pain management – Juniper and Daisies

For years I just assumed I’d have to live with migraines; they were there every so often, would knock me down into bed, and would leave for a few day, maybe if I was lucky, a few weeks, giving me respite from the spirit-breaking pain. Eventually, I landed in the ER where I — finally — made an appointment with a neurologist. After running a bunch of tests, I was put on a preventative medication and told to track my migraines.

It was simple to track them in terms of pain; all I had to do was write down 0, 1, 2 every day, depending on what type of migraine I had. My notebook was filled with 1’s, too many 2’s, and only a small handful of 0’s. Upon noticing this, my neurologist upped my preventative medication (something I never actually followed through with) and gave me a prescription for vitamins.

We never talked about other ways to get rid of my migraines, like triggers or the use of healthy, good-for-you-and-your-brain foods. He threw out exercise, something I still couldn’t do properly since I was in pain nearly every day. Taking matters into my own hands, I downloaded a migraine tracking app (Migraine Buddy) and set to work finding out my triggers.

This app is extremely useful if you’ve no idea what’s going on with your body. You can track everything you did that day, from activities to things you ate, to possible triggers. You’re supposed to track every single day, everything you did, and when a migraine pops up, it can pull up your possible triggers. It even has a link to weather, giving you alerts if the barometric pressure changes in either direction.

It sounded perfect and exactly what I needed to rid myself of these monsters once and for all. Happily, I set to work trying to find triggers, cutting out everything that seemed to fall under the trigger category. Unfortunately, recording everything you do every day can get a bit obsessive. I’d start to feel better, watch as the hours grew to days, then weeks, without a migraine, only to fall once I slid back into my old routines.

I’d feel as if I had failed myself. That I failed some sort of a test. I was tracking my migraines to see what was the problem (later, I’d realize a few other triggers on my own, and the biggest one: retreating back to the habits that bothered me in the first place once I felt better, assuming I was ‘cured’ and could do whatever the hell I wanted), but I was using it as a way to feel better about myself. I would get a surge of happiness, of accomplishment, anytime I would go a week, or longer, without a migraine. I’d feel like I had made it. Of course, that wasn’t the case.

As soon as I felt that tell-tale pain come on, I’d drown in instant stress. And, of course, exacerbate the migraine, making it way worse than it could’ve been. I felt like my body had let me down, that I had let myself down for hoping too hard. Instead of celebrating the small successes and learning from each attack, I would wallow in self-pity. I’d refuse to include any small migraines that would last only a few hours as they didn’t seem to count; if they didn’t count, then my track record would still look good.

This mindset does absolutely nothing for getting better. It just stressed me out and caused me to lose sight of the whole reason I was using an app in the first place: to find my triggers and slowly get better. When I saw that notification that I had been migraine free for a whole week, it was like the finish line was in front of me. When the notification that I had been migraine free for a whole month, I could feel myself crossing that line to cheers and applause. To reset the clock felt like I had been given the gold medal only to have it ripped away for technical reasons.

After a few months of feeling too stressed about a potential migraine, thus giving myself a migraine, I called it quits. I deleted the app and just listened to my body. I packed my fridge full of nutrient-rich foods, I tried a little more exercise, I didn’t think twice if a migraine hit. Eventually, they became fewer and far in between. I can’t say, exactly, what my longest stretch has been, but I do know that I’ve been able to do more and I’m feeling so much better. Which was the point of tracking in the first place.

Once I found the triggers, it felt easier to just read my body every day, listening for clues of an impending attack, of the blah feeling that can turn into horrendous pain. Instead of feeling like I lost, I now acknowledge the migraine, and turn to my devices and foods that help rid me of it. Health is more than looking good on paper, of your track records, of your Instagram account. We all need a little reminder as to why health is important and what it really is. It’s simply feeling better.

I’ve been a woman for a few decades now, but I am just beginning to realize how absolutely abysmal so many things are for us.

The top of the list for me right now?

Pain management or the lack of any type of management. As someone who has suffered from chronic pain for nearly two decades, I know a thing or two about pain. And about doctors, essentially brushing off my complaints and not helping put in place any preventative measures.

A nurse in the ER, 15 years after I dealt with my pain, was the first to tell me what I needed to ask my doctor for and to get taken seriously. The worst is that my doctor is one of the ‘good’ ones.

I’ve had doctors tell me to lose weight in order to feel better (not an altogether horrible idea, but one that is impossible when you are stuck in a chronic pain vicious circle). And doctors who gave me wicked pain meds and those who gave me absolutely nothing. Like everything in life, it’s a bit of everything rolled into one.

Some of you may be thinking, — well, you received pain medication when needed from one doctor — that’s great!’

Sure, it really is.

He didn’t hesitate to prescribe something stronger when I stated the basic T3s did absolutely nothing for my body. But he was also the one who stated that losing a bit of weight would — magically — fix my migraine issues. What an amazing tip from a neurologist.

Women’s medical issues are hardly taken seriously for many out there, including pain management, especially when it comes to anything regarding our reproductive organs.

The other day, while perusing Reddit for a little love-hate reading, I had the lovely privilege of reading some man’s rant about his vasectomy and how he didn’t receive adequate pain meds. What he wanted were T3s and all he was given was Tylenol or Advil. This was an absolute atrocity.

