Ugh, Terrible

Photo by Sasha Wolf of Grand Rapids, found on Wikimedia Commons

Yeah, I haven’t stepped up here like I said I would.

Well, the migraines were holding steady at terrible, and have recently begun to gauge up to truly apocalyptic.

Right now the count of medications I’ve taken in the last three months that have made me sick enough to either think I might need to go to the ER, or that I have been scolded later for not going to the ER, is two.  Which is two too many.

See, there is a new fancy migraine medicine.  It’s a once a month shot. It doesn’t destroy your kidneys, and so far the only side effect is possible anaphylaxis, and a rash.

However, because it is the new hotness, it is not available in generic and without insurance costs around $600 a month.

d by 😦

Tell me again how socialized medicine and putting the brakes on the more egregious practices of the pharmaceutical industry would create “death panels.”

We already have death panels.  It’s called the insurance guy with no medical training, just blithely suggests that you try one of the three types of medication that have “traditionally” been used to fight migraines, two of which are contraindicated by your medical history.

So this weekend I tried an anti-seizure med… And woke up in excruciating pain.

Since the goal of these is to prevent excruciating pain, I am going to mark this down as a failed experiment.  Seriously, I was warned there might be some “abdominal cramping.”

Some.

Ok, I have a stupid high pain tolerance.  It took me 11 hours to go to the ER for gallstones, and 17 for kidney stones because I have a ridiculous pain tolerance.

I was sobbing while the diarrhea (side effect: loose, runny stool) ran its course.  It felt like something was trying to claw its way out of my stomach.  I spiked a fever. I got shaky, this is after a night of insomnia that may or may not have been related.  Oh, and Friday’s worst migraine I’ve had in months.

I haven’t posted about them here yet, but I have a ridiculous pair of sunglasses.  They’re mountaineering glasses, rated for glaciers.  They are literally the darkest sunglasses I could find and they have the leather shields at the sides.

They were not dark enough, and Ogre had to drive me home while I sobbed in the passenger seat at how painful the light seeping through my hands (which I had over my eyes) was.

According to my migraine tracker, 2/3 of the last 90 days have had migraine activity. Sometimes I can stave it off with a fistful of pills, but that’s not good for my kidneys.  Sometimes it’s only mild and while I may have trouble focusing, I can usually muddle through, and sometimes I lose vision, throw up and can do nothing but cry and pray for death.

That is not an exaggeration.  My husband has found me sobbing about wanting to die so the pain stops on more than one occasion.

And there is a med out there that has a better 75% chance of stopping that pain.

But first I have to try a bunch of stuff that only works a third of the time, with all of its attendant side effects, and damage to my kidneys.

Yeah, tell me again how we’re the greatest nation in the world and socialized medicine is going to kill us all.