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13 July 2015

They’ve been coming more and more often, and they are more and more brutal each time. On average, I’d say once a week, sometimes less, often more. These migraines are just debilitating. We haven’t yet figured what caused them, I know for a fact if I slouch for too long on the sofa, it’s going to be a difficult few days. Sometimes though, just one hour using a computer that is too “low” like a laptop for instance, where the display is not at eye level, just one hour is enough to trigger the massive migraine. Not cool when laptops are an inherent part of my job. (maybe I need a new job, we’ll discuss that in another article someday).

From what I gather, with all the talks with the osteopaths I see every week, there’s a bunch of nerves that get pinched, or irritated at least, between two cervical vertebrae, and that’s it. That triggers the migraine, which runs all the way from the back of the neck into the eye, more often than not it’s the left one). Pain level varies from a numbing throbbing two out of ten that lasts only 24h, to wanting to poke my eye out with a fork for two or three days nine out of ten kinda thing.. I think the longest was four days.

So far, the only remedy is aspirin. I tried all the various tricks, drugs, massages, drinks, teas, roots, heat, cold, sweet, sour, nothing works. Aspirin is what works best. I guess it acts as a muscle/nerve relaxant or maybe it just shuts the pain receptors down.

With that of course, comes the nausea, the sensitivity to light and noise, the bad temper, the sleepless nights and the nightmares that inevitably follow. All great fun. I could stop doing everything I do, each time one kicks in, but then I wouldn’t be doing much at all. If I had to take a day off work every week, well I wouldn’t keep my job for very long, methinks.

And of course, the constant lower back pain that feels like a stabbing does not help either but luckily the weekly visit to the osteopath does help somewhat with that. I just wish they could figure out what the F is wrong with my head…

Aaaanyway, I’m not here to complain, just to vent. I’m fucking sick of these, it’s been 26 hours now, I guess tonight I won’t get much sleep either. I’m pretty sure if weed was legal in this country, I’d be better off, and so would so many people. Chronic pain is really shit, any relief is good, but I guess stuffing myself with aspirin will eventually harm my kidneys.

I miss kava, it’s a traditional drink, an extract from the kava root, which aboriginal people in a few Pacific islands (Vanuatu, Tonga, Fidji, New Caledonia, …) have been using for centuries as a relaxant. There’s no hallucinogenic effect, which is great too. Impossible to find in Australia, I’m not even sure it’s allowed period.

For now, long live acetylsalicylic acid !