Tag: Migraine

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 405 and Okayness

I wasn’t in my “okayness” this morning. My focus on self love hit a snag on hormones. I woke up with a migraine and menstruation and I wanted to treat myself as an attack surface. So I asked my Twitter feed to tell me how they got to okayness. And it was beautiful.

I am often struck by how if you share your vulnerability with people they will open up with their own. The joy I get from connecting with you in the fullness of being ourselves gives my entire life meaning.

What seems even wilder to me is that this kind of connection happens on Twitter. It’s crazy that out in some virtual world, the metaverse if you will, the most human needs are met. We can see each other on a phone application. It’s enough to take your breathe away.

I’d encourage you to browse the thread as it’s filled with insight. People take long Lindy walks and do their nails. They lower their standards and raise their spirits. They integrate shadow elements into their identity. They take little risks and embarrass themselves. They imagine the tweet they would send at the end of the day with their accomplishments. But most of all people make things. That even when being a human being seems like an impossible challenge our capacity to build gives solace.

Categories
Medical

Day 397 and Good Drugs

I feel a migraine coming on so I’ll do the bare minimum and get on with taking an Imitrax and heading to bed. I recently learned that psilocybin and the migraine drug Sumatriptan (aka Imitrax) are in the same basic category of drug except Sumatriptan isn’t psychoactive. I’d cite it but I’m having a hard time looking at screens.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 395 and Uninspired

I was texting with a friend that I wasn’t feeling very inspired to write today.

“Do you think you will just skip it?”

It has actually never crossed my mind that I’d skip writing. I was idly commenting that it was on my to do list. My friend probably meant it more as a joke. Maybe I skip other items on my to do list. I haven’t meditated today. Or checked my email. But skipping writing just for being uninspired? That won’t be how my streak ends.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered how the streak gets broken. I’ll have morbid thoughts about accidents. You know the kind where your mind decides to make you consider something horrifying. What would it be like if I drove off the road? That would probably end the streak. Thanks mind for going there what the fuck.

But even when I had to go to urgent care or stay off my phone for the mother of all migraines, I still wrote something. It’s more likely that something stupid happens like a flight delay accidentally fucks up timing. I do actually have an international flight coming up and I’m planning to write first thing in the morning to work around the ten hour flight time. But today? Nope. I got a few paragraphs down. And that still counts.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 384 and Power Save Mode

I was convinced today was Thursday. I sent an email to my doctor confirming the appointment I was sure I had. She sent back a confused but it’s Wednesday response. That’s how I knew I went into power save mode.

I do my best to carefully cultivate reserves of energy. I used to have an attitude of “don’t save any for the swim back” as now I know I need to balance expenditure and recovery. I’ve been stopping when my battery is partially drained. So I wasn’t entirely sure I had over done as it’s been a while since I overshot my energy. That’s progress for me.

Yesterday I missed the signs for a migraine coming on. I was focused on something else and found myself surprised when I was vomiting and needed the lights off. Today I was so drained I went to lay down for a minute and found myself taking a three hour nap. Even though I had a good night of sleep. I wasn’t in a sleep deficient.

I was just in power save mode. I’d gone below the reserves I’ve have so carefully cultivated for the last year. Knowing that I’ll keep working on my reserves. I’ve got big plans coming up and I need to be operating on full capacity. So that means respecting I need to recharge now.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 310 and Short Burnouts

Is it possible to have brief periods of burnout? I’d always associated it with the years on the other side of a startup. If you’ve put in long hours for an extended period it makes sense to have a year or more of recovering from dipping into reserves for too long. But I wonder if it might be possible to have a week of burnout from a couple intense months.

I wrapped a few big projects last week. It was easier than anticipated and I felt a real sense of joy and accomplishment. But then this week I was a bit of a mess. I had several days of terrible sleep. Then I burned my hand making breakfast. Fun fact blisters are a form of burn, which finally made sense once I experienced a real burn as it’s healing looked exactly like a blister you get from a hiking boot. I’m feeling a sense of overwhelm with the drumbeat of preventative care and appointments that comes from 20 months off from things like dentists. I just felt like I got nothing done that was important to me this week. It was one thing after another. And it seems like others are feeling the stress as well.

