Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Not This Month, I Have A Headache...

I have been falling down on the blog this week. I noticed that my last post was Thursday. I missed out on the chance to be totally random today, and believe me when I say my brains have been quite random lately. There was great blog fodder on Saturday night when Jones had his "best girl friend" sleep over and I let it go to waste. (Though it may turn up in re-runs...)

The problem is a headache. And for once, it's not MY headache. It is number one son's headache, and it's been rattling around for nearly a month now. He got it with a cough/cold bug right after school started up again after the holidays, and it just won't go away. And every day it's running up the score.

First it came and went, and either tylenol or motrin would take care of it. Then it seemed as if every day after school he had a headache that needed medication. Then the school started calling me mid-morning to say Jones had a headache, didn't want to come home, so either S.P. or I would run to school and give him something for it. Now he wakes up with the headaches and no OTC meds will touch them. He spends parts of his day lying down in the dark in the nurse's office because he doesn't want to come home. Until today he didn't even ask to come home. We had talked about getting a doctor's appointment and yesterday, while I was teaching at the school, he came to my classroom. He had another headache and asked "Momma, did you get me a visit with the doctor?"

We do have an appointment scheduled, though S.P. says it will most likely not give us the answers; it'll just be a referral for scans, tests, probably a pediatric neurologist. S.P. had the same baffling headaches when he was the same age; after numerous tests, visits, etc. it was determined that he had "headaches of unknown origin". For a while when the headaches started we just guessed that Jones was really daddy's boy and had the same thing. Then I worried. What if isn't the same thing and we are ignoring something serious? So off we go to the doctor.

It's odd to say, but even though I am very concerned about WHY he is having all these headaches and am very frustrated that in all my mommy-power I can't make them stop, there can still be a little something funny to tell. The school nurse checked his vision in case that might be causing the headaches. His eyes are fine, but his teacher mentioned that the fluorescent lights in the school could be part of the problem. On the way home we stopped at my parents' house and they asked him how his eyes were. He said his eyes were just fine, but he might be allergic to the "I.V. lights" at school. When I asked him if he meant "U.V. lights", he said yes, so I asked if he knew what that meant. "Sure Momma, ultra-violent lights!"

Thank goodness for funny stuff.

4 comments:

  1. lol, glad you can see a bit of humour! Real life gets in the way of my blogging all the time, dammit anyway. Hope your son feels better soon!

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  2. Kids say the BEST stuff.

    I hope they can find out what's going on with the headaches. :( Have you tried giving him magnesium?

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  3. Oh no, at least you got a laugh out of it. I wonder if he's grinding his teeth at night? I do and wake up with headaches all the time. Also, I needed a root canal once and it took forever to rule out other things and narrow it down to my tooth. Good luck!

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  4. I suppose you may have thought of these things, but I'll offer the suggestions anyway.

    Sometimes there is a rebound effect from certain medications. If given ibuprofen or acetaminophen too often, the headaches can come about from the body wanting the meds again, similar to a junkie's reaction after a period without heroin or cocaine.

    Another possibility would be caffeine withdrawal. Maybe he doesn't drink coffee or tea, but has he been drinking a lot of coke, or eating a lot of chocolate? Both can contain large amounts of the drug, and withdrawal from caffeine is usually accompanied by headache.

    Just some thoughts.

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