Stay Away From the Light!

Well, this past Friday I was determined not to fall asleep at 7pm, wake up at 11pm and then wonder where the night went - and I succeeded!  Boyfriend and I went to the grocery store (we are so awesome), and I made a new recipe from my Kraft Food & Family magazine ( Super Smart Patty Melts), and then we played the Sopranos drinking game.  Basically we drank during any cursing, when someone loses their temper, when someone gets killed, or when naked women appeared on screen.  Man, it sounds so debaucherous when I say it like that... But, I'm not much of a drinker, so it really turned into a few drinks followed by the big sleep.  Maybe I didn't succeed in my goal after all, but I gave it a new twist?

The Patty Melts turned out okay.  My patties wouldn't stay together, so it became a bit of a loose meat sandwich.  If I made it over again, I'd probably add some peppers to the burger, more onions, better cheese, and definitely some more spices.  The Kraft recipes aren't the jazziest things, but it's good for someone like me who is slowly learning how to cook and doesn't want to buy 80,000 ingredients to make one meal.  The magazines use things that most people have just laying around the kitchen, and if not, then they're easy to find and inexpensive.

Saturday was a bit of a bummer.  I got my first migraine in 2.5 years.  I thought it was a phase that was over and done with, but apparently not.  Boyfriend and I were doing long overdue statistics problems while sitting on the bed.  I got up to get some water, turned off a light that was on in the living room, and went back to the bedroom.  When I sat down and looked at the book, I couldn't see it.  It was like I stared at a lamp too long and now all I saw was a big, bright splotch in the center of my vision.  I wasn't alarmed at first, I thought I had just looked at a light bulb and that it would pass.  A few minutes later it was still there and had become more defined.  The one line grew into a "C" shape, and it continued to flicker.  Incase you don't know anything about migraines, this is the 'aura phase.'  Wikipedia says,

Aura phase

"For the 20-30%[4][5] of migraineurs who suffer migraine with aura, the migraine aura is comprised of focal neurological phenomena that precede or accompany the attack. They appear gradually over 5 to 20 minutes and generally last less than 60 minutes. The headache phase of the migraine attack usually begins within 60 minutes of the end of the aura phase, but it is sometimes delayed up to several hours, and it can be missing entirely. Symptoms of migraine aura can be visual, sensory, or motor in nature.[6]

Visual aura is the most common of the neurological events. There is a disturbance of vision consisting usually of unformed flashes of white or rarely of multicolored lights (photopsia) or forma­tions of dazzling zigzag lines (scintillating scotoma; often arranged like the battlements of a castle, hence the alternative terms "fortification spectra" or "teichopsia"). Some patients complain of blurred or shimmering or cloudy vision, as though they were look­ing through thick or smoked glass, or, in some cases, tunnel vision. The somatosensory aura of migraine consists of digitolingual or cheiro-oral paresthesias, a feeling of pins-and-needles experienced in the hand and arm as well as in the ipsilateral nose-mouth area. Paresthesia migrate up the arm and then extend to involve the face, lips and tongue.

Other symptoms of the aura phase can include auditory or olfactory hallucinations, aphasia, vertigo, tingling or numbness of the face and extremities, and hypersensitivity to touch.

The diagnosis of migraine without aura, according to the International Headache Society, can be made according to the following criteria - 5 or more attacks, 4 hours to 3 days in duration 2 or more of - unilateral location, pulsating quality, moderate to severe pain, aggravation by or avoidance of routine physical activity and 1 or more accompanying symptoms - nausea and/or vomiting, photophobia, phonophobia ("5, 4, 3, 2, 1 criteria"). For migraine with aura, only two attacks are required to justify the diagnosis."

In essence, it sucks.  But, although I get the weird-ass aura that makes me think I'm going blind (yes, the first time I got one I called my boyfriend crying that I'd gone blind...), I DON'T get the searing, skull-smashing headache.  I get a lmoderate headache afterwards, some barf feeling and dizziness.  I do have to lay in bed for awhile, in the complete dark, preferably with no noise.  But it doesn't last for days, at least. 

So that was a bit of a disappointment.  My best guess on how it starts is that it's somehow related to light/dark contrasts, such as walking from a dark room to a bright one, seeing bright light out of the corner of my eye when in a dim setting, etc.  I don't think it's related to food.  The times I remember what I was doing before I got one include: sitting in the dark looking at my computer (this was before I had an LCD screen), driving at night, being on a boat with the bright sun reflecting off the waves, walking from my dimly lit dorm room to the hall shower with flourescent lighting, and waking up in a beach house with all the blinds open and light streaming in from all sides.

I've been to eye doctors about this (when I thought I was going blind and no one knew what was wrong with me, although the last eye doctor I saw about this was shocked that no one had known; he said it's a "classic migraine, DUH!"), but I've never been to a family physician/internal medicine doctor about it.  I don't want daily medicine since it only happens once in a while.  And I have a friend whose father is a neurologist and he once told his son, "My job is great!  People pay me $200/hour for me to tell them that modern medicine has no idea what causes migraines!"  So I figure I'll hold on to my money.

I bought a curtain rod at Target for the bedroom window.  Hopefully this will keep it a little more dim so that I don't have another migraine.  I'd like it to be another 2.5 years - AT LEAST.