Winter is definitely around the corner! Woke up this morning and it felt like the top of my head had been left in a freezer, like there was a cold ring around the top of my head. For some reason ever since these attacks started i have been able to feel the cold and the drop in temperature with the top of my head. I know it sounds strange because it is and it also feel strange too.
I used to joke with my ex wife and my family about being able to tell the weather with the aches and pains in the body, when arthritic pain starts in my left knee, for example, would tell me that within the next couple of days we would see rain fall and i was normally correct in my predictions. Just lately i have been able to detect the bad weather approaching as my attacks would become worst and the ring around my head would start to appear.
Its weird how the body reacts to the extremes like cold and heat, i know that if i use heat to help to control the pain in my head it normally helps to abort an attack. It doesn’t stop the attacks from happening it just helps me to cope with the pain. I use an electric fire close to the face sometimes in order to help control the amount of pain by making the heat reach the same level as the pain. As soon as you reach that level you then start to move away from the heat slowly and the slow decrease in heat also makes the pain decrease at the same time.
This heat trick doesn't work every time but it does help you deal with the level of pain you experience. Another trick i have learned is the “vigorous massage”, this is also a way of dealing with the painful attacks when they arrive. I start to massage the point of pain on the left side of my head from the back of the head to the front. You have to massage it vigorously otherwise the amount of pain overpowers you and then nothing helps. I am sure it is the friction and heat created by the vigorous massage that actually does the trick and helps me to deal with the pain. When the attacks normally last from 20 minuets to an hour and sometimes even longer, this trick seems to decrease the amount of time the attack does last for and helps to abort it eventually but you have to keep up the massage for some time and it can make your arms really tired from the amount you have to massage it.
With winter now on the doorstep there isn't much else i can do to stop these attacks apart from take my medication, stay in the warmth and wrap up if i go out anywhere. I am just hoping that this winter is not going to be as bad as last year with the snow, but for some reason i think we are in for a bad winter so time to get ready for even more pain.
