Headache Update

I woke up yesterday still having a headache. It was mostly centered on the base of my skull, but that was pretty painful. I decided I needed to call in sick to work and keep my appointment with the nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office. I’d seen her last Thursday for my pre-op physical and liked her, so when I couldn’t see my regular doctor, I opted for her. After discussing my headache, she said that for headaches like this, they often will give a shot of Toradol to “break up” the headache. Sometimes, they give a strong pain killer to sort of reboot the body and provide some relief, often it’s enough to end the problem, sort of like hitting CTRL + ALT + DELETE on your computer. 

The only problem is that Toradol is an NSAID which I’m supposed to refrain from taking for seven days before my procedure tomorrow. Since the laryngoscopy is not an very invasive procedure, she thought it would be OK to do, but she called my doctor for Friday’s procedure to get her recommendation. While they would have preferred that I only take Tylenol, they did give the NP permission to give a minimal dose of Toradol. So, next thing I know, the nurse has a syringe and told me to lower my pants. She said they could give the shot in the arm, but it works better in the butt, and she said it was up to me. Quite honestly, I wanted whatever was most likely to be successful, so down my pants went. I don’t know if any of you have had a shot of Toradol before (I have), but that shot stings quite a bit. 

The good news is that it improved my migraine considerably. Within an hour, the pain was mostly gone. It still hurts a little and I bought some Tylenol as a supplement, and that too helped. I went to bed last night with a minimal headache. I’m hoping I wake up in the morning feeling just as good and can go to work. I’ll learn sometime today when I need to be at Dartmouth for my laryngoscopy tomorrow. All I know at this point is that it is supposed to be sometime tomorrow morning. The past week has been a rough, but I’m hoping this week will end on a good note.