Thoughts, prayers and smoke please

[Filoso-]

Nice to hear you get better, hang in there man!

[wrdwrght]

Glad you're home. My thoughts are still with you, Demon.

[wrdwrght]

Oops. Duplicate. Please delete.

[SpyderNut]

Terribly sorry to hear about this, DC. Being in the hospital is never fun. You will be in our thoughts and prayers. Get well soon as we greatly enjoy your candor and wit. Smoke sent too, brother.

[Sully]

If humor heals as they say, Demoncase, you will AOK in no time. :D Hope all the smiles you give us here find their way back to you as you recover. Stay strong.

[Doc Dan]

Cluster headaches are normally what men get rather than migraines. They can be very bad. I used to get them but after I passed 45 they stopped. I also cut back on caffeine and other things, as well, which helped. Some men get them after 50 but this is not normal. They can really put you down, hard. I found out due to a bad injury (too much adventure in my life) that hydrocodone or codeine helps, but it is not for any long term use for most people.

Why are they doing an angiogram? Did they find a suspected block? It is not a difficult test. You just have to lay down and be cold.

[Dr. Snubnose]

so glad to hear things got better :) as I am late to this post, Healing energy coming your way for that last 1%..Feel better guy ...Doc:)

[demoncase]

Why are they doing an angiogram? Did they find a suspected block? It is not a difficult test. You just have to lay down and be cold.

The angiogram is because of my history of brain surgery and has been demanded by the specialist hospital (the QE) to rule out any issues
The mass CT scan ruled out an major bleeds, blocks or aneurysm- the angiogram is a backstop to make sure there's no hidden little bleeds anywhere.

To give you the 30 second Hollywood trailer version of why:

In 2004 I started to get some unbelievable pain in the right side of my head- electric shocks set off by slight breezes on my face.
Getting about 45 minutes sleep in a week and eventually got diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia aka "The Suicide Disease".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigeminal_neuralgia
An MRI later and I'd got the classic cause- my cerberal artery was wrapped around my fifth cranial nerve, rubbing through the myelin insulator around it and causing massive pain as my blood pressure changes.

After 4 years of taking 100 tablets a week with a laundry-list of side effects, the choice was made to go for the surgery- MVD to decompress the nerve that had been pinched by my cerebral artery...Surgery was risky (8-10% chance of checking out on the table and a sliding increasing scale of paralysis, stroke and so on...Plus it's basically a coin-toss whether it actually works).

In a nutshell, I've got the medical equivalent of that white plumber's PTFE tape inside my skull, wrapped around the nerve keeping the artery from rubbing on it. I've had no symptoms since, but this little incident has made my doctors want to check that nothing has shifted about (Considering I've not been bungee jumping or kick-boxing, it's a precaution)

[Doc Dan]

Getting older is not fun, believe me. All of my own health issues have kept me from a formerly very active lifestyle and the medicines make me feel worse than what is wrong with me, oftentimes.

Well, at least the angio is easy and will clear up any worries in that regard.

[Evil D]

Best wishes brother. I've been there myself. My advice is don't worry until you've tried everything else first and it's the last option.

[Malfeasant]

Good to see you're back home. Best wishes to your other test. Got some good laughs from some of your previous posts. Look forward to more.

[paladin]

Thanks for educating us about TNG...I had no idea such a condition existed...

Makes me glad you've got a healthy outlet with all your blade buddies here! :spyder: :) :spyder:

[Doc Dan]

Now, being an American from an earlier generation, I have a warped sense of humor (being in the military in the past does not help with that). I have refrained from making remarks that might be offensive, but for us, would be a kind of backhanded help/praise.
It is amazing what humans can endure and survive and thrive, isn't it? I am constantly amazed at how people have adapted to pain, life threatening illness, injury, and etc., and yet, kept going and kept their humor.

[demoncase]

Update- After a full week of being sat on my rump I'm feeling a serious amount better....The headaches have all but gone apart from when I wake up (probably from grinding my teeth). Been sleeping 12 hours a day for a week.

Got a date for my contrast CT scan of my melon to find out if I'm wired up properly up there but it's looking more and more like it was stress related.

I have received a full-bore telling off from my lovely wife, my folks, my friends, my current boss, my previous boss and equal amounts of best wishes from the same....So I've been relegated to relaxing- read a lot (enjoying the Altered Carbon series of Sci-Fi novels), watched a bunch of movies and spent a lot of time causing mayhem in GTA Online.

Thank you for all the kind thoughts, prayers and best wishes.

[tvenuto]

Been sleeping 12 hours a day for a week.

This will fix more things than most people realize. Glad things are improving and hopefully the forum has been a help.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Hope you feel better soon my friend. All the best to you.

[awa54]

Altered Carbon is an amazing setting and I love the writing! When you're done with that, get all the rest of his SF, it's all worth the read!

Sorry I missed this earlier, please accept my retroactive good thoughts and healing energy :D

[demoncase]

Update- had my contrast CT done....No red hot screaming voicemails left by the hospital, so I'm willing to cross my fingers right now and say any brain issue is off the table.

Just need to work on not grinding my teeth (Good luck with that!) and taking more time to destress.

I might ask the FAA, EASA and our 3rd party AS9100 assessor not to book 4 weeks of audits back to back next year- that might help a bit

[El Gato]

So glad to hear you're feeling better. I hope you will continue to improve and everything goes much better for you.
Sounds like the past few weeks have been absolutely minging.

[awa54]

Update- had my contrast CT done....No red hot screaming voicemails left by the hospital, so I'm willing to cross my fingers right now and say any brain issue is off the table.

Just need to work on not grinding my teeth (Good luck with that!) and taking more time to destress.

I might ask the FAA, EASA and our 3rd party AS9100 assessor not to book 4 weeks of audits back to back next year- that might help a bit

A "clean" head CT is a wonderful thing, I got one of those a few years back...