Archive of ‘personal’ category

Neurological medications that I am currently on.

Since I mentioned this in a previous post, I thought that I would get around to making that whole list.

Right now, I do not feel like triptans help out a whole lot, and would like to switch to low-dose narcotics at some point. Due to the severity of my asthma, I can not safely take any NSAIDs without risking prednisone.

I also require prior authorization for Trokendi and for some of my triptans (it seems Zomig requires it now).

Maintenance medications
Trokendi, 300mg: Anything with topiramate as the active ingredient is almost never without side effects, as I have learned. I take these (200mg + 100mg) at night, which lessens the side effects, and that helps… a bit.

Abortive medications
Fioricet: I find that this one works the best, although one dose is never enough.
Imitrex injections: These are rife with side effects, so I only use these when necessary.
Olanzapine, single dose: These help with really severe migraines, but they make me really tired.
Promethazine/tizanidine: These are for nausea and muscle spasm, respectively, and they are to be taken with whatever abortive medication that I give myself as necessary for each of those symptoms (and they generally are with severe migraines). Although I am growing more tolerant of them, I’m still hit out of the blue with the occasional side effect of tiredness. However, they do help ameliorate those specific symptoms, so…
Zomig dissolvable melt/nasal spray: I have to fight insurance due to prior authorizations on these, and they do help when I can’t give myself Fioricet, but they are not particularly good at ameliorating a lot of the pain.

I have finally maxed this thing out with RAM!

Although both of the sticks of RAM that are in here are 8GB, maxing it out in terms of that being the most that the processor can… take (and that simplifying the entire explanation down, I know), they aren’t of the same “speed”, but this is a net increase in the computer’s overall speed, so I am satisfied with that and will gladly “take that”, as the Generation Z kids say. Now all I have to do is fix the peculiar problems that have emerged whenever I put my camcorder’s memory card into the port that this computer has for it so that I can resume uploading videos to our YouTube channel, as that wasn’t even remotely a problem until… now, when it decided to become a problem out of the blue, and I suppose that will be two less headaches for me out of the abundance of headaches that I get per calendar year, which for me is no shortage of headaches. Migraines. (Or should I be saying “are no shortage of headaches”? How does one word that? I’m not sure.)

With any luck, I should be able to see my neurologist soon enough now that the referral that I needed to get to continue seeing him at his new practice should… be there. I’ll be calling about that to inquire about the status of that since I had to see my primary care doctor to get another one sent his way (“yes, same doctor, new practice… and I had to change my Medicaid HMO, so here’s that information”), and as soon as I am able to actually make an appointment to see him, will do that. I’ll let him know which medications I’m on work, which of them seem to need their doses adjusted, and which of them no longer seem to be working. For me, it honestly does not seem like triptans work. The goal is “to be in as little of pain as possible, if none at all,” and although I am well aware that the diagnosis of chronic, intractable migraine disorder probably means that the “if none at all” bit… isn’t actually going to happen short of a medical miracle, I know that I shouldn’t settle for pain, and that I should continue to advocate for myself when certain medications that I am on or take as needed do not appear to be working as intended. And with triptans, you can really tell if they’re not working. That’s along the lines of “I had to give myself the second dose two hours after the first right down to the minute, gave myself the third dose the next day, predictably maxed myself out for the week, and this has become a pattern with several triptans at varying doses”. Some migraineurs need medication that lasts longer and provides more thorough coverage. It me. I’m one of those migraineurs. It comes with the territory.

At some point soon, I may make a list of which medications I’m currently on… work, and which ones do not.

Well, these are new and interesting developments.

For some reason, Discord and f.lux aren’t starting when this computer boots up.

I’ve come to notice that, and I would like them to. I’m not sure if this is because they’ve updated and… something was changed along the way that would have caused them not to start up when the computer does, because this computer is not that old, but I’ll look into it and see if I can fix that problem. I looked into CCleaner to see if that would tell me anything, and surprisingly, all it told me was that they are no longer starting up when this computer starts up. Pot, meet kettle. Obvious cat, meet obvious cat. Thanks for that.

And for some reason, when I go to put my memory card into the slot that this computer has for those, I can’t pull the video that I’ve taken off of it with my camcorder (which I’ve normally had no problem doing) to put on the YouTube account that I’ve been… well, trying to get going. It absolutely mucks up the video portion of the video. And I am, again, not sure at all what would actually be causing this. Like I just said, I’ve been having absolutely no problem pulling the video files off of the memory card up until this point. Now I am…

I’m not even sure what gives right now, but I mean, at least this computer is stable in the fact that it works.

Is it not sad, given my history with this… tetchy computer, that I am happy for that? That I settle for that?

It’s actually been this cold around here, folks.

We’ve been having to wear our coats around here. This isn’t… normally something that has to happen too often, at least comparatively and statistically speaking compared to some of the other colder states. However, it has been just cold enough that Bub and I haven’t been walking to the nearby park as much as I’m sure he might otherwise like, simply because… well, it’s actually been that cold, and the park is just close enough to where we live for us to be able to walk to it, so by the time we got there we’d already have exposed ourselves to the winds that this kind of weather tends to bring, and then there’s the walk back.

And these walks are supposed to be enjoyable, so I’m just waiting for it to warm up a bit before we resume.

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