little update

I've been waiting for my secure password to come in the mail from my health insurance company and yesterday it arrived. wahoo!

I e-mailed my pc about the neurologist dillema and asked for him to refer me to the headache clinic 3 hrs. away and in the meantime, while i'm waiting for the appointment, to let me go to a different neurologist to do the botox.

wish me luck!

there is absolutely no reason that he should say no to me. i think he's great, and am sure there won't be a problem.

but....

*(because there's always a but)

but....if he says no, well then i'll see if that quick care dr. is taking new patients and see her. if i can't i'll ask her who to see and see that person.

thanks for your support everyone!

yesterday i had a pretty bad headache all day. i took some meds for it and it just wasn't doing much for me. but i started applying some of the things i've been learning in the pain clinic. it seemed like i was "managing" myself all day, but it kept the pain to a tolerable level, and when it got bad, and i implimented something i learned, it simmered down for a while.

these tools didn't fix me, but they sure helped me cope. i have a feeling i might have ended up in quick care again if i hadn't tried some of these things.

i used ice for 10-15 min. at a time, waited an hour, then reapplied.

i used tiger balm, like stinking all day, and am sure smelt quite like a tiger by the evening.

i used guided imagery about 5x for 20 min. sessions each. this helped a lot and i think was the biggest help to me of the day.

i started my day off with fresh air and walk even though i was hurting.

i tried deep breathing about as many times as i could remember to do it.

the worst thing for me was going to pick up tse from school and running two errands. i knew i shouldn't do it, but did it anyway. i had been able to keep the pain down, but by the last stop, it really started to skyrocket and was much harder to manage after that.

guess i shouldn't let any reason be an excuse to overdo it on days like that. it's just that, sometimes, maybe it's pride, but you want to be like those people who just push through things and get things done. but it sure wasn't smart for me yesterday, and none of the reasons were good enough to do what it ended up doing to me.

lessons learned~