The Waiting is the Hardest Part

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.