Posted by pinksharkmark (196.3.74.235) on May 21, 2000 at 03:16:50:
Been more than a year since I've posted.
I've been getting shadows since the beginning of January... with maybe one CH every ten days or so that needed an Imitrex. The shadows tapered off, I went almost three weeks without an Imitrex. Hooray!, thinks I! Maybe this is bad as it's going to get! Maybe after almost twenty years of these cycles, they are finally weakening. I've read of others where the effect decreased as they got older, after all.
Three days ago it became apparent that it was just an exceptionally lengthy prelude. Sigh. I've had six visits from the beast in just under 96 hours. Extremely discouraging. My last cycle lasted almost sixteen weeks, cost thousands of dollars in meds, and even more in lost wages. Prednisone sucks! (Prednesone?)
I live in the Dominican Republic. I have no health plan, no way to get O2 (not sure if it would work on me anyway) and have to order my Zomig and Imitrex from Canada and pay through the nose with Fedex shipping charges (mail service here is completely unreliable... almost non-existent).
I know there are hundreds of y'all out there who are way worse off than me, but the dashed hopes of an easy cycle are almost as depressing as the knowledge that I am in for another three or four months of hell... poop!
Anyone know of any new treatments out there? Extract of Amazonian toad's toenails? Poisonous shellfish toxins to be applied cutaneously? Dancing naked under a banyan tree while chanting Jewel lyrics backwards?
Unfortunately, the water treatment doesn't seem to do anything for me... except I keep waking up to pee, so I rarely seem to get whacked while asleep (that TRULY sucks, doesn't it?)
I guess I'll be posting here for the next few months.... hope I don't get too whiney or too boring. I also hope there haven't been any suicides of those I met during my last visits here, though I suspect there have been. I also hope I don't piss anybody off by openly using that word... suicide... but let's face it, it's something a lot of us have contemplated, right?
Anyway, that's it for now. Wish I could say it was good to be back.
regards,
pinky