Chronic Babe Carnival #21: Dumb Comments & Snarky Comebacks

Check out the latest edition of the Chronic Babe Carnival when you get a chance. The theme this time is the dumb things people say and our best snarky comments. How do you deal with stupid and/or rude comments?

Blog Carnival #21: The Dumbest Thing Ever Said About Chronic Illness and Your Snarky Comeback

There are some really great posts included!

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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Announcing February 2011 Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival

The theme of the February 2011 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival will be "Romantic Relationships & Migraines: How are they affected? Is is possible to build a new one? Does anything about living with a chronic condition bring you closer?." As always, feel free to interpret this topic however you like.

Entries are due by midnight (the end of the day) on Friday, February 11, 2011. The carnival will be published right here at Somebody Heal Me on Monday, February 14, 2011.

Feel free to post comments or contact me directly to ask any questions you might have. Please spread the word to any migraine or headache, pain or chronic illness bloggers you know and consider posting an announcement on your own blog if you have one.

For more information about the carnival please visit the main carnival page: Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival. 

Thank you for your continued support of the Headache and Migraine Disease Blog Carnival!


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Why Are Pills Hard for Migraineurs to Use?

Pills can be a very difficult way for migraineurs to get relief because of a condition called gastroparesis experienced by most migraineurs and because of the different ways drugs are metabolized depending on their delivery mechanisms.

Some of the most frustrating issues related to migraine treatment medications involve the stomach. Most migraine patients deal with nausea and vomiting and many of us have noticed that these symptoms make it difficult to keep a pill down long enough for it to take effect. But a less well known fact is that there is a term for what happens in the stomach during a migraine attack: gastroparesis.

Gastroparesis is the medical term for a condition in which the stomach muscles do not properly contract to propel food through the stomach. It is a component of migraine disease, but can also be experienced by people who do not have migraine attacks. Gastroparesis is responsible for the nausea and vomiting and also keeps the stomach from processing a pill for migraine treatment and getting it into the blood stream in a rapid time frame. Treatment medications in nasal spray and injection form bypass the stomach, allowing migraineurs to get relief without having to wait for their malfunctioning stomachs to process pills. A patch like drug Zelrix that is currently in development will offer another method for getting relief by bypassing the stomach. (To learn more about Zelrix read: Zelrix Transmits Sumatriptan Through Skin Patch & Zelrix Sumatriptan Patch & FDA Approval Process.)

You can learn more about gastroparesis by watching this video. It talks specifically about gastroparesis in the context of diabetes, but the information is still useful.

What is Gastroparesis?

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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Migraine Chat: Wednesdays at 6 pm CT

Based on input from a number of Twitter Migraine Chat participants I've made some changes to the chat. We're now doing it Wednesdays at 6 pm - 7 pm CT in a private room on Chatzy. This allows us to speak more freely because our messages aren't sent out to all of our followers and makes it possible for people who don't use Twitter to easily participate.

To participate go to: Chatzy Migraine Chat
(Remember to bookmark the link for the future. It will be the same every week.)

Enter password: somebodyhealme

When: Wednesdays at 6 pm CT

Hope to see you there tomorrow night!


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

At Least You've Got Your Health

People love to say trite things like, "At least you've got your health," when something bad happens. But what if you don't? I really hate this expression because it's such a crock.

Don't get me wrong: no matter our circumstances we all have something to be thankful for and I know that's what people are getting at with this kind of comment. But when you don't actually have good health it feels like a punch in the gut for someone to point that out.  My response is just to point out that I actually don't have my health, but that I'm glad they do. It may be a rude or confrontational way to reply, but I wish people would think more before they speak.

When it comes down to it, people saying stupid things can be one of the hardest aspects of being a chronically ill person. They just don't think and put their feet in their mouths way too often. If there was one thing I could try to make healthy people understand it's that their words cut and that a little understanding would go a long way. Try not to be glib. Some things are far too personal to us for that.

Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Migraine-Related Lesions Not Linked to Cognitive Problems

We've known for some time that migraines cause brain damage in the form of lesions, but according to a new study there is reason to believe these lesions are unlikely to damage our cognitive abilities.

Researchers studied the brains of migraineurs ages 65 and older. Their thinking was that if the patients' migraine attacks had caused cognitive damage it would certainly show up in people late into their lives and might not in younger people. They performed cerebral MRIs and cognitive testing on the research subjects and questioned them about their migraine attacks and history. They followed the participants for 10 years.

The MRIs confirmed that the study subjects who had suffered severe headaches were twice as likely as others to have brain lesions. However, the cognitive scores were the same for people who had suffered severe headaches and those who had not. This is clearly encouraging news for all of us living with migraines.

Source:
Migraines and Headaches Pose No Cognitive Risk


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Migraine Chat - The New Plan

I think I've come up with a plan based on your awesome input that will allow us to have the best of all worlds in a migraine chat. Instead of basing it on Twitter we're going to shift gears and use a site called Chatzy. It's a free site that anyone can access by going to the link and entering the room password. Using Chatzy will give us a more private experience because no one will have to make comments that go out to everyone who follows them on Twitter.