Maybe it’s alright to have a week of feeling unproductive. I was very on for all of September and October and then I wrapped some stuff so it’s possibly normal to feel like all focus and willpower has gone out the window. But the temptation to force a fix on it is quite strong.

I’ve got a habit of turning everything into an opportunity for self improvement. I’ve been concerned about my capacity for using self control as a way to abuse myself. It’s been a running theme that I find myself concerned about the work that goes into keeping myself productive and healthy. So maybe it’s just par for the course. But I’m already worried about next week as I’ve got 4 fucking doctors appointment including one that involves a long drive. Maybe there is never a world where productivity is easy to come by and I should let go of the worry. The days are short but the years are long. And progress compounds over time.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 287 and Routines

I haven’t figured out how to incorporate my routines into my busier workdays. I feel like I’ve written this blogpost at least 3-4 times but somehow I never seem to find balance easily when I make big changes to how I spend my time.

All the self care efforts that has become comfortable rhythms go by the wayside as soon as I add in new obligations. And then my body gets pissed that I’m not taking care of it and I get into the same pattern of two steps forward and one step back.

You’d think after experiencing this issue multiple times I’d be better at ramping change slowly but I remain the sort of person that loves to dive into shit head first.

After much enthusiasm and progress I’m writing todays post from a physically mediocre places. My stomach is upset. I am fighting off a migraine. My muscles are tense. I’m anxious about all of these symptoms turning into a messy cascade. So I’m turning to my pharmaceuticals, taking a mess of prescriptions, and going to bed. Maybe tomorrow is another chance to find a better balance.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 253 and Lady Troubles

Occasionally I find myself annoyed that women’s bodies are less studied than male bodies. You’d think we’d want to know more about the vessels that produce the heirs to make fortunes. Grumbling about mishandling property rights aside, I do wish we knew a little more about women’s health.

I get migraines when I menstruate. If that particular tidbit of information is too much for you well sorry but maybe it might be helpful if the basic biology of women’s bodies were a little further to the forefront of cultural consciousness. Women talk about it with each other which is why I’ve got a host of folklore on cramps, bloating, headaches, sore breast, and emotional rollercoasters.

I’m fairly lucky to have migraines. It’s marginally more pleasant than what my friends with heavy flows or bad cramps go through. And I say this just having vomited from the nausea that comes with my migraines.

And on that note I’m signing off as I only went on a tangent about the need for more effective study and treatment of women’s health as it’s the only thing I can think of to write about. And I committed to writing something every single day. So here I am writing through the migraine. I bet tomorrow will be more interesting. And I’d be thrilled if later in life we solve for the interplay between hormones and headaches so I never write about this topic again.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 249 and Vacation

The last vacation I went on was a long weekend to Miami in early February 2020. I had been following the outbreak as it unfurled in Wuhan at the time but it was before covid19 became a pandemic. It didn’t appear as if it had made it to America at that point. Three weeks later and I began locking down.

I remember having a terrible migraine on the second day of that vacation. It has been a question as to whether I was healthy enough to travel. We were still stabilizing my ankylosing spondylitis but we hadn’t been on a vacation for over a year at that point as I had spent the summer and fall in and out of hospitals. So we risked it. It seemed like we should at least try to take a vacation. Even sick folks deserve a break.

I took a picture of the darkened bedroom while I rode out my migraine in Miami

In hindsight obviously I’m glad we took a chance and went to Miami. Even if I spent a day of the trip in a dark room. As much as I was early on the pandemic, I didn’t fully appreciate that it would be so long and so restrictive. Even being able to be in a cold hotel room nursing a migraine was an unimaginable luxury for most of the pandemic. I’m so grateful we took that last trip. Sure it doesn’t look particularly exciting but to me I see it as the last time I felt safe traveling.

