A Headache In My Feet!

Do you ever get a headache and feel it in three of your teeth and both of your feet? Yea. You read that right. Last time we met, I was telling you how I’ve quit Gilenya and decided to try a different treatment. Between then and now I’ve been living my best life off medication and it’s been swell... but let me tell you. The WEIRDEST shit happens to my body and it happens so gently. Let me explain!

The average person gets headaches and feels them in specific areas of their head. When I experience headaches, as a person with MS, I also feel a slight pain/tingle in other areas of my body. I can count numerous times when similar things like this happened, but the most current (like “right now” current) is a soft headache that consists of a deeeeeep throbbing pain that feels like a miniature heartbeat in the off-center of your brain. It's almost like my brain is whispering, "pssst! we have a headache. don't be alarmed!" And at the first notice, it's just that sensation by itself. But within seconds, I can feel a strange, vibrating, tightness, that is ALSO very soft and non-threatening, in my top three molars on one side. Then, the feeling appears in my left nostril and slowly makes its way down my jaw line. Like, this is a crazy headache! And the killing part is, it doesn't hurt hurt the way you think- at least not in any way that gives me an urge to take medicine for it. It's just noticeable.

But wait. It gets worse. So the more I notice the little tightening sensations moving around my face and body, the more the sensation pops up somewhere else while I previous one dissolves. Like playing Whack-A-Mole (I've mentioned). And for a short but scary period I experienced something I've never felt before. Something new, and while still so soft and barely there, was new enough to be a pink flag. (I refuse to say "red" because this is to be expected. Pink like a warning sign lol.) For a good thirty minutes, I began to feel the deep throbbing pain in the center of my head a lot more evidently as if it was "surfacing". And within seconds my fingers and hands began to slightly tremble as if I were cold. It wasn't anything crazy, but I noticed it and it was a bit scary. I turned on my ceiling fan, since I have this personal truth that cold air makes everything better LOL, and I lied down immediately. I scanned my body for any other signs of this miniature attack that was going on. The bottoms of my feet had a mild "pins-and-needles" feeling and my jaw/ear area was a little tight. This made me question if my speech was having the same reaction, upon which I was actually really nervous to speak out into the silence to find out. But I did... and I read my text message out loud... and I found that there was just a teenie weenie struggle to get the words out perfect without quivering. I was so nervous, I called off my skate-date with my friend to lay down and rest. This was obviously a flare up and roller skating in the Dallas heat was just not a good idea, at least from my assumptions of what was going on.

After thirty minutes of lying down and focusing on my breathing, I felt better! All of the sensations just.. stopped! And just like the beginning of this entire MS journey, my flare ups seem to last around thirty minutes before resolving on their own. I returned to my activities and got ready for dinner, but then something odd happened. Well, for backstory, I started my period today, which usually would be completely off topic (bear with me), but what I noticed was that when my cramps returned, so did my exacerbated symptoms! And when they resides, well... my symptoms took their time fading away. It's like my period cramps were making things worse and causing the symptoms to surface. And, quite frankly, there doesn't seem to be a cure for that... I can only hope for a quick period and speedy delivery of my medication! MS is a funny thing..

With love and no balance,