The things in my head.

Dr. Google Images’ brain.

As October suddenly whisked in with rains and cold, dreary weather, I’ve been feeling that autumn slump. I have mild to moderate seasonal affective disorder (ironically called SAD) and this is the lastest it’s ever kicked into gear. It always seems to happen right after the High Holidays, but I suppose it would make sense for this year that it feels later- Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur were ridiculously early this year. So, I suppose I’m right on target. Basically, once Columbus Day rolls around, I always seem to find myself in a bit of a funk.

I’m not depressed, just gloomy and exhausted all the time. I’ve been staying until 8 or 9pm at work the last week. The return of some sun has been a great relief. I’ve started (finally) taking vitamin D supplements, something my doc has been wanting me to do for, oh, I dunno, a year? Oops. Sorry doc. But you kind of suck anyway and I’m getting a new one soon. Oy, was that snarky? There’s that gloominess creeping back in again I suppose.

That’s the figurative reference to my post title. The literal one refers to my physical grey matter, and I’m finally explaining that cryptic bit I threw in my last post about my trip to the emergency room last Monday night. So this gets into some delicate and mildly embarassing territory, but, this is the IF community, right? What’s a little more oversharing? So here goes.

Three weeks ago, I had a severe migraine headache, unlike one I’ve ever had in the 15 years I’ve been having migraine headaches. I have pretty distinct triggers: aged cheeses, lack of sleep, caffeine withdrawl, hormonal imbalances, and occasionally processed/cured meats. I can tell in a matter of minutes whether it’s going to be worth just a couple of Aleve or perhaps prescription migraine meds (that I save only for the really bad ones b/c I only get 12 pills at a time). I get auras, light and sound sensitivity, and rarely, nausea.

But this migraine, which triggered into a full-blown, “no time to even get to the medicine cabinet, I may just throw up right now turn off the lights omg I’m pretty sure my head is literally exploding” migraine in a matter of a minute. The trigger?

*coughs* Sex.

And then the migraine returned every other time we did it since that first migraine. It shortened in duration and intensity with each iteration, but I’ll tell you what: it was quite the mood killer. Why would we continue to have sex if it was still giving me migraines? Well, we did it in the name of science. I’d had enough so I went to a doc (one in our practice, not my ever incompetent PCP) and well, she laughed. She had never heard of it before, but thanks to Dr. Google, I know that coital cephalalgia is fairly common, if underreported. She referred me to a neurologist and I had my appointment with Dr. OoohNooo* last Monday.

*I call him Dr. OoohNooo because he looks exactly like Will Forte and all I could think of was that SNL skit where he plays Andy, the Oh No Guy. Thankfully, that is not what he replied when I sat down and said, “I’m getting migraines from sex.”

We went through my history as a migraineur (lol, I sound like a connisseur of migraines). Dr. OoohNooo seemed rather unphased by what I said, noting that orgasmic migraines are fairly common in his line of work and that our focus should be on diagnosing the cause and ruling out some scarier stuff, like a broken blood vessel in my skull (which could lead to a stroke) or worse, an aneurysm. I had the choice between a CT scan with radioactive injected dye or an MRI. I opted for the MRI and the earliest I could be scanned was last Thursday. He said I should take a baby aspirin daily until then, in case it was a broken blood vessel. Everything seemed to be fine. We chuckled about the silliness of it all… hahaha, migraines from sex, hahaha.

Yeah… and then things got scary.

On the (hour-long) way home from my appointment, my neuro calls me back. After doing some thinking and going back over my history, especially as it relates to having had PCOS at one point and dealing with hormonal issues for the last year, as well as the severity of the initial migraine…

“I’d like you to go to your local ER and get the CT scan done. I’m concerned you may have suffered an aneurysm.”

Yeah, that’s great news to hear when you’re driving at 70 mph on the highway.

So after coming home and freaking the fuck out and trying to stomach some dinner (b/c we knew the ER takes FOREVER), we drove to the hospital not even 5 minutes from our house. I prayed a lot. I called my mom. Larry called his parents. I sent out a rather uncharacterist text to a group of close friends asking them to think good thoughts. And we waited and waited and waited to be seen.

In the room next to us, once I got a bed, I could hear a woman crying as she explained her issue to the nurse: “I’m six weeks pregnant and I’m bleeding heavily. I think I’m having a miscarriage.”

It was surreal.

Finally the IV tech came in to put in my IV line, into the arm of She of Spider-thin, Spongey, Collapsing Veins. Yeah, it sucked. For the CT scan, they have to inject iodine dye into my veins at a very high speed. the nurse came in and did the “BTW, this doesn’t usually happen, but we’re legally required to tell you that this could kill you instantly on the table” schpiel. AWESOME.

Into the CT room I go. They do some non-dye control scans and then it’s time for my high speed injection. Yeah, it hurt. And my vein had had enough, so once the dye was injected, it collapsed when there was a saline flush at the end of the injection… so all of that saline went into the soft tissue of my arm… which proceeded to swell like something out of the damn Mütter Museum. Seriously? I looked like I had a softball stuffed under the skin around my elbow. Gross.

We wait for an hour while they put heat on my arm and… nothing. The results came back perfectly normal. All that worry and waiting around for 5 hours for nothing. They sent me home.

Dr. OoohNooo still wanted me to have the MRI done. I get it done and… nothing. Results are normal as well. I’m thrilled I don’t have any kind of serious head trauma and I’m very thankful that my neuro wanted to be so thorough, but it’s annoying to know that every time I have sex, I get a migraine. So finally, I’d had enough. We had a moratorium on all things arousal since I went to the doctor two weeks ago and I was just entirely too pent up. We threw caution to the wind and [insert sex euphemism here].

And… nothing (well, not nothing… it was great!). No migraine this time. Hallelujah!

…and WTF?

Apparently this is how coital cephalalgia works. It starts randomly for no reason and will often resolve on its own mysteriously. Weird. So I’ve got a follow up in two weeks where I can say to my neuro that this was all an exercise in futility apparently. Oh human body, your wonders never cease to amaze.

So there’s my super TMI story and why I’ve been missing in action the last two weeks or so. What’s new with y’all? I need to play catch up on the blogosphere like whoa.