The Week of Magnesium Citrate and Migraines…Ugh!
Who else is glad that it is Friday?! Well, I ended my week
with a bang by drinking a whole bottle of Magnesium Citrate (cherry flavored J
yum) last night. Why would I do that? Why would I empty my entire bowel system
and have my bum be so raw it hurts to sit? Honestly, I can say it was worth it,
because I was this close to going to the ER instead.
A few days ago, I started noticing that I was really bloated
and it wasn’t going away. Wednesday night after I ate dinner, I was so bloated
and crampy that I felt like my gut was going to pop like a balloon or I had a
baby growing inside me. Usually when I get these intense sharp cramp pains, which
is part of Crohn’s, I take a drug called Bentyl
and it works pretty well. This time it did nothing. I lay on my couch for 3
hours with a heating pad while my sweet husband brought me chamomile honey tea
with milk - just how I like it. Finally, the pain somewhat subsided and I was
able to go to bed.
Then, suddenly I woke up at 3:30 in the morning to the most
intense stabbing pain in the middle of my guy right above my belly button I
have ever had. I had never experienced this pain in my tummy before. No position
helped, not even the fetal position! Breathing hurt.
I immediately grabbed my phone and started doing some
research (and by research I mean some obsessive “Googling”). I was sure that I
was having a bowel obstruction.
Since the ER is so expensive and it hurt to move out of bed, I decided to try
taking a Lortab to see if that would
ease the pain, and it worked well.
Of course, I didn’t make it to work till around 10 am due to
the loopiness from the Lortab. Gotta love that stuff J
I called my GI doctor’s office that morning. The nurse said
that I was on the brink of most likely having a bowel obstruction and that if I
EVER experience that pain again to go to the ER. She said when I get home from
work to immediately drink a whole bottle of Magnesium Citrate to unplug my
system.
While I was checking out at Walgreens where I spend so much
of my time, the register guy stared at the cherry bottle, gave me a pathetic
look and said try to have a good night. Ha!
So, I went home, drank the bottle, prepared my bathroom with
Preparation H wipes, Tucks ointment and
a good book on my iPad, and waited.
It is now the next day, and I can say I am completely empty,
starving and felt like I lost 10 pounds. No more bloating or pain. So worth it!
Good thing my husband did not need to use the restroom last
night! We currently live in a one bedroom apartment with one bathroom. I like
our quaint, cozy apartment, but it can be a challenge having only one bathroom
when someone like me needs the bathroom more often than most. Poor husband,
someday he will have his own “man room,” and not a “man corner,” and his own
“man bathroom.”
The thing I forgot to do after drinking that cherry bottle
was drink a lot of water. I ended up becoming dehydrated, which triggered a
terrible migraine.
Note to self:
Always drink water when I plan to empty myself!
I also suffer from
migraines. Can I get a holler for those of you who suffer from those?? I
know many people can relate to me on that level!
I think that since I got back on the Prednisone, which is a
steroid, my headaches have gotten worse. They are almost daily. Darn you
Prednisone.
I tried the generic of Imitrex
the other night, but I had a bad reaction. I’m not sure if it was the
Imitrex itself or the mixture of Imitrex and Prednisone. Imitrex is the only
migraine drug out there that currently has a generic. All the other ones are so
freaking expensive.
Has anyone else found any other forms of relief for
migraines? Any home remedies that I need to try? Do share!
Migraines are a new (unwelcome) friend of mine since having Asa. I just bought a holistic medicine book so I could explore what vitamins I could take to prevent them. I am hoping that something natural will work.
ReplyDeleteWell share with me what you discover! Mixing pills right now and trying new things scares me a bit. I have had one too many run ins with bad drug mixtures. But I hate these headaches! Miserable I tell you.
ReplyDeleteMigraines will zap your strength and motivation faster than just about anything else. I used Imitrex for a while, but it stopped working. I just saw the doc today who prescribed a new med, so we'll see how that works. She also suggested that there are preventative meds out there that you take daily for a while. Another suggestion she made was seeing a neurologist. Other than that, the biggest things that have helped me have been recognizing my triggers (stress), and doing everything I can to minimize them. And if a feel a migraine coming on, taking my meds as soon as possible really helps reduce the strength/length of it. That probably doesn't help, but I hope you have better luck with them.
ReplyDelete-Laura Geczy
Ugh. I, too, have the Crohn's/Migraine combination. I've had chronic migraines for 20 years, sometimes up to 5 or 6 days a week. I only found out about the Crohn's this year when I was hospitalized for it in March. I know a lot about migraine, but am just starting to learn about Crohn's. I'm taking a drug called Asacol for it, which doesn't make it go away 100%, but I've only had one major flare since March. Unfortunately, it happened while camping at a festival held in a fairgrounds with less than stellar facilities.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks for the posts you've been sharing. I don't know anyone else with Crohn's and it's been helpful to read your experiences.
Caedmon-I'm so sorry to hear you were recently diagnosed with Crohns. I have yet to be hospitalized for my Crohn's (knock on wood). The migraine thing is kinda new to me. I can usually tell when they are about to come on, and I hate them. I can't do anything, and I get really bitchy. My doctor has given me a couple samples of a drug called Maxalt recently, and that seems to help my migrains. However, the drug is very expensive! I have yet to get the prescription.
ReplyDeleteKeep reading my posts! I am in the midst of learning about Crohns and experiencing it daily right now due to being a flare. Writing about it is helping me deal with it. :) Thanks for reading!