We will meet up there every Wednesday at 6 pm CT (starting tonight, Wed., January 19, 2011) and see how that goes. I will continue to promote the chat as I have in the past so we can all remember to come if we're able to. I'm sure there are Wednesday conflicts for some of us who'd love to participate, but this is the best option for me and seems to work for others who have shared their thoughts with me. Moving it a little earlier is going to be key for me, too, because in the past my husband was getting home from work right about the time we started chatting, which left me trying to talk to him, figure out dinner and chat with all of you. Way too many things all at once!

In summary

To participate go to: Chatzy Migraine Chat
(Remember to bookmark the link for the future. It will be the same every week.)

Enter password: somebodyhealme

When: Wednesdays at 6 pm CT

Starting tonight! Hope to see you there.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Bright Light Therapy for Depression

Bright light therapy is well established as an effective treatment for seasonal effective disorder, a type of seasonal depression that's extremely common during this dark, dreary part of the year. But a new research study indicates it may be helpful in treating Major Depressive Disorder, too.

Major Depressive Disorder is an extremely hard to treat, dangerous form of depression. Major Depressive Disorder (also known as Major Depression or Clinical Depression) is diagnosed when someone has experienced depressed mood or loss of interest in activities for an extended period and their life activities have been adversely impacted by their symptoms. Many people living with it take their own lives despite trying many options for treatment.

Bright light therapy involves sessions of sitting in front of a light box to receive intense light exposure. The latest research indicates the type of light is less important than the intensity of the light. The light should match the level of light right around sunrise or sunset. Patients also benefit more from receiving the therapy immediately after waking up.

This particular study was isolated to patients 60 years or older. They were selected because the elderly can't see as much light as younger people. Though it was a small study, the results were profound. Fifty-eight percent of study participants reported fewer symptoms of depression. The effect of the bright light therapy on this improvement held up even after the results were controlled for other therapies patients had received, age, gender, etc. The study only lasted three weeks, so it is impossible to know how these results would stand up over time.

Researchers think bright light therapy works by reducing the hormone cortisol, a substance produced by the adrenal gland that is often associated with stress. This relationship between cortisol and stress may help explain why activities like relaxation breathing, yoga and meditation can help manage depression. Light therapy may also stimulate production of serotonin, often called the feel good hormone.

Sources:
Treating Depression: How Bright Light Can Help
Depression & Major Depressive Disorder
Bright Light Treatment of Winter Depression
Q&A on Bright Light Therapy
Choosing a Light Box
Cortisol & Stress: How to Stay Healthy


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Help! Twitter Migraine Chat

We were supposed to have our monthly Twitter Migraine Chat for January this past Thursday. We had two enthusiastic participants show up and your fearless ringleader (ahem, me) stood them up. I worry the Twitter Migraine Chat is lacking soul and want all of your ideas about where it might go from here.

When the chat started off being weekly it quickly became clear to me that I couldn't commit enough time to sustain that level of frequency. But without a weekly time it's been difficult for all of us to remember it exists and get in the habit of logging on at the right time. As a result it feels like the chat is dying a slow death, and I'm a big part of the reason it's struggling. I hate that!

I want to be able to chat with you guys and create a chance for migraineurs to get to know each other and swap stories. So what do you, my pals out there who use Twitter and like the idea of chatting, think we should do? What time of day, what day of the week, how often, etc? I welcome your suggestions. To be perfectly frank, I'm begging for them. I know there's no perfect scenario for everyone, but I'd like to move toward something that seems to meet the needs and wants of our community.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Scary Setback

You may have noticed it has been quieter than usual around here. I've been hearing crickets and struggling to fill the void. This is partly due to the holidays and spending more quality time with family and friends (always a good thing), but also partly due to a less positive thing that recently happened.

A few weeks ago I had a very scary, very bad reaction to Ketamine nasal spray. My migraine specialist prescribes this medication for me, and I've been using it for a couple years now with good results. It seems to lower my trigger threshold and does a good job diminishing my pain to a more tolerable level. The medication is compounded because it is not available commercially.

Despite being very careful about how I take the medication, something went wrong. I don't know if I used more than I realized I had or what, but I now know what people mean by the term "K hole." And it was the scariest thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. Wikipedia can be a rather hit and miss source of information, but they have a perfect description of what the experience of this side effect is like:

[U]sers may experience what is coined the "K-hole", a state of dissociation whose effects are thought to mimic the phenomenology of schizophrenia. Users may experience worlds or dimensions that are ineffable, all the while being completely unaware of their individual identities or the external world. Users have reported intense hallucinations including visual hallucinations, perceptions of falling, fast and gradual movement and flying, "seeing God", feeling connected to other users, objects and the cosmos, experiencing psychotic reactions, and shared hallucinations, and thoughts with adjacent users.

