Seasons and Headaches
Every spring and fall, I get a series of weather-related sinus migraines. They vary with the year, least when strong fronts come in and blow through, and most when weaker fronts stall to one side or the other of us, or creep over us slowly and then move backwards over us again. I get intense one-sided throbbing pain, sometimes with visual auras and always with light and sound sensitivity. Often chills, as if coming down with something, and exnaustion. Not fun, but not dangerous really, just annoying and interfering with useful work. Especially the visual auras, since my vision isn't perfect anymore anyway. I've had a nasty headache off and on the past couple of days, and looking at the regional (not local) weather map I can see why. There's a line of stuff to the south, and another one to the north, and the day was warm, humid, and still) so today's headache (that made it impossible for some hours to do anything online--I finally just went to bed for a couple of hours, multiple layers of covers on top trying to warm up.
One of the oddities of migraines (Oliver Sacks discusses this in his book on headaches) is that they affect thinking more than ordinary tension headaches--one's perceptions are skewed. I always think "Oh, this isn't really a migraine, it's just tension." I'm always reluctant to take medicine, or lie down in the dark until the thing is really bad. Every once in awhile I can make myself take the medicine early, and it does help (not always but usually) but there's so much to do and I hate to quit digging at the pile of stuff to be done. Today, I thought the rest would cure it. Nope. The medicine has now taken hold and I'm once more laughing at myself for being reluctant to take it...just like all those other times. When in the throes of it, even though I know how it's been before, I can't make use of the knowledge. Luckily (I think) I err on the side of undermedicating late, not overmedicating early. The glittery golden jaggedy things are no longer jittering in my vision, the sound of ice cubes in a glass of water no longer feels like someone banging on my head with a geologist's hammer, and maybe--MAYBE--I can now open the book file and get the pages done that earlier today I couldn't do. Certainly I should be able to listen to the rehearsal CD for the Mozart and clean up the measures I'm still sticky on. (When Mozart sounds like crashing and banging, your auditory processing is seriously messed up.)
One of the oddities of migraines (Oliver Sacks discusses this in his book on headaches) is that they affect thinking more than ordinary tension headaches--one's perceptions are skewed. I always think "Oh, this isn't really a migraine, it's just tension." I'm always reluctant to take medicine, or lie down in the dark until the thing is really bad. Every once in awhile I can make myself take the medicine early, and it does help (not always but usually) but there's so much to do and I hate to quit digging at the pile of stuff to be done. Today, I thought the rest would cure it. Nope. The medicine has now taken hold and I'm once more laughing at myself for being reluctant to take it...just like all those other times. When in the throes of it, even though I know how it's been before, I can't make use of the knowledge. Luckily (I think) I err on the side of undermedicating late, not overmedicating early. The glittery golden jaggedy things are no longer jittering in my vision, the sound of ice cubes in a glass of water no longer feels like someone banging on my head with a geologist's hammer, and maybe--MAYBE--I can now open the book file and get the pages done that earlier today I couldn't do. Certainly I should be able to listen to the rehearsal CD for the Mozart and clean up the measures I'm still sticky on. (When Mozart sounds like crashing and banging, your auditory processing is seriously messed up.)