As I enter into December I enter into my fifteenth year of headaches. Fifteen years of chronic pain. I can’t even believe it has been so long, even though it has been an interesting journey.
In November of 1994 I was in my final year of high school, I was miserable. Going to school was about as appealing to me as being fed to sharks, although you could argue in a way that I was, in fact, being fed to sharks. Returning to high school after a failed suicide attempt the previous year was so much harder than I realized until I was much older and I think it drastically affected my performance in every regard, but I was already a depressed disaster. I barely graduated, my school apparently made it clear to my parents I wasn’t wanted there, or so my father claims I don’t take anything he says at face value anymore. I graduated with thirteen credits which was the minimum at the time, and I’m pretty convinced that one of my teachers who may have actually believed in me, being that he was my gym teacher, [for me an easy credit!] so he saw me run a lot, he was also my Bio 12 teacher and when I look back there is just no way in hell I passed that class. I didn’t study for even one of my provincial exams, not even the literature and English ones.
But I digress, at that time there just was no light out of the tunnel, when the headaches started it seemed stress related to doctors but they really knew absolutely nothing. Being from a small town it took a while to see specialists, the neurologist only flew in once a month. Trying to even get your GP to believe you suffer from any chronic pain can be quite the chore. I was put on various medications, given tests as simple as blood tests to as scary as a cat scan to check for tumors at only seventeen. I did have braces when they started but I didn’t see a jaw specialist till the late 90′s when I was already living in Vancouver. My cat scan total is now at two in relation to my headaches, I have seen more than one highly noted neurologist, tried massage, even seen an ear, nose and throat specialist and I could go on but there just aren’t many streets I haven’t been down.
The only real bad medication story other than the fact that I have been taking medications like Tylenol 3 and Naproxen, both not good for bellies, like candy since I was just a teen, there was this apparent low blood pressure medication I was once put on I have no idea what it was called but it could have killed me. I don’t know what she was thinking I was running regularly at the time which is why I noticed there was a problem all my training times were off by minutes and I felt like crap I couldn’t breathe properly, my feet felt like lead so I made an appointment and she made me stop running immediately and taper off the medication so I didn’t have a fucking heart attack thank you moron. New doctor please.
There was a time when every new doctor I went to would go on a mini crusade I think convinced they’d be the one that would break the code and find out WHY I lived in 24/7 365 day a year pain. My file is so thick now they have surely given up. I finally get them to believe me and they give up. How typical.
I considered suing my orthodontist, even though my dentist who I’ve been seeing since 1997 believes my braces could have very well miss aligned my jaw leaving me with this bullshit the actual jaw specialist I saw begged to differ. BIG SURPRISE. As IF they don’t all support each other who cares about my poor jaw.
I was taken out of school in April 1995, by this time we’d gone to Ontario for Christmas 1994 and I spent most of the trip in bed complaining and had to quit my job back at home for missing so much that some doctor had the bright idea to have me stay home for a week, it may have been two I can’t remember I do remember I saw the Oklahoma Bombing unfold live. Back then those types of things were pretty insane to view live. So I am not sure how stress free it really was. But it was nice to not be a target of constant bullying. Big surprise it did nothing except I got time off school and didn’t have to make up assignments because that would have been stressful, right?
Headaches do run rampant on my fathers side of the family, apparently all of his sisters have headaches but they all have migraines, not constant every day headaches, it is pretty interesting to me how it changed over a generation. My headaches have also changed over the course of the years; the last neurologist I saw was confident in saying that although my headaches are still classified as muscle contraction headaches that they have grown into a form of migraines as well. *Joy*
I think I make the best of it. I think that people who are just getting to know me probably find me annoying because I say “I have a headache’ soooooo often I seriously do not hear myself say it, it just pops out. I know I mention it on my blog a lot, I even have a category for headaches but I’ve never told the tale. It is extremely rare for me not to have one, to the point that if I don’t have a headache I often don’t even notice and then when I do notice it’s generally almost all over anyway.
I try to have whatever fun can be had trying to determine where the most recent headache is coming from, my shoulders, my sinuses, a cold, the flu, not enough food, too much food, didn’t take enough craps that day, genuine stress, pressure changes, allergies, my back is out, my neck is out, PMS. The worst ones are the ones that stay at a heightened pain level for days, sometimes weeks on end, it is physically and emotionally draining and there are times I go through the why me.
Not to be mean but I would LOVE someone to volunteer their head to me so I could give them what I consider to be a bad headache and see if it knocked them out cold. After all these years I am beyond curious as to just how used to them I have legitimately become, they are such a part of me, we’ve been together a long, long time and it looks like the good times aren’t over yet.
Happy fourteen years and a month to my headaches! Cheers!
