The Headache That Never Ends

Will it ever end? I've stopped wondering actually. I'm trying to live life as if they are here to stay so my new goal is to #suckitup like I always tell my kids. 

My most recent hypothesis was spurred on by a class I was taking as part of the Professional Development that my company offered. We were given the opportunity to take a class through Arizona Trauma Institute. It was a class called Trauma and Resilience Life Coaching and it was AMAZING. There was a lot of sciience and stuff to learn about in the beginning but if I had to explain my takeaway in one sentence, it would be this:

Trauma and Toxic Stress can look the same and when a person experiences one of them, their body sometimes reacts with physiological responses that affect behavior and THIS IS NORMAL. 

 The critical part of that is that it is a normal reaction. While it is and will be incredibly helpful to my job as a teacher of students in an online high school, it also became very personal. 

For many of the exercises that we participated in, we studied our own responses to trauma and stress and how we dealt with them in the past, and how we can react in healthier ways going forward.

While my job as a teacher in public school was stressful, it was also a time in my life where coaching, going to school, parenting adults, teens and children simultaneously, grandparenting, church, social life, and all the other parts of life, even though they were good, added to that stress. After five years of that kind of stress, my physical and mental health basically gave up. My body had a physiological response; anxiety and depression. 

For the last several months, I have been working off the hypothesis that maybe my headaches were also a symptom of the stress I was under.  My anxiety and depression are mostly under control so I focused on my headaches. 

Every time I felt a headache come on (they were every day, sometimes twice), I would give myself permission to either go through a series of breathing exercises or stretching and if it was a bad enough headache, I gave myself permission to take a nap.

The headaches started three years ago so I don't imagine they will just go away with a few naps, but this time of relaxing and giving myself permission to take care of myself was HUGE. It came at the same time that we welcome two sweet boys into our care who need a lot of attention. I keep reminding myself that this was no coincidence #Godisinthedetails, but I digress.  

I'm also a realist and am finally giving in to the conclusion that I may need some medications to help the process along so I can function in the meantime. I found a new neurologist and she is wonderful!! She is a DO so she is helping me get to the root but treating the headaches at the same time. Our new hypothesis is Ictal Headaches, which are a type of seizure but not the kind you normally think of. They could still be migraines so this medicine is more preventative for migraines or chronic headaches for unknown reasons.

Because I'm finally ready to start medicines again, she asked if I would like to try a steroid for three days to see if a punch in the "brain" was an option, in case it is an inflammation issue. Since it is a three-day course, I agreed. She said that if it works, it will start working immediately. I took my first giant dose at noon today and no headache. I'm not getting my hopes up, I sometimes go 24 hours without one and I already had one this morning so there's that. 

If I don't have a headache by Monday, or they are less severe or less often, I might be cured. #hallelujah If not (my hopes are very low), I have a new prescription ready to pick up on Monday morning, called Topamax. I'm worried about side effects from this medication so if you're inclined to say a little prayer for me, I want the steroid to work, ha ha.

If you are still reading, I love you. Thanks for being a part of my headache journey.