Could you imagine? Having a small procedure and only being given Tylenol or Advil for the pain?

He wondered why the doctor wouldn’t prescribe a few different drugs that would help so much better with the horrible pain he was feeling. I’m paraphrasing, of course. Another man chimed in with a hilarious tale of his own procedure and said that the freezing didn’t take on one side.

He was given the option of being put under and taken to hospital or to just deal with it for the next Itty Bitty amount of time it would take. He chose to deal with it as it would take only a minute, quite literally, and he said he felt okay with the pain.

While his story made me laugh with his small anecdotes on the procedure, I wondered why one doctor would send a patient to the hospital to be put under for a very short, non-invasive procedure, while my own ob-gyn never brought up anything of the like when I had a short, but more invasive procedure done in her office. I remember crying on the way home as the freezing wore off, surprisingly quickly, trying to sit on my one side that didn’t have searing pain, while safely driving.

I wasn’t told to rest for a week and take it easy. I wasn’t told to take as much Advil and Tylenol as I could muster to get through the pain. I wasn’t told much of anything except that it may need to be redone or checked on at a later date.

This is an ob-gyn that I trust and who is an extremely good and professional doctor, and yet, there was zero pain management given. It was like it was never a thought.

And, therein lies the difference between what happens when a male gets a procedure done and a female gets a procedure done.

The second man, the less whiney of the two, was offered a full show of everything the doctor could give him, while women are often left to just deal with anything that happens.

Weird how no woman I know has ever been given the option to be put under when they need their vagina sewn back up after tearing from delivering their child.

Weird how I’ve read about some women being given stitches before actual freezing happens after birth.

Weird how no woman I know has ever been given proper pain management after a c-section or a particularly hard vaginal birth — both of which are much harder procedures than a simple vasectomy.

Yes, birthing is natural. Yes, you can do it without medication. I’m not going to lie, for me, it wasn’t as painful as I thought, but still way more painful than I thought it would be. That’s not the norm, though, and everyone has their own pain tolerance, as the two vasectomy examples above can show. You can do a lot of things without pain management, but should you?

I was, and still am, for non-medicated births for a myriad of reasons, even though I ended up using some narcotics during my labour.

When I was explaining to my sister-in-law why I didn’t want the epidural or much of anything else they give you for labour, her response wasn’t the standard ‘you don’t get a gold medal for doing it without medication’ bullshit.

It was that none of the options seemed that great or helpful. This hits the nail on the head so much better than that ‘subtle’ shaming you’ll get in mom groups.

We’ve gone from all-natural births with knowledgeable midwives and women helping other women to drugging the shit out of women in a sort of half-assed attempt at helping women with the pain during childbirth. From wickedly strong drugs causing the women to lose consciousness, yet still conscious enough to thrash about hurting themselves.

To the use of the widely accepted epidural, which lots of women praise, and many loathe for multiple reasons: you can only get it during a certain window of time; it may only work on one side; the possibility of a spinal headache; and the fact that you cannot feel your lower half, the part that you need to get the baby out. For lots of women, staying flat on their back is an absolute ‘no’ as it does not allow them to move as the body intends. You won’t be able to feel when the best time to push is and pushing far too hard, allowing for the possibility of worse tearing.

And, this is mess of drugs that are supposed to work, but don’t help completely, is just for childbirth, never mind the countless women who have issues trying to get doctors to take their pain seriously in other areas of life.

Women are barely treated as humans when it comes to birthing and postpartum care. The focus is solely on the baby, leaving a near-complete lack of care for the mother. Anyone who has been pregnant can remember the, approximately, seven billion appointments and blood tests that need to be done to make sure that baby is okay. Ask her how many tests or appointments are made after the baby is born? One. One single ‘check-up’, where the main topic is birth control and, usually, lasts for less than 15 minutes.

We’re either told to be jacked up so high on drugs that paralyze you so you can barely move during labour, which isn’t beneficial to your body or the birthing process, or to just grin and bear it. Until the re-emergence of midwives and doulas becomes more mainstream, there is rarely an in between to be found.

While the male in the second vasectomy story also had the epidural wear off, like lots of women experience, he was given far more options for the pain than most women are even told about. Where are these options for women? Why was the first male’s pain tolerance ignored when talking about after-care? All parties should have adequate pain management for themselves.

The fact is, that no matter how far women have come in the world and how many times they have had to claw back their own rights, men are still treated better than women in most cases, especially in healthcare.

Like the many women who have gone through hell and back birthing their child and are told to just deal with the afterpain. Even if breastfeeding is not an option and there is no way pain medication can get into the baby’s bloodstream.

Or, the woman who has been trying to get countless doctors to take her severe menstrual pain, head pain, stomach pain, or any pain seriously. The healthcare system is failing women find relief.

If it weren’t so sad, it would be laughable that someone receiving a procedure that takes minutes with adequate freezing complains that over-the-counter medication isn’t good enough.

While most women are suffering after many longer procedures with nary pain management or given wild options that may give them not-so-great side effects. We need to start taking women’s pain seriously and work with them to find a suitable option for their bodies.

Let’s do better for women. Let’s do better for everyone.