My Aching Head

I don’t know how people with chronic pain keep their sanity, and I am praying by the minute that I am not going to find out. I have had a headache for over 6 months now and it just refuses to go away. Nothing, I mean NOTHING will touch it. I’ve tried Advil, Tylenol, aspirin, imitrex, treximet, inderal, lysinopril (hoping that it was correlated to my blood pressure), and now I’m on a hefty dose of prednisone for a short term fix and elavil as a hopeful long term solution. It has been two days on the newest treatment, and my head feels worse than ever. I was under the impression that the steroid would knock the headache out by decreasing inflammation and would help me get over the caffeine withdrawal, because I was told to cut out all caffeine (which is probably not helping). Today I feel absolute despair. I have actually broken into tears multiple times because I just can’t see an end to this. It’s absolutely maddening, and I would go as far as to say that I would sacrifice a limb to rid myself of the headache, except that the phrase “be careful what you wish for” keeps ringing in the back of my mind. I suppose I do like my limbs after all.

The pain is bad, but not bad enough to keep me from going about my life. On a scale of 1-10 it varies between a 4 and an 8 throughout the day, hovering mostly around 5. But then again, what choice do I have? Someone has to take care of the kids and the house. The real problem is that the pain is constant, and although I am carrying on with life, I’m not doing it in a very nice or desirable way. I’m short tempered by nature, but this has given me a hair trigger, with Jacob and Greg bearing the brunt of most of it, and Andrew even getting the occasional, “Please just stop!” What kind of person yells at a baby? So now on top of being physically uncomfortable, I am beginning to really hate myself as a person too, which does little to improve my mood.

I guess there is no real point to this blog, aside from my complaining. I will call the Headache Center in Pittsburgh on Monday and see what else, if anything, I can do. I know that it’s just a waiting game, but the wait just seems so, so, so long. Just the thought of another day of this brings me to tears.