I still have headaches every day. My medication (Zanaflex) still helps, though lately the sedation has returned, which makes teaching a daily choice between pain and stupidity. I don't understand this at all--how can a medication you'e taken for years suddenly affect you differently? Some days it hits me like a truck. I've tried halving it, but it doesn't touch the headache. Whatever. It still works. Except for the four or five days a month when my 4 mg every four hours regimen just doesn't work, and a headache gets away from me and kind of goes crazy. I don't understand that phenomenon either.
I'm having two nerves burned on Wednesday. = If you recall, I had this procedure done back on April--four medial branch nerves between four vertebrae allegedly shut off with radiofrequency ablation. Kind of a bear of a procedure, and a really sucky recovery, but then it just didn't work.
So new doc, new series of tests, and here we go again. I'm very nervous--that it won't work again, mostly, and that the recovery will be just as bad, and here I am in the middle of the semester.
I'm pretty annoyed that Percocet and Vicodin make me feel horrible, because they are what's on the table after a rhyzotomy, for the week or two of nerve spasm that follows until the nerves die out. I can handle 5 mg of Percocet (which helps sometimes on those days the headache is crazy, but then sometimes it does nothing). But that's not enough post-rhyzotomy. When I took 10 mg last time, my heart raced, I was dizzy and very nauseous and super anxious. I hated it. I didn't even notice whether it helped the pain because I felt so yucky.
Anyway, my pharmacist says he has the same reaction. He suggested I ask for Tramadol instead, so that's the plan. If you have any other suggestion, let me know.
It's been a decent fall, regardless. I'm very busy with school, am steadily working on a novel, get out to the woods a fair amount, have spent time with my family in Lancaster and been able to socialize a bit. It's maybe 2/3 what life was before the headaches. But there are also days that are a complete wipe out, where teaching is SO HARD because of pain, and I drag myself to my car afterward and sleep the rest of the afternoon. At least I can sleep. But we've had some gorgeous days recently, and sleeping through them just feels awful.
Anyway, I like my new doctor. He's very confident. All week I've thought of changing the appointment until after the semester ends, but Tony's convinced me I need to just do it. I'll write again on the other side. I'm really hoping it's not too bad.
