what a pain!

It's been more years than I can count that I have been on medication for migraines. I really hate having to take them too! When I went for my biannual checkup last week my neurologist and I discussed my general health and headache history. Then actually decreased one of my migraine medications by 25%. I cannot tell you how happy I am about this.


What I did find out was this... I've been getting a lot of nighttime headaches and when I told him my migraine meds weren't working on those headaches, he's diagnosed them (night time headaches on the right back of my head) as something other than migraines.(my migraines are right front face eye area always) Needless to say I was shocked. I just thought my migraines had changed somehow! Self diagnosis is probably not a good idea folks, leave it to the people who make the big bucks...

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He believes I have a bit of arthritis in my neck (ugh!) and it's causing my occipital nerve on the right side of my head to be inflamed and irritated. Makes sense really since I've used countless pillows in the past few months and we've changed our mattress and I can't get comfortable; lots of sleepless nights rolling around. Frankly I never thought my neck was responsible for those headache, although it does hurt when I lay down. I thought those nighttime headaches were all migraines. NOT!

The fix for now thank goodness wasn't too horrible and God willing will last as long as humanly possible, months hopefully. He took a reasonably large needle filled with medication (steroid) and shot it multiple times right into the nerve and surrounding area. Talk about a painful process, OUCH! It's called an occipital nerve block. Numbs the nerve, blocks the pain- that's after it stops hurting!! 


I'm sleeping like a baby, with the help of that shot, a low dose of muscle relaxer and some daily neck and back stretching exercises. Before that, I was just a bit of a pain in the neck..hehe!


I'm told similar therapies are available in the spine and I know people who have gotten injections in their knees and shoulders. Does anyone have any experience with this? Just wondering how you responded.

moving one room over

Whew, I feel a bit refreshed since taking a few days off since completing A-Z.

Although writing every day was exhilarating I really did need to take some time to catch up with some other things in my non blog world.

If you read my "X" post then you know I wrote each and every post from my couch with my laptop sitting on my lap.

I used to publish a few times a week prior to the challenge; sometimes more if the mood struck.

But honestly I've never spent that much time hunched over my computer writing, editing, and commenting.

I'd like to stress the word "hunched" it the key word here!

Gosh my neck and shoulders are killing me!

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After more then a few sleepless nights in pain and agony. OK agony might be a bit of a exaggeration....

I had to use one of those rubs and medicate myself. OH! my aching neck- shoulders too!

So it looks like I'm going to have to move my laptop off my lap and over to the dining-room table, I sure hope this helps.

So friends what do you do to make sure this doesn't happen to you?

I sure wish I would have known this was going to happen before, water under the bridge huh?