brain pain no more

I have a few moments to write! Well, I'm choosing to take a few moments to write before I go unload the dishwasher. I already have tonight's dinner in the crockpot! Go me! Jamaican chicken thighs--I'll let you know if they're good.

Update on the week of headaches: They're gone! They left after my first chiropractic visit, which due to all the assessment/xray stuff they did, didn't actually involve an adjustment. My chiropractic visits consist of 2 parts, "therapy" and "adjustments." The therapy part is me lying face down on a table with these wires on my back that hook up to a machine that make my back and neck muscles relax. It's like a massage but not....it's hard to explain. But after my muscles were made to relax, my headaches subsided. Apparently everyone is supposed to have a curve in their neck vertabrae and looking at my x-rays, I don't. The doctor said this is due to my car accident. When your bones aren't in the right place, it causes extra strain on the muscles. So that explains why the same week as my headache week, my neck was unbelievably sore. So apparently, the other guy's insurance will pay for all my chiro visits. Why did it take a couple months for the accident to affect me? Maybe it's because I was so uncomfortably pregnant I was taking so much tylenol and not sleeping very long that I didn't even notice it. (Sleeping longer stretches makes my neck stiffer.) Then the c-section, more pain pills, and it's just in the last couple weeks when I've gotten more nights where I get to sleep 3 and 4 hours at a time that my neck has had the chance to get stiff. I don't know. That's the best explanation I could come up with.

The week that I was so frustrated with all those headaches, I found out about a special headache clinic in St. Louis. I called and they said in order to be seen by one of the doctors, you have to go to their "headache school" which is held once a month. So on Tuesday night I went to a 2 hour class about headaches. I considered myself pretty well read on headaches but I actually did take a few things away from it. A headache happens when something ticks your brain off. People who have frequent headaches are "sensitive brained." They even went as far as to say that we are very aware, intuitive, and pay attention to detail! A headache is your brain responding to something normal in an overly excited way. They said if a migraine sufferer gets whiplash, you can bet they'll get more headaches. And they also talked about neck pain and tension headaches. I don't think I need to make an appointment with these doctors since my easily excitable brain seems to be under control but I'm glad I went to their class. I feel like I have a more balanced understanding, from the chiro and medical side of things, that my tight muscles in my neck, caused by my car wreck, exacerbated by the day to day activities of holding and feeding a new baby, were causing my headaches.

As a side note, a 40ish year old man at an adjacent table at headache school sat there and ate string cheese, pulling it apart kindergarten style, for HALF AN HOUR! Seriously! He came equipped with 3 string cheeses. Do you think cheese could be triggering your migraines buddy?

And even though the chiro visits are presumably going to be paid for, I think I'm only going to go a few more times and then be done with it. They want me to come three times a week for the next 6 weeks. That's just way too much! It's so hard to get out of the house and if I get out of the house by myself for an hour, I'd really rather go to the gym or shopping then to a silly appointment!

In other brain news, I feel so baby brained! I.E. Brain missing due to being a mother? Or watching too much of The Bachelor? =) I just feel like I can't remember to do things I want to do or say things I want to say. I feel out of sorts and dumb. Lily seems to be consistently only waking up to eat once a night now, knock on wood, so maybe my brain will come back soon.