Headaches. Hate ‘em. Always have.
Way back in the ‘long, long ago’, when I used to wear the green suit & jump out of helicopters, a Navy Corpsman once explained to this Dumb Marine that I had to drink an entire canteen of water & wait 30 minutes before he’d give me any pain-candy (aspirin) because the first symptom of dehydration was usually a headache. Since we were running around the boondocks in Hawaii (where I was stationed), we tended to sweat an inordinate amount, and dehydration was a real issue. Shockingly enough (he was NAVY, after all), the Corpsman was right.
Flash forward a decade, to when I was living in Portland, Oregon. I’d purchased a crummy old Jeep that I loved (it’s dashboard survives today in my TV room), and late one summer evening I was involved in a terrible head-on collision out on highway 18, coming back from the coast, when the other driver fell asleep at the wheel.
It’s an old two-lane highway, and we were each going about 45 MPH. The car that hit me was an old Honda Civic, the impact so wrenching that the girl driving had to be medivac’d. Her car looked like it’d hit a brick wall.
My front bumper wasn’t bent so bad. The left front fender had to be pulled out a bit, and I had to put a spare tire on – but I drove home, proud of my tough old Jeep. A week later, the headaches nearly brought me to my knees. I began taking so much aspirin over the next few years that I was getting constant nose bleeds, and my annual physical showed trouble with my liver as if I was an alcoholic.
At this point, I was living in San Francisco, and my hippie-vegan girlfriend used her feminine-cunning to get me to the witch-doctor. (she wouldn’t put-out until I went to her chiropractor)
Changed my life.
Broke up with the hippie-vegan-chick, and moved back to DC, but I kept going to the chiropractor. Turns out, I’ wrenched my neck in that accident, and after years of mis-alignment, it was TOUGH to get ‘er right.
In a nutshell, it caused tension in my neck with the big muscles that connect down to my shoulders. These would cause tension in the upper neck, which in turn pulled on the big tendon that goes all the way over the top of the skull. THAT pressure resulted in horrific headaches on par with migraines.
Needless to say, I don’t miss those.
It’s been about a year since I’ve been in for an adjustment. Here in Chicago I go to a Naturopathic guy – sort of a combo Chiro & Therapeutic Massage. LOVE IT! However, my hot-chick former-trainer is now a massage therapist who knows my musculature as well as anyone, and I get her to work me over periodically. I find that working out helps tremendously, too.
With all that said – caffeine is also a big issue. At BOTH ends of the spectrum! On the weekends I can forget to have coffee, getting caught up with car club stuff, and by early Sunday afternoon, I’m a mess. The flip side of that is weekdays when I make my own (too strong) coffee to bring to work, and I go through 3 to 5 cups like I was still 30.
BAD IDEA.
Tummy gets all queasy on me, and a different sort of P I E R C I N G headache radiates behind my eyes. Lunch, and two BIG bottles of water usually does the trick. Sometimes I have to resort to spicy food - Red Pepper Flakes – NOT TOBASCO! (Sodium, get thee away from my damn headaches!)
My former issue of nosebleeds has made me paranoid about any sort of aspirin, but when it’s bad enough, I believe in Better Living Through Chemistry. Excedrin Migrane is the ONLY thing that does ANYTHING for me. Regular aspirin, Ibuprofen, Advil, Tylenol, whatever. Does nothing.
It’s Excedrin Migrane, or nothing.
Sometimes, rarely, even that isn’t enough. That’s when I just have to sleep it off. God help me if I sleep in an odd position and wake up with a stiff neck!
That’s when my high-maintenance-ass is off to get a massage!
Then, we have the days I don't pay attention, and I eat Clyde's yummy dog cookies.
Different kind of headache...
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