Migraines, Doctors, and Tests

After a good 10 years (if not more) of avoiding the issue entirely, I finally broke down and went to my doctor to talk about my migraines. They are getting worse, and it worries my mother too much. 

Rather than just giving me a bunch of pills to try, this doctor is taking a rather new approach: she is basically going back to the very beginning and running all the tests again to see if there is an underlying cause that has been missed all these years.

The first thing she did was order a barrage of blood test. Not your normal cholesterol and blood sugar tests,  but more in-depth ones that aren’t normally run. She also noticed that I have a heart murmur, so – since a heart murmur could indicate a hole in the heart, and that may in turn cause headaches, she sent me to a specