I could set my watch by the early morning attacks i am getting. Guaranteed at 3 am the shadow will start to build and by half past i will be in absolute agony. The attack usually lasts around an hour but i can half that time if i am on the oxygen when the shadow starts. So far the oxygen has been able to reduce the length of time the attacks last by half and can sometimes abort an attack all together if it is a smaller one. Its strange how i get different levels of attacks. Sometimes i get the small ones witch i liken to tooth ache and is bearable when it starts, then i get the intermediate attacks that always seem to be started in the neck and leaves you feeling like you have a golf ball stuck in your neck. Then there are the strong ones, these are the ones that i can’t bare the pain of and have never experienced pain like it. If you could imagine all your pains and breaks and tooth aches and head aches and migraines all hitting you at once and then you might have a small idea of what the attacks can be like. The worst this is they are under the skin and deep inside the head, or so they feel, and there is no way of rubbing them better or massaging the pain away, but it doesn’t stop you trying.
At least the attacks are now starting to show some sort of pattern as before they were just un-predictable and there was no way of trying to avoid them as i didn't know what was starting them. Mind you i still don’t know what it is that causes the attacks but at least i can now tell when an attack is about to happen and take precautions to stop it or at least control it. I am taking my medication regular and praying it will eventually work and i won’t have to put up with the attacks all the time. I do understand it takes time and has to build up in your body and i have definitely seen an improvement since i started taking the tablets so hopefully they will work and this will soon be a thing of the past. I am almost at the maximum dose and have been able to stay pain free during the daytime as long as i don’t do anything to aggravate my condition.
Some times its hard not to aggravate it as if i do something that pulls the muscle in my left shoulder or carry shopping back from the shop in my left hand then i start to get attacks build. If i ignore the warning signs it is almost guaranteed that within 10 minuets of getting the warning signs i will end up having a massive attack. The amount of times this has happened to me i have lost count. Also the amount of times the cold weather has been the cause of the attacks just by feeling the cold breeze on my face and in my left eye can trigger one of the worst kind of attacks i get. If i am not careful enough i start to get a cold feeling not in the front of the eye like you would think but behind the eye. This cold feeling will then slowly change into pain and the pain will increase to levels that will eventually make me pass out. The same is when i get a cold neck and that starts to make my shoulder and neck ache at the same time. again this will set of the bad attacks and one of the main reasons i am so scared to go out in the cold wind and icy weather.
Its amazing at the different kind of attacks i can get and how many different triggers there are that can actually trigger an attacks. Its not until you sit down and do something like write a blog that you notice all these things.When i first started this blog i thought to myself what on earth was i going to write about and put in it. After deciding that i would do a small update each day, rather than just one big one every week or month, i soon saw how fast a blog like this starts to fill up. I will have to go through it all and make a list of all the different triggers just to see how many there are. For now i will just keep updating and praying that this medication starts to kick in properly when we reach the recommended dosage and hope to get these attacks under complete control.
