monday, february 5, 2001
discoveries

it seems daughter number 2, jewel, is afflicted with migraines. we actually suspected this some time ago, but you know doctors: unless they see your agony it's nothing serious and certainly not what it appears to be while you are in the midst of it. part of the problem is that they aren't frequent, but they cause incredible agony when they do occur. she is literally in tears, eve after taking the tylenol, and spends most the time in the bathroom head over the porcelain god. but up until last night, we never could get her in to see her doctor when she was actually experiencing one, so the doctor has brushed the whole idea of migraines off. until last night.

we kind of had a warning the day before, we just didn't realize it. all the kids get headaches at one time or another, that's just normal. and the tylenol settled her, so we really didn't think of it. saxy noticed that she really didn't eat much, which is unusual for her (i swear, i despair of ever getting her to stop shoveling food and getting her to actually savor it). then last night it hit. again, she didn't eat a lot, and by the end of dinner she was in tears. i gave her some tylenol and sent her to bed, where she began wailing like a banshee. not 5 minutes later, she was downstairs and in the bathroom.

enough is enough. i called dad and told him to take her in. i figured that if she went in while still under the influence, it could no longer be denied that she has migraines. three hours later they came home with the confirmation: jewel has migraines.

she doesn't have them often, thank goodness. in fact, she has them so seldom that they didn't prescribe a migraine medicine specifically, but a type of advil just for her for when she gets them. if they increase in frequency, THEN we are to look into getting her prescribed a migraine specific medicine. we don't know if anything in particular triggers them, and i suppose that's something we should try to find out.

i am just glad that it has finally been diagnosed. i have had this far too often with doctors. my son's diagnoses went unmade for over a year because the doctors kept saying, "there's nothing neurologically wrong". yet he couldn't speak a single word and was self-stimming almost constantly. the discovery that there was a problem was more of a relief than anything. there was something wrong and i wasn't nuts. my own discovery this last winter of being adhd was the same way. because i didn't exhibit any of the traditional problems of an adhd kid as a child, the neurologist didn't think i was adhd. the neuro-psych exam said differently. (although, i still wonder if he really does believe it as he put me on an antidepressant for the adhd. i'm not depressed. frustrated, maybe, but not depressed.) having jewel's diagnoses confirmed may not have been as dramatic, but it is a relief just the same.

sometimes i think those doctor degrees are a little over rated. when mama can figure it out before the doctor can, you really have to wonder.