Movie Reference/Pain Scale

Fleshing out an idea of equating pain (physical and/or mental), blood, etc, with a movie director's style to drive home the point of pain. So when a person asks, "How are you, or how is your pain today?" You can answer with the corresponding director's name.

What I've fleshed out thus far:

Tarantino: Stylistically excessive physical violence in a sustained and significant abundance. (When you think of torrents of blood, you think, "Tarantino.") 
DePalma Graphic, bloody
Scorsese Physically violent with excessive use of profanity 
Kubrick At times a sadistic spectacle 
Hitchcock Mentally/psychologically overwhelming, at times with dark humor 
Coen Brothers Stylized, brutal & bizzare humor with an almost rhapsodic arc in the trajectory of my pain
Spielberg At times gruesome or spooky, or downright violent, but more often than not, "recoverable" (some might say unremarkable) 
Allen, Woody Angst-inducing Wilder, Billy Often lacking sympathy; stoic 
Goldwyn, Samuel. Above all else, a happy ending. (Superficial for the sake of appeasing others).
Capra Anti-cynicism. Feels unrealistically good.

Topamax: That didn't last long!

Despite the obvious blood pressure lowering benefit of the Topamax, I couldn't justify being on it much longer. It truly lobotomized me, and did just about ZERO to deal with the chronic low back pain. And when my monthly menses related migraine hit, it did NOTHING to thwart it. So, in the end it wasn't what I deem "value added." 

On May 11th, I saw my neurologist for a follow up. And he asked me how I felt. I replied, "This is how it's going to go down. I'm just going to do scatter-shot "word vomit" until you cry uncle." He nodded yes, and he let me ramble for what seemed like five minutes as I ticked off every observation I made, every side effect from the drug pretty much, and when I said the word "anhedonia," I felt as if I were a contestant on that old 1970s game show "Password," and "... the password is: ANHEDONIA." He said, "you can stop now." 


So, back to square one. And he cycled back through, "What about Cymbalta?" And I think it's time I find someone else to deal with the chronic low back issues. A friend was mentioning an integrative medicine guy in Stamford (a scant half hour from here), and I need to research more.

However, on the MIGRAINE FRONT, at the suggestion of my neuro-opthalmologist (in April) I started taking vitamin B2 (to be added to my usual line up). Perhaps it's coincidental, or perhaps my baseline chronic low back pain and uterine pain ECLIPSED my migraine pain this month, or perhaps the vitamin b2 actually worked? I don't know for sure. But for the month of May (crosses fingers, knocks wood, and doing darshan to a picture of Hanuman), so far, so good: No. Migraine. (Yet.)

Note: At current writing, I have been off the Topamax for 17 days.

Stay tuned.

Topamax Chronicles: Nearly a Month Deep Into It

I figure I better jot my thoughts down now while I am thinking of it, or else the ambivalence will creep in and I won't give a fuck, and the thoughts will be lost in the ether... or the thick trap of molasses which is where all my thoughts and emotions and intentions seem to go these days.

Without fail, I have been taking my 25 mg of Topamax daily, which was dispensed for my chronic low back pain. And just when I thought it was starting to help, my husband and I went on vacation and within the span of the first 24 hours of our trip, I felt like it set me back so much pain-wise, it'll take me a while just to get back to where I was. 

And I do believe it was helping, to a degree, but there's a cost attached to this. I will try my best to articulate this. This medication makes me paranoid, and just when the paranoia starts to crest, the ambivalence kicks in, and then I just stop giving a fuck, and the paranoia is beaten into submission for a while. This is a constant ebb and flow.

I am someone who lives with melancholy or dysthymia. I will say categorically this medication has not helped AT ALL in this department, if anything, it has made me just want to die. Sure, suicidal ideation abounds, but no compulsion to act on the thoughts. 

And yet, in other ways, stress has been lessened. At work, I don't know. It seems "different." I wouldn't say warm and fuzzy, but definitely I feel differently at the office. Sure, I still don't want to be here, but I find myself a bit more outgoing at the office than has been my norm for the last 12 years. I'm definitely more relaxed here.

My neurologist is the one who prescribed the topamax for me; however, my endocrinologist thinks we might have figured out what is driving my cortisol and dhea imbalance, and it looks like the culprit is my chronic pain issues. Chronic pain = stress and chronic stress = spikes in cortisol which then = hypertension issues. Nearly one month into this experiment, and my bp registered 126/62, then 122/70 at the second reading. The suspicion is the pain cycle contributing to the hypertension. 

My thoughts get trapped in the mire, a thick molasses trap in  my brain. My intentions suffer from the ambivalence. All I want to do is sleep. The medication has taken away my drive to do a lot of things with verve. I no longer have this insatiable desire to cook or crochet, and most nights I find I am dozing off in front of the t.v. within an hour after dinner. All I want to do is sleep.

Another side effect: I find my fingertips and tips of my toes to be numb. They feel numb like callouses, but I don't have thick callouses. And I feel a similar weirdness on my lips, slight, but it's there.

This week was my period. And while I did not have a migraine, yesterday I might as well HAVE had one. I felt out of control. Miserable. Achey. Head hurt, but not quite a migraine. So let's just say it did nothing to stave that off. And I was afraid to take a Frova while at work, thinking it might incapacitate me. And I was afraid to take an Allegra until I spoke to my pharmacist--seasonal allergies are also in play this week. 

So I'm rambling. Time to end this post.