Now that I’m in Colorado, which is it’s own vacation destination, I don’t feel as much of an urge to get out of town as I did living in Manhattan. Sometimes you do really need to escape from New York. But no one needs to escape from Boulder.

Yet right now I am craving a vacation. I want to feel a change in routine. Hell a migraine inside a hotel is still more exciting than a migraine in my own bedroom. I’m not likely to get on an airplane as the cases are a mess but maybe its time to go somewhere. I hear Aspen is lovely in the fall.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 223 and Actually OOO

I’ve got a nightmare of a migraine. Ironic that I should right at such length about being available or out of office yesterday only to find myself utterly incapable of being pretending today that I am available. If you want a better essay of the day then I’d click out to yesterday’s as the rest is just an exercise in willpower not quality.

If you’ve never had a migraine consider yourself lucky. I’m prone to about one a month and I’ll let you use your imagination as to why they are so regular on a monthly cadence

For this particular migraine the light and noise sensitivity are debilitating but today it’s the nausea that’s the worst. Somehow the pain and tension can be so bad you literally cannot imagine tolerance for food or smells. I’m struggling to drink water.

I can’t really fathom how I’ll have enough to say to qualify for “write every day” but here I am with the CMS open and typing out sentences that appear to be coherent. I suppose three paragraph with a few links, a title and the proper tagging qualify as showing up for the day. Every day I write. Every day some small creation. Even though at the moment I’m trying to work myself up to the idea of eating some rice in the hopes that I’ll be able to take some medication and settle my stomach. Good enough.

Categories
Chronic Disease Chronicle

Day 10 and The Migraine

When I committed to writing a long form piece every day I told myself a lie. I told myself It was no big deal to make a daily commitment. I told myself I’d find a way to put fingers to keyboard no matter what.

I told myself this lie knowing full well that willpower was never issue. My addiction to my willpower was the issue.

You see I’m a workaholic. And I made my physical illnesses significantly worse because I tried to exert willpower over them. I tanked my body into a kind of rock bottom that forced me to stop my whole life.

I told myself I physically couldn’t do it anymore. But that was a lie too. Even at my worst physically I had secret. I could still work through it. I could muster up my resources and be “on” for just long enough to get a job done. And then I would crash. Bed ridden. Pain addled. But I could will myself to action. I only began my recovery when I admitted to myself that I wasn’t willing to pay the price anymore. I knew eventually I wouldn’t just crash. I would force myself to perform when weak and I’d kill myself. I knew deep down my sickness was that I had the willpower to kill myself with work. So I decided to turn that willpower towards recovery. I stopped. And I healed.

So I’m a bit sad to see myself caught in the same lies again. That willpower is what matters. That I can always do what needs to be done. That I lied to myself by saying that it was no big deal to write every day. Because some days I won’t feel well. And I’ll be tempted to use my willpower to overcome it in order to keep my promise that I will write every day.

I bring all this up because I have had a migraine for the past 24 hours. It came on as was writing yesterday’s post. I felt it in my forhead building. I crashed out of an important virtual gathering last night crying on the floor as I dumped my dresser drawer searching for an Imitrax. I’ve been struggling with the migraine all day. So the post I had planned to write (media training for normies part 2) has been at the edge of my addled brain all day. It took till 6pm for me to realize I’d relapsed. I was going to use my willpower to power through the lie that that I could do it.

Except I can’t. Noises make me cringe. Bright lights make me shrink back. I’m sick to my stomach. I couldn’t bring myself to go for a hike in the fresh snow today even though I love stomping through undisturbed powder.

So I’m giving myself a pass. I’m admitting the lie to my teller. I won’t write up some advice on media today. Maybe I won’t write it tomorrow either. I’ll do it when I do it. I won’t try to prove to myself what I already know. Willpower isn’t the issue. Willing myself to recognize my limitations is the challenge. One day at a time right?