few weeks. I’m thinking the LES is having some problems again and may need to be coagulated sometime to try to help with the reflux (with the PPIs I’m on).
Otherwise not much has been going on, sleeping, talking to Angel, watching Scrubs (my fill in for House while that’s on break until Fall). More posts coming soon I think.
Tags: Angel, anticonvulsant, dilaudid, emt, lyrica, maxalt, migraine, migraines, neurologist, neuropathic_pain, opioid, rebound_headache
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