I had been having migraines for as long as I can remember. You know, those types of headaches that put you DOWN, sick to your stomach, head hurt so bad you want to cut it off, nausea and you would wish the whole world would just disappear. Well, I had THOSE kinds.
No matter what I seemed to do, I could not seem to chase them away for good. I thought at first they were linked to caffeine with-drawl when I would not have coffee or soda during any given day. So when I would start to have headaches I would pump myself up with one or the other in hopes that my migraine, along with lots of Tylenol, would go away, way, way far away!
When that seemed to only half way work or not at all I started trying to figure out what would trigger my headaches so I started experimenting; with not much success though. I tried cutting out foods, like salty foods, pretzels, hot dogs, salt it self, but I would still get headaches. I tried cutting out fatty foods, fried chicken, oil fried French fries and gravy (from homemade biscuits and gravy), and again, I still had headaches. I then tried cutting out sweets, natural sugars and even the ‘fake’ sugars, but I still got bad headaches.
This experimentation went on for nearly five years. Then I finally quit worrying about it and just went on with my normal everyday life. I would go for several months trying something only to find this ‘cure’ didn’t work so I would stop and try again in a few months.
During this time I ended up going to the hospital for a gall bladder attack. The doctors then told me I needed to have my gall bladder taken out but surgery freaked me out and I backed out of it. Even though I did, for a while I took the doctors orders and laid off salty foods, foods that had a lot of preservatives in them and foods that would need a ‘lot’ of digesting, like steak and potatoes. I could eat the foods, but only separately they said so my gall bladder did not ‘over work’ itself again and I end up with another attack or worse.
For a while I felt better, healthier and stronger and then I slid into my old bad habits. Eating junk food, friend foods, foods I knew were not good for me but I was going through a ‘well I am going to die of something, it might as well be something I enjoy doing’ type thinking. Lots of people go through this when they want to deny there is a problem or that they even feel there is a problem. I knew there was but decided to ignore it.
I was famous for gaining weight and then going on crash diets, which the doctors said were extremely unhealthy for my body. The yo-yo syndrome was tearing my insides apart and making my body not know which way to go from this side to Sunday, in a matter of speaking. I was overworking my body, I knew it but I ignored it and EVERY year my migraines got worse and worse. Within a few years I started having migraines so bad I would end up in the hospital from them, getting medicated and having to take home nausea medicine to keep from having the next attack send me to the hospital. But doctors on the most part don’t naturally prescribe nausea medicine for someone if there is not real rhyme or reason for why the migraine are occurring. There was none for mine; I just would have an attack and then normal bad headaches for several months and then another attack.
Then I got sick again and this time I stayed sick and for days on end I puked, slept and puked some more. I could not drink water, soda or coffee. I couldn’t take Tylenol without any of it coming back up. I was starting to get dehydrated and to the point where I was in so much pain I just wanted to die. I did NOT want to go to the hospital to be given more shots, more pain from more shots, more doctors telling me they didn’t know what was causing my headaches and send me back home with a bottle of nausea medicine to help tide me over and over medicated from pain medication received there.
My husband and a neighbor watched over me and would ask me many times a day if I wanted to go to the doctor yet; NO, NO, NO and then finally YES, oh my good golly YES. My husband and my family took me to the doctor, me bended over getting sick every few minutes puking up stomach acid making my throat hurt worse and worse by the minute, pain shooting through my whole body from my migraine.
I was instantly taken into the emergency room examining room and within less than a half hour after having a sonogram taken of my gall bladder it was official; I was going for surgery. I was terrified but it was set up for the next morning. I was HEAVILY drugged to go home and my husband was given a bottle of those nausea pills, a bit stronger this time and one more sleeping pill, to keep me knocked out till the next morning. Looking back at it now, things must have been pretty bad for them to want me to stay so heavily sedated until the next morning.
I don’t take well to anesthesia at all; in fact every time I have went under it has taken longer and longer for me to come up out of it. So this time the doctors decided that I was going to be put under a watchful care of ‘light’ anesthesia. My husband said I was only in there for maybe 15 or 20 minutes or so tops but I still did not fully come out of the anesthesia till late afternoon. I was up and walking by that night and released out of the hospital by the next early afternoon.
Since then I have only had maybe one migraine and a few possible really bad headaches but no more than that one migraine (and I believe it was caused by lack of caffeine cause once I got some in my system I was all better). Another trick that I did was I would crush up my Tylenol or pain medication and then take it like that making it more accessible to my system, quicker. That has been at least 3 years now with no emergency room visits for migraines and no more bottles of Tylenol being taken because that headache just won’t go away. Did my gall bladder and the problems it caused cause my migraine, no one said, but I am convinced of it being that now, I am nearly pain and headache free. So if you have bad migraines with no explanation and puking to go with it, ask your doctor to check your gall bladder for symptoms of going bad. You may just save yourself a lot of time and money in doing so in the long run!
