While I would much rather post about spooning or something else delightful, I'm sorry to say this will be more about my spoon supply

That said, if you have not yet read this excellent study on the displacement of teaspoons, you simply must go read at least its abstract. :-)

Cut for me worrying about Lobelia making off with my silver...

Thinking can trigger migraine symptoms in me.*

I don't mean just random thoughts flitting through the mind like monkeys during meditation. I mean holding something in working memory, actively thinking about things -- such as while trying to solve a problem at work or when sorting out structural issues in a piece of writing at home.

I'm in a very different headspace this week, my first back at the day job, than where I was before Yuletide. My clearing is more think, so to speak. While I'm never free of at least some kind of symptom on my left side, I've been much more likely to have hours or even days where the symptoms are no more than a nuisance.

During Yule, I worked on finding new ways to work creatively, to get into that 'right brain' space I'd been locked out of for so long. I succeeded, but doing so meant adapting to my symptoms: living with them, rather than against them; heeding their warnings, rather than wailing about them. It also meant thinking (and feeling) my way through creative writing in very different ways from what I'm used to. That experience is hard for me to describe, but it does feel a bit like tinkering with a ham radio, trying to pick up stations on frequencies where they wouldn't normally be.

My day job involves much more 'left brain' work, so I was very curious to see how I would integrate it into the way I'm living now. Results so far are mixed. I'm definitely much more functional than I was before Yuletide, much less likely to struggle with bouts of stupidity. But trigger sensitivity is about the same, especially sensitivity to weather, lights, and sounds. That combination of clear head and continuing triggers has meant I've become more aware of the ebb and flow of symptoms this week than when I was last working at the day job. It also means I realized that thinking about things can be a trigger--something I could not detect before Yule because I could not tease apart the causality of my symptoms while lost in migraineheim.

I am trying to do, with work, what I've done with writing: find a new way to think. It's not easy, and in some respects more challenging, because I'm so used to working in particular ways. I'm making a point to write my thinking out more, and even to talk to myself out loud (which helps with working memory), but I'm working much slower than I 'should', and interruptions are not just annoying--they're trigger risks.

I'll be seeing my neurologist again tomorrow, but I'm seriously considering starting the memantine prescription that I got at my last visit. I'd hoped to avoid that, but all of my cognitive symptoms resemble early onset Alzheimer's. I'm not saying that's what I have (though it is a worry); but memantine has been tried for migraine therapy, including in cases similar to mine.

If I didn't have the day job, and was earning a living as a writer, I might forgo more pharmaceutical roulette. Where I was during the last two weeks of Yuletide was pretty good and something I could live with. But I'm not sure I'll reach the same equilibrium at work without help. I just hope that a new pharmaceutical doesn't worsen my symptom spectrum the way verapamil did (e.g. mood swings and the start of the 'dementia' symptoms) or the way botox shots did (e.g. hypersensitivity to light and sound).


* That is, if what's going on is actually migraine and not better characterized by some other diagnosis.

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