Saturday, March 30, 2013

Headache Questions Answered by Stanford Doctor

In a previous post I told you that the Director of the Stanford Headache Clinic, Robert Cowan, MD, was taking questions related to headache disorders. His answers to some of the questions were posted on the Stanford Medicine blog, SCOPE, on March 20, but I'm just now getting around to writing this post. :) Here's the link if you're interested.

I don't have much of an update other than that. I was going to play drums at church on Palm Sunday but I ended up getting a migraine and had to back out (we didn't make it to church at all), so I've decided to stop committing to things other than my baby shower and labor. I'm still working as a contract designer for two companies, but I'm able to set my own hours and work mostly from home, for which I'm so thankful!

I hope to have a product review and a book review coming up on here eventually, so stay tuned! Oh, and if you read this blog directly from the site, you'll notice it desperately needs a makeover. That's on my to-do list, don't worry!

Happy Easter! :)

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Headache Weeks During Pregnancy

My OB's office is set up where I see each of the OBs instead of sticking to one; that way I'll know the person who delivers my baby...I may not know them very well, but at least there won't be a chance of me having to introduce myself as they're staring up my vagina. (Too blunt? Sorry...)

The good thing about that is I've been able to ask each OB about my headaches/migraines to get lots of opinions. At my most recent appointment, the doctor told me that common headache weeks for pregnancy are weeks 15-21 (I'm 25 weeks along), so he said they could be going away or at least getting better soon. I had never heard that, but I told my sister (a nurse) and she had heard the same thing. I'd always heard headaches are most common during the first and third trimesters. So I guess there's a chance they could get better, but they could also get worse.

Last month I had 16 headache days and 4 migraine days. This month I've already had 6 migraine days, but I've had more headache-free days so maybe things will improve.

FIL Update
Taking care of my father-in-law has been exhausting, but weirdly rewarding. I've always liked volunteering and serving others, and I had to cut back due to my health, so it's nice to be able to help take care of someone. Also, Hospice is now involved, and they have been amazing. He moved in with us about a month ago and the VA (Veterans) clinic isn't able to see him until MAY - you read that correctly...it's seriously sad. So now a Hospice nurse visits him once a week, and Medicare covers it! We also have help from a CNA, social worker and volunteers. They give him supplies and meds too. I can't say enough good things about Hospice.

Bye, Google Reader
If you use Google Reader to read blogs, you may have heard that it's going away. My friend tweeted about a good alternate called Feedly, and they're making it easy for Google Reader users to transition. I've already made the switch, although I have yet to catch up on my blog reading. I'm not slacking, I just spend too much time reading baby name books right now. Girls are difficult to name. Please leave a comment if you have a suggestion, by the way! We want something different, but not too different. The husband already said no to Harper, one of my top choices.

Cute Puppy
I haven't shared any pictures of my darling Ellie in a while, so here's one I took when I was playing with my new DSLR camera (graduation gift from my wonderful parents). She looks innocent because she had just woken up from a nap and was in a daze. Don't let her fool you.

Ellie

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Ask Stanford Med

I received an email informing me that the Director of the Stanford Headache Clinic, Robert Cowan, MD, is taking questions related to headache disorders. Considering I don't have a neurologist at the moment, I'm definitely planning on posting a question; I just have to give it some thought.

If you would like to submit a question, you have until 5 p.m. Pacific Time THIS Friday (March 8). Questions can be submitted by posting a comment to this Stanford Medicine blog post or by writing a tweet including the hashtag #AskSUMed. I just set up a column on my TweetDeck to follow the hashtag. (That really makes me sound like a geek, doesn't it?)

Please read the blog post linked above before posting a question because there are some ground rules and the questions should be "about headache disorders, recent improvements in managing them, and the use of a multifaceted approach to treating symptoms."

Answers to selected questions will be in a future Scope (Stanford Medicine's blog) post, and I'll try my absolute best to remember to link to that post on my own future blog post once it comes out.