Whee

I’ve had a headache since Wednesday, June 20.
Normally, headaches aren’t a big deal for me, but this one is different. It doesn’t respond to any of the over-the-counter painkillers I have (and I have a lot – aspirin, ibuprofen, acetomeniphen, naproxin sodium, and various combinations thereof), or to my prescription migraine medication, Midrin. My chiropractor found that my top vertebra and my occiput (back-of-the-head bone) were grossly out of alignment, but even a series of adjustments for that didn’t help for more than ten minutes or so at a time.
So I saw my MD (who had talked with my chiro about it. Gawd, I love the medical center I go to). She gave me vicodin, which succeeds in taking the edge off, and started the paperwork for me to get an MRI.
This whole thing has been sort of peculiar. The headache doesn’t feel that severe – it’s not even in the same ballpark as my migraines are. But it’s bad enough that it made the muscles in my neck cramp, which gave me a touch of tendonitis on the back of my head. I didn’t even know that was possible. It’s been keeping me from Aikido, because it’s worse when I move around and that means that somersaults and sitfalls are a bad idea. Sigh. And the unrelenting nature of gave my morale quite a hit. There’s nothing like pain you can’t get rid of to send ya into a funk.
At least I’m not one of those unlucky folks who react badly to vicodin. It makes me more prone to motion sickness and makes me a bit tipsy-feeling, but that’s about it. I’m so glad to not be in pain that I don’t mind.
It’s also making me very thoughtful, and I’ve been pondering pain quite a bit. Pain is an odd thing, isn’t it? It’s very subjective, yet doctors use it as a diagnostic tool (“where does it hurt?” “on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the most horrific pain imaginable, how much does it hurt?”). Some folks can’t feel pain at all, and others feel it too much.
I’m considering writing an essay-type post on pain, and would be interested to hear any questions my readers might have on the subject of pain and fibromyalgia.