The most persistent symptom
of my brain injury is migraine headaches.
I’ve had the same headache, of varying intensity, for 231 days. A couple of weeks ago, my neurologist changed
my headache meds because they weren’t working well enough. That meant discontinuing the old meds,
waiting a few days, and then starting the new meds. The new meds have to be increased slowly
over four weeks until I reach the therapeutic dose. That's 4+ weeks without adequate headache
management. The way my brain responds to this transition is that there are no limits on how bad a headache can get, or what else it can throw at me...seizures, hallucinations, whatever! All bets are off, baby.
Most people are familiar
with a 0-to-10 pain scale, with 0 being no pain, and 10 being the worst pain
you can imagine. On my prior meds, my
headache pain was usually a 2-3, with occasional spikes to 4, 5, or 6. Anything above 5 puts my brain in protective
mode, not allowing for rehab or my home exercises that are meant to challenge
and repair my injured brain. Headache
pain above a 5 also wrecks my speech, impairs reading comprehension and
problems solving, and interferes with sleep. It's a nasty cycle. Not enough sleep = worse headaches, speech impairment, poor reading comprehension and problem solving. See how much fun that is?
The 0-to-10 pain scale isn’t
descriptive enough for me anymore. It
lacks dimension and detail. Sure, I
could say that for the last 3 weeks my headaches are a 5-6, with occasional
spikes to 7 or 8, but what does that really mean? I’m already in the non-functioning zone.
Yesterday’s headache was hatchet buried in my skull,
with the occasional fist to the face.
My current headache is head caught between two
boulders with a pencil shoved in my left ear.
I considered an historical
pain scale, but quickly realized that was too subjective.
Remember that time I had meningitis and couldn’t get
off the floor and cried all the way to the hospital because my head hurt so
much and then I passed out from pain during the CT scan? Well, that was a 9…because there might be
something worse and I’d need that for a 10.
So if that was a 9, then today is a solid 6.
That kind of pain scale
doesn’t help anyone. Well, it kinda
helps me because I know I can survive that kind of pain.
It also helps me pass the
time while I wait. I have 7 more days
until I reach the full dose.