I did have a tiny grasp on reality (the presence/existence of my husband) and I held on to him, literally, with all my strength. It's hard to describe and probably not necessary for me to do so, but it felt something like finding out you've been living inside a video game and someone just unplugged the game from the wall and experiencing the realization that your life is over and was never what you thought it was. But I still knew my husband was there and I held on to that.

After some time passed I started to come back to reality. At first I was okay. It was only after the details began to come back to me that I started to struggle. The whole experience played in to my very worst fears because since I was a little kid I had this idea that maybe we're just dolls that someone else moves around in their own play the same way I played with my Barbies. So for me that feeling of finding out my life was someone else's cosmic game was devastating and terrifying. It's almost like my brain knew how to take the drug and turn it into my own personal worst nightmare.

In the days and weeks following the incident I found myself struggling more with my depression than I have in months, if not an entire year. I felt so angry. I'd been doing really well and felt like I had a routine that kept my feet on the ground and my depression fairly well managed. It felt so unfair to have a fluke or accident take that away from me. But instead of staying angry or continuing to feel sorry for myself, I used my depression management tools to try to bounce back. I made myself take a shower and suggested we go out to dinner so I could get out of the house. I did some errands and made myself keep plans I desperately wanted to cancel so I could stay home and isolate. Guess what? It all helped. Doing what I knew I needed to do totally paid off. Within another week or so I felt infinitely better emotionally and began to take pride in how well I'd handled a less than ideal situation.

I'm certainly not glad this happened, but I am glad I was able to prove to myself that I'm more resilient than I thought I was. I'm proud of myself for making healthy choices that enabled me to enjoy the holidays and not miss out on everything I'd been looking forward to just because something didn't go according to plan. This is really big for me.

Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

January Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival Posted

The January 2011 Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival is up at Putting Our Heads Together. Go check it out when you have a chance!

January 2011 Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival: Taking Charge in 2011


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

January Twitter Migraine Chat

I hope you'll be able to join us for the January Twitter Migraine Chat this Thursday, January 13, at 8 pm CT. We'll be discussing ideas for getting off to a good start with migraine management in 2011.

You can participate by logging on to Twitter and looking up the hashtag #migrainechat or by going to this link: http://tweetchat.com/room/migrainechat.

Please let me know if you have questions!

Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Last Call: January 2011 Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival

Please don't forget today is the deadline for submissions to the January 2010 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival.

Submit your blog article using our carnival submission form or by emailing your submissions directly to me. The theme is: "Taking Charge of Our Migraines in 2011"

Entries are due by midnight (the end of the day) today,  Friday, January 7, and the carnival will be posted at Putting Our Heads Together by host Teri Robert on Monday, January 10.

Please let me know if you are interested in hosting a future edition. Contact me any time with questions, suggestions or ideas for themes. I'm always looking for help with the carnival. Don't hesitate to post a comment or email me with questions.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Looking Forward: My Migraine Plans for 2011

Managing our migraine disease is a personal experience. What works for one of us may not for another. That's why I'm going to tell you about my plan for taking charge of my migraines in 2011 for the January Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival.

When the radiofrequency nerve ablation procedure I had in June 2009 failed I had two options: (1) an occipital nerve stimulator trial, and (2) a behavioral pain management program. I did the behavioral pain management program and it opened up to me a life I'd dreamed of, but not known how to build. It taught me structure, how to take care of myself and to listen to my body. It helped me see how much depression was clouding my ability to enjoy life regardless of my pain levels. It was a wonderful experience. I'm glad I did it, and I would recommend it to anyone. The tools I learned serve me every day and will continue to throughout my life. They inform the decisions I am making about what I want my health care to look like in the coming year.

But despite the wonderful coping skills I've built, I still have a lot of pain. Most of the time I think I deal with it pretty well, but I resent the medications and the limits they impose. I'm coming around to the idea of trying the occipital nerve stimulator. My main hesitations are fear and the expense. There is a very good chance I would be approved for it since I do have a diagnosis of occipital neuralgia in addition to chronic migraines, but knowing how expensive this kind of surgery would be I must admit I'm anticipating potential roadblocks.

So in 2011 I think I might explore this option and see if it is a good fit for me, my lifestyle and our goals as a family. To be perfectly honest there may be other changes in the works this year that would preempt trying the stimulator anytime soon, but I still think it makes sense to get the ball rolling and learn more.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Announcing January 2011 Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival

The theme of the January 2010 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival will be "Taking Charge of Our Migraines in 2011." As always, feel free to interpret this topic however you like.

Entries are due by midnight (the end of the day) on Friday, January 7, 2011. The carnival will be published by host Teri Robert at Putting Our Heads Together on Monday, January 10, 2011.

Feel free to post comments or contact me directly to ask any questions you might have. Please spread the word to any migraine or headache, pain or chronic illness bloggers you know and consider posting an announcement on your own blog if you have one.

For more information about the carnival please visit the main carnival page: Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival. 

Thank you for your continued support of the Headache and Migraine Disease Blog Carnival!


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.