Years ago I had a humor blog called “Headaches, Hormones & Hot Flashes” and my name was Lee the Hot Flash queen. You can imagine what the blog was about. I was put into surgical menopause at the age of 42 and it wasn’t a laughing matter, but I couldn’t do anything BUT laugh about it, because otherwise I would melt from the hot flashes that I was having about 2 million times a day.
I wrote about my foray into various types of HRT’s and how to <ahem>insert them and keep them inserted by doing kegel exercises religiously while trying not to sneeze the donut across the room and also about my mood swings and how Sybil had entered the building on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.
Now, that I am almost 46, the hot flashes come mostly at night and the other symptoms of menopause are but a small blip on my radar. I do still take HRT’s, but I have cut back tremendously, and have noticed that the major side effect that I do have is the beginnings of osteoporosis, but we all have our crosses to bear, and that cross is better than the Big C that I was going to be bearing by keeping my lady bits.
The migraines are a whole other animal though. These came on about a year ago and have been my constant sidekick and companion. They greet me in the morning and when I go to bed at night. Like a mean friend who steals your toys, they have taken away some of my most pleasurable things, like red wine, and then laugh at me when I try to take them back by taunting me and stabbing me in the eye.
They never allow me to forget that they want attention and I tell them every night and day to kiss my ass. I take Stupidmax to keep them at bay, and other than the pills making me stupid, the migraines just continue to eat away at my brain. I have tried everything, so please, no suggestions on what I should do. Trust me when I tell you I have done it all short of a lobotomy, and that might be next on the list.
Currently I am doing Botox in my head. At one point in my life, I used to do Botox for vain reasons. The Botox lady would ask me to frown and then ask me to smile and then pinpoint exactly where she was going to place those tiny needles full of muscle antifreeze. She was delicate and sure and each and every stab was like a work of art to erase the lines of aging that were showing up from the years of worry, stress, fear, anger and just life. I would walk out of her office just like I walked in, with no one the wiser and three days later, like magic, the lines would be gone.
Now, every three months like clockwork, I walk into my neuro’s office and she stabs me across the forehead and all around my head and neck with upwards of 50 little shots of Botox to alleviate and deaden the nerves that are causing these pesky daily 24/7 migraines. There is no rhyme or reason to where she jabs those needles across my forehead, she just jabs and generally there is blood involved and lots of bruising.
When I walk out of her office, I look as if I have stuck my head in a wasp’s nest and the wasps won. But, not only does it work for 2 out of the 3 months. It works almost every day for 2 months, the bonus is that I also don’t have wrinkly forehead (once the bruises and the scabs disappear). And the double bonus is that my insurance pays for it. And the triple bonus is that the migraines can finally kiss my ass!
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