First the good news. I do not, as John repeatedly told me in the middle of the night, have a brain tumor. I remember crying when my migraines were really bad and telling JB I needed to ask him something important, and he would say, "Is it about your tumor?"
"Yes, it's about my tumor," I would say, but of course, I now know that the tumor doesn't exist.
Okay, so my mind is at ease with that.
However, that's the end of the good news.
Unfortunately, my neurologist told me that, yes, I am having very typical migraines. Yes, they are a result of the IVF medications and the fluctuations in estrogen. However, and here is where the bad news comes into play, the reason I am still having them is because they are "rebound" migraines brought on due to a dependency on codeine and other medications!
In other words, when I don't use the drugs, I get a migraine, causing me to want more medications which ultimately creates more dependency.
In other words, I am drug addict.
Now you see where this is going and why this isn't the greatest news. How do drug addicts get off drugs? Well, simply put, they stop taking them and bear the side effects. Thus, my new plight. I must stop taking all medications. All I am allowed to take each day are 4 measly Alleve.
I asked the doctor what I should do, if quite honestly, I feel like the pain may kill me, and he said in those situations, if I must, I can take a Tylenol.
A Tylenol? Are you joking? Does he understand how bad these things get and that on bad nights I need 4 codeine to make it go away.
He said he does understand and that, chances are, I am in for a very rough 3-4 weeks.
This caused me to tear up and to tell him that I was afraid. He tried to make me feel better by telling me that with all the shots and medications I have been on, he believes in me and that I can do this and need to do this for my future children! Oh my!
In addition to going cold turkey off of all drugs including Ibuprofin, Immetrix, and the Codeine, I am supposed to try to go to bed at the same time, exercise at a regular time, and eat at the same times in order to create a routine. That's hard enough, but then he said he wanted me to eliminate all caffeine. I told him I didn't drink any caffeine (except for my recent habbit of drugging my migraines with Mountain Dew). However, he reminded me that chocolate has caffeine which I knew but was attempting to accidentally forget about. He told me that I didn't have to eliminate all chocolate but should attempt to eliminate as much as possible.
He said that if, in four weeks, I am not having migraine relief, I can return to my GP who has permission to prescribe some beta blockers. However, he said that there are currently no drugs that are truly safe during pregnancy (codeine is the safest) and so I must work on this now and try to get things under control now.
We didn't even discuss what I would do if I have to go back on IVF medicines.
Okay, so, people, you need to pray for me. You need to pray for JB and Kelsey who must live with me and anyone else who comes in contact with me. Pray that this Alleve is strong stuff. Pray that my migraines don't even reappear. Just pray in general. When I told JB what the "plan" was he said, "I am glad I will be in the hospital a lot this month."
He said he was joking, but I don't think he was.
* * * * *
In other news, I wanted to wish my cousin Jason and Kathleen congratulations. Number two is on the way. Congrats guys -- can't wait to meet the little GIRL!
No comments:
Post a Comment