I have migraines. I hate it.

A couple times a month I see shadows and lights in my peripheral vision. (In my naive days, I thought they were ghosts. I know better now.) Sometimes looking at bright lights will cause a sensation in my head like an electric jolt. Then my face and the left side of my body starts to go numb then tingles for several minutes to hours. (And that's when I always freak out and wonder if I'm having a stroke.) Within hours the pain will start on the right side of my head. At first, it's a stabbing pain, impossible to ignore, and then it goes away. Later, it comes back as a throbbing pain that starts small and over a period of hours or days intensifies. Then it disappears.

For now, the pain is tolerable as long as I take some over-the-counter medicine. I'm debating trying a prescription for migraines. I'm against taking narcotics because I hate feeling out of control, I fear developing an addiction, and they only result in rebound pain anyhow for things like head and body aches. I just hate taking medication. It always comes with side-effects, and you can't forget about the way it trickles money from the family budget.

Argh....

Labels: My Life