Walking on Eggshells

Today I'll attempt to describe a rather strange mode that living with chronic pain, especially headaches, has me operating in.

Over the years I've noted that most of my worst headaches are the ones I wake up with, strangely the absolute worst are after a good night of sleep. This fear or expectation, especially after one of my REALLY BAD days has me walking on eggshells and afraid of unknowingly doing whatever it is that might trigger another attack.

The net result is that a nervousness sets in late at night, and I start reading, writing, blogging, creatively avoiding going to bed, out of fear of waking again with a cracking skull or stabbing eye pain. Eventually, just plain weariness wins out and I head off to bed. Fortunately, I've rarely had problems with dropping off to sleep.

The next common event is awaking in a panic, often after just three or four hours of sleep. I often catch myself lurching upward thinking that I have a headache. Often I do, but quite strangely, many times I have to sort of catch myself and "think" about it. "Do I have a headache?" or "Does my head hurt?" are questions that I often start reviewing and it is quite a confusing internal dialog at times. Often it takes me ten or so minutes, during which time I might walk about the house and have a drink of water, to realize that "No, I don't actually have a headache". Like I said, Quite Strange!

The other component of this ghostlike confusion about headaches is the almost constant "pressure" feeling, even when I don't have an actual headache. I've long described it as feeling like my head is being held by pincers or ice tongs. This is more distracting than painful, but contributes to the constant fear that plagues me as I often feel like I'm about to have a headache.

Getting to my current status:
Since my previous posting for my Physical Therapy this past Thursday (07/21/2005), I've actually been feeling pretty good. I had the "clear" head for several hours after the therapy again, followed by the above mentioned "pressure" feelings. I had an almost normal day, went to bed near midnight, woke Friday with the panic feeling. A bit of relaxing and thinking it out and I realized that I did NOT have a headache (This still sounds so strange), just the pressure feelings. During the late morning I took a few moments and used the tennis ball therapy on my upper neck/lower skull for just a few moments and felt pretty good for the rest of the day.

Went through last evening, had the fear issues late at night and didn't stop reading/writing and go to sleep until 1:30 AM. Seemed to sleep well and awoke around 6 AM with the tentative fear again. Thought it out and seemed to be fine. That brings me to now (almost 11 AM) and I'm just trying to keep busy. Only the head pressure, but no real pain. I could really get used to this. :-)

I'm in my third of seven days of taking Prednisone and NOT taking Excedrin, and also taking my daily Verapamil.

This is the real "walking on eggshells" situation: Am I feeling good now because of prescription drugs, absence of over-the-counter drugs, physical therapy, diet, weather, phases of the moon, proper blogging technique, the lifelong randomness of my chronic pain...

...I DON'T HAVE A CLUE!

And that is the part that I try not to think about, because it is both depressing and terrifying to me.

So I will try to just keep on, keep busy, and see what is next.

In many ways I've come to envy people who get bored. :-)

Take Care!

Have a PAINFREE LIFE,

- Frank

Reference Links:
ClichéSite.com - Clichés, Euphemisms & Figures of Speech
The Stress Connection - ACHE article discussing the influence of Fear on headaches
Coping with Fear of Pain - Another ACHE article on Fear/Headache ties