ok that was a headache

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jimmylegs
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ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

had some kind of infection recently. all over painful. an especially severe headache.

i took so much magnesium glycinate trying to stop the pain, i found the point where you can still get that fun magnesium side effect even using that form (not the weakness, the laxative one yay)

didn't make a dent in the headache. so i gave in and took advil. and that didn't make a dent either. i couldn't think straight. barely managed to look up what other pain killer i could take at the same time. croaked a request for tylenol. also selenium and zinc. took those and passed out. woke up a few hours later and realized i could think straight again.

after that, think i needed both advil and tylenol together for just one more 12 hour stint then backed off to one and then none. then, had some visual migraine so more magnesium and that cleared up. then backed off again to status quo this and that supplementing.

pain has been gone for some time now. but that one was a real doozie. only other time i've used more pain killing power was on prescription after surgery.
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Zyklon
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by Zyklon »

Ouch, good to hear you are OK.

I guess magnesium is not effective against inflammation based headaches. I have a perfect solution for such headaches:

Salmon fish ;)
Pain! You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
Pain! You break me down, you build me up, believer, believer
Pain! Oh let the bullets fly, oh let them rain
My life, my love, my drive, it came from... Pain!
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jimmylegs
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

thx!

yeah and not advil either. it sucked. otherwise, magnesium works for most of my headachy or crampy type pain relief needs.

re dinner advice, fortunately i happen to have salmon on deck for tonight's dinner! assuming i am not in hospital for a brain mri. which is another story lol
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

another fun follow up. double vision - went to emerg yesterday on doc's orders.

i was giving history info and wondering how soon everything going on would end up in the ms round file. answer: immediately.

findings so far: nystagmus, some optic nerve damage and slight tension around the eye on the drivers side. yes, generally consistent with ms - except that i kept needing to correct the doc to clarify that no, it doesn't hurt actually. painless. (whew)

CBC and so forth were normal. brain mri in 10 days. in the meantime i'm having trouble excluding recent severe viral infection with insane headache, from this acute double vision/nystagmus/ON scenario. seems the flu vaccine alone can be enough to trigger ON, never mind the actual flu, without ms being in the picture at all.

i will be interested to see what the mri machine has to say. it's been maybe a decade since last scan, and that was without contrast.
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Zyklon
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by Zyklon »

My neuro warned me about any inflammation near brain could be dangerous and there was a great risk so I had to use antibiotics. That was the first time natural things failed for me.

I will never have a flu vaccine. I don't think they offer enough protection and can be risky for us.

An MRI after 10 years? I can feel your curiosity. As long as you feel good, do not mind MRI results :)

What about salmon? yay or nay? Get well soon
Pain! You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
Pain! You break me down, you build me up, believer, believer
Pain! Oh let the bullets fly, oh let them rain
My life, my love, my drive, it came from... Pain!
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jimmylegs
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

hmm guess i didn't even think of antibiotics, having had no sense of it being anything other than a viral issue. i definitely took selenium and zinc at the worst of it, specifically in hopes of antiviral action. it was in the hours right after that, that the cognitive issues did clear up thankfully.

*definitely* needed the advil/tylenol assist on the pain, however. maybe if i'd gone to the doc sooner, i wouldn't have this double vision nonsense going on now :S

i'm skeptical about flu vaccines too. our local attempt for this yr:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/flu-vaccine-1.4515141

i'm certainly curious re next mri! think i will need to dig out the discs from the first two and refresh my memory on the details.

and, yes to salmon for dinner! was delicious :D

thanks - fingers crossed!
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

new words of the week:

Internuclear ophthalmoplegia

Medial longitudinal fasciculus

in a sentence:

Internuclear ophthalmoplegia (INO) is caused by a lesion in the medial longitudinal fasciculus.

lucky me:

Patients with INO are usually asymptomatic but may have diplopia and oscillopsia. The most common causes of INO are ischemia and demyelination. Occurrence of INO due to infectious etiologies like tuberculosis, AIDS, brucellosis, cysticercosis and syphilis is well known.

and influenza (in a scant handful of case studies)

vaccines again:

ADVERSE NEUROLOGIC REACTIONS AFTER BOTH DOSES OF PANDEMIC H1N1 INFLUENZA VACCINE WITH OPTIC NEURITIS AND DEMYELINATION
https://journals.lww.com/pidj/Fulltext/ ... OF.25.aspx

i have no idea what sort of infection i had. mainly interested in checking out the range of treatment options. still cross eyed!!!
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

doesnt look like full text is going to do me much good for this one...

[Internuclear ophthalmoplegia--causes, symptoms and management].
[Article in Polish]

Abstract
Internuclear ophthalmoplegia (INO) is a disorder of eye movements caused by a lesion in an area of the brain called the medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF). The most common causes of INO are multiple sclerosis and brainstem infarction. Other causes include head trauma, brainstem and fourth ventricular tumors, Arnold-Chiari malformation, infection, hydrocephalus, and lupus erythematosus. Internuclear ophthalmoplegia is clinically characterized by total or partial failure to adduct one eye in lateral gaze and a monocular nystagmus of the abducting eye. It may be unilateral and bilateral. The method of choice for diagnostic imaging of MLF lesion in patients with INO is magnetic resonance. In this article authors present current opinion about pathogenesis, clinical symptoms, and management in patients with inter nuclear ophthalmoplegia.

