Monday’s visit with the VA neurologist was interesting, aside from it being a very long day.  Well, it was a long day, because it started at 7pm the night before, when I started having hip trouble due to an inbound weather system.  From 7pm to 3:30pm the next afternoon, I was awake the whole time, and driving from 5am to 8:30am, and again from 1pm to 3:30pm.

Still, it was a good visit.  It was worth the trip, because he did confirm the diagnosis of “migraine headaches”.  It would seem that I get every variation of migraine you can imagine – optical, auditory, nausea – as well as sometimes getting migraines that are triggered by tension headaches.

He wrote me another prescription for Imitrex, and told me that if it doesn’t give adequate relief by itself that it is safe to supplement it with caffeine or Excedrin (isn’t that the same thing?).  He wants me to work at stabilizing my caffeine intake (wild variations in caffeine intake can trigger a migraine), continue going to a chiropractor for adjustments, and put a heating pad on the back of my easy chair to relieve tension (I’m guessing he means that I should turn it ON) in my neck.

The hardest thing he asked me to do will be getting onto a standard daytime-awake schedule.  I’ve always been a night-owl, but even more is that late at night is the only time during the summer when I can run our clothes dryer without it overloading our air conditioner.  The solid brick walls don’t offer anywhere that we can punch a hole through for the dryer vent, so all of the heat it generates stays inside the house.

Maybe I can try to do that the other 7-8 months of the year, though.  It has to be better than nothing, right?

Oh, and my official weight at his office was 224 – with my big heavy tennis shoes on.  When I weigh at home, I’m bare foot, so you can subtract about 5-6 pounds.