The latest update in a series of updates it seems! Recently I had the fun of being injected with a gadolinium-based MRI contrast agent. The gadolinium is bound in a chelate; once injected it changes the magnetic properties of nearby water and can make blood vessels and some tissues or lesions stand out more clearly on MRI. Christmas tree effect, but with physics!

Unfortunately we are approaching two months since this headache started and it is still there. I was still taking indometacin 50mg once daily. Some days I increased it to 75mg in one dose. That was me tinkering with a prescription rather than a dosing recommendation. The Australian consumer information specifically says not to use more than the recommended dose or stop the medicine unless your doctor tells you to. It had until then been holding the headache fairly well with one dose each day.

I have noticed one of my neck muscles pulling itself, a spasm. Could this be the cause of the headache? It doesn’t happen when I’m awake enough to tell. It could be happening while I slumber.

On that note, pregabalin was very effective at making me sleepy, but I was also noticing what felt like withdrawal symptoms, including extreme irritability, when the dosing interval stretched out. I had been opening the powder-filled capsules and trying to split the contents to reduce the dose. That was not a reliable or recommended way to dose the capsules: Australian pregabalin information says to swallow them whole, and dose reductions or discontinuation should be worked through with the prescriber rather than changed abruptly. My psychiatrist had started me at 300mg at night. Bon Jovi knows. That’s some bad medicine indeed.

A headache that won’t go away, unemployment, and an overall lack of purpose. I guess it isn’t so bad. I still have Katsu Jazz Fridays. I’m expecting to hear back about this headache in the next two weeks. I couldn’t see anything big and out of place on the MRI above, hopefully the wizards who do the report spot something. Hey, at least I’m running out of money. Wait a minute, that is not a positive. 🤷‍♀️

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