Internuclear ophthalmoplegia: causes and long‐term follow‐up in 65 patients
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... 04.00278.x

INO was unilateral in 36 patients (55.4%), bilateral in 22 (33.8%) and one‐and‐a‐half syndrome in seven (10.8%). The most common causes were vascular (36.9%), multiple sclerosis (32.3%), and infectious diseases (13.8%). Resolution of INO was documented in 32 patients (49.2%): 15 patients showed INO resolution during the first 3 months and 17 patients in 3–9 months. INO persisted in 33 patients (50.8%) even after a follow‐up longer than 12 months.

Of the 65 patients with INO, the MRI showed a compatible MLF lesion in 45 patients (69.2%), and there were no detectable lesions in the other 20 patients (30.8%). In all patients with an MFL lesion detected by MRI, the lesions were ipsilateral to the eye with the adduction defect.

A resolution of INO was documented in 32 patients (49.2%). In the other 33 patients (50.8%) the INO persisted, even after a follow-up period longer than 12 months. There were no deaths. Concerning the recovery rate, 15 patients showed INO resolution in the first 3 months, 15 patients in 3–6 months, and the two remaining patients in 6–9 months. There were no differences in the recovery or resolution rates, in relation to age, gender and type of INO (Table 3). Nonetheless, there were important differences in the resolution of INO, according to the etiology and the MRI findings. Most patients with infectious (66.6%), demyelinating (61.9%), and traumatic (60.0%) processes, showed complete recovery.

well that's sort of encouraging :)
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

interesting. mine is unilateral - and i'm no spring chicken lol

https://www.healthline.com/health/inter ... gia#causes
About another third of cases result from multiple sclerosis (MS). In MS, the INO usually affects both eyes. MS-caused INO is more common in teenagers and young adults.

With INO, it’s not always known what’s causing the damage to the myelin sheath, called “demyelination.” Various infections, including Lyme disease, have been associated with it.

Other conditions that can cause INO include:
brainstem encephalitis
Behcet’s disease, a rare condition that causes inflammation of the blood vessels
cryptococcosis, a fungal infection associated with AIDS
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections
lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus)
head trauma
brain tumors

When the cause of the internuclear ophthalmoplegia is MS, infection, or trauma, most people show a complete recovery.
Full recovery is less favorable if the cause is a stroke or other cerebrovascular problem. But full recovery is more likely if INO is the only neurological symptom.
If double vision (diplopia) is one of your symptoms, your doctor may recommend a botulinum toxin injection, or a Fresnel prism. A Fresnel prism is a thin plastic film that attaches to the back surface of your eyeglasses to correct double vision.
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

now officially tired of this and pretty bummed out. next thing to look into is whether or not it will be useful to try 'exercising' weak extreme right gaze while lefty's messed up.
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Zyklon
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by Zyklon »

Wanna try something different? Play some first person shooter computer game. Counter Strike, Player Unknowns Battle Ground, Overwatch.

It may be useful for eye muscles and optical nerves.
Pain! You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
Pain! You break me down, you build me up, believer, believer
Pain! Oh let the bullets fly, oh let them rain
My life, my love, my drive, it came from... Pain!
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jimmylegs
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

worth a shot! esp if i can find online versions. i'm behind the times i havent even been hanging out with any gamers lately. i'm usually more the puzzle assist sidekick lol

state of the research: depressing. like they started getting into it basically yesterday. this is The Result. singular.

The Non-surgical Management of Ophthalmoplegia (2018)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... ode=uaoj21

Ophthalmoplegia can result from damage or dysfunction of the supranuclear eye movement pathways, the brainstem internuclear pathways, or the ocular motor nerves. Diplopia and impaired eye movements are commonly associated symptoms. The goal of non-surgical treatment is usually management of symptoms, and the primary tool used is prism. Results of recent studies in the neurorehabilitation literature have suggested that eye muscle exercise may do more than compensate for symptoms of ophthalmoplegia. They may accelerate recovery for those conditions in which recuperation is possible, and restore ocular mobility in chronic and degenerative conditions. A large, randomized, blind study is needed to investigate the efficacy of eye exercises in ophthalmoplegia.

at least i am pretty used to being a guinea pig - although being this side of some hefty past mistakes, i approach eyesight guinea-pigging with caution :(
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Re: ok that was a headache

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ah ha. can't get full text, but got these from the references

Rodriguez SL, Hopman WM, Ten Hove MW. Eye exercises for treatment of idiopathic cranial nerve VII paresis: pilot study. Can J Neurol Sci. 2012;39:196–201. doi:10.1017/SO317167100013226. [Google Scholar]
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3610/8 ... dbc14d.pdf
"By four weeks, patients who performed eye exercises improved more than those who did not (74.4 versus 47.4 mm Hg, p=0.029). While there was some loss to follow-up, 63.8% of patients performing exercises (7/11) achieved functional recovery at four weeks compared to 12.5% (1/8) of those who did not (p=0.059). Steroids and antivirals were found to have independent positive effects on improving functional outcome"

Zampieri C, DiFabio RP. Improvement of gaze control after balance and eye movement training in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy: A quasi-randomized controlled trial. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2009;90:263–270. doi:10.1016/j.apmr.2008.07.024. [Google Scholar]
"Results Gaze control after the balance plus eye exercise significantly improved, whereas no significant improvement was observed for the group that received balance training alone.
Conclusions These preliminary findings support the use of balance and eye movement exercises to improve gaze control in PSP."

Kawahira K, Shimodozono M, Etoh S, Tanaka N. New facilitation exercise using the vestibulo-ocular reflex for ophthalmoplegia: preliminary report. Clin Rehabil. 2005;19:627–634. doi:10.1191/0269215505cr895oa. [Google Scholar]
"Subjects: Eight patients with ophthalmoplegia (total of 15 affected muscles) due to brainstem injury.
Interventions: Basic rehabilitative treatment that included physical therapy, occupational therapy and/or speech therapy for impairments such as hemiplegia, ataxia or dysarthria was administered for two weeks (control treatment). Then, two facilitation exercise sessions (100 times/day, five days/week for two weeks) were administered in addition to the basic rehabilitative treatment for four weeks to the eight patients with ophthalmoplegia. Ophthalmoplegia was evaluated at study entry and at the end of each two-week session. The goal of the facilitation exercises is to facilitate voluntary eye movement using conjugated eye movements in the direction opposite to passive movements of the head.
Results: After the initial two-week basic rehabilitative treatment, the distance between the corneal margin and canthus decreased slightly. Subsequently, after each of the two facilitation exercise sessions, there were significant reductions in the distance between the corneal margin and canthus compared with that at the beginning of the respective facilitation exercise session.
Conclusion: Facilitation exercises significantly improved the horizontal movement of eyes with ophthalmoplegia due to brainstem injury.

"1) The therapist sits in front of the seated patient and holds the patient's head in the forward facing position with the palms of the hands.
2) In patients with limited abduction of the right eye (right abducent nerve palsy), the patient's left eye is softly covered by the therapist's hand in order to focus the patient's attention on making movements of the eye that is being treated. Then the therapist instructs the patient to look at the therapist's face. (If the therapist does not cover the patient's untreated eye, the patient looks at the therapist's face using the less impaired eye, because the patient does not know which eye is being used
and the less impaired eye moves easily towards the target of the therapist's face.)
3) The therapist instructs the patient to 'look at my face as long as you can'. Then, the therapist quickly turns the patient's head to the left by 30-45 degrees to induce abduction of the right eye facilitated by the vestibuloocular reflex. This procedure inevitably facilitates the reciprocal adducent gaze of the left eye. After 2-3 s, the therapist returns the patient's head to the medial, forward-facing position.

"For each muscle that was affected by ophthalmoplegia, facilitation exercises performed in one direction were repeated 10 times/min for 10 min, 100 times a day, five days a week for four weeks.

"Assessment of the degree of ophthalmoplegia and subjective change in vision
The degree of improvement in horizontal ocular movement was evaluated at maximum adduction or abduction. In cases of abducent nerve palsy, the distance from the external corneal margin to the external canthus was measured. In cases of oculomotorius nerve palsy, the distance from the internal corneal margin to the internal canthus was measured.

"Although the initial two-week basic rehabilitative treatment elicited a small improvement in maximal horizontal gaze, the addition of facilitation exercises, which were performed 100 times a day, significantly improved ophthalmoplegia not only during the initial two-week session but also during the second two-week session, as well as the subjective difficulty in vision. Facilitation exercises improved ophthalmoplegia not only in patients who had developed ophthalmoplegia relatively recently, but also in patients with chronic ophthalmoplegia who did not show improvement during the initial two-week basic rehabilitative treatment.

"The detailed mechanism through which facilitation exercises induce functional improvements in ophthalmoplegia has yet to be determined. Exercises that facilitate a particular eye movement to the ophthalmoplegic direction mediated by an undamaged neural circuit such as our passive head turn, could be useful for the treatment of
ophthalmoplegia.
Further studies including a randomized controlled study are needed to better define the effectiveness of intensive repetition of voluntary eye movements synchronized with facilitation exercises for the treatment of ophthalmoplegia."

me likes.
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ElliotB
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by ElliotB »

5-10 minutes of back of the back of the neck/head (rear and top) and temple massage (by hand) has always worked for me (for a regular headache).
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Re: ok that was a headache

Post by jimmylegs »

nice. that made me recall in the past i have used some kind of vulcan mind meld acupressure thing on the hand. works for certain normal headaches, but i don't think i've bothered with it much since figuring out the USUALLY magical magnesium solution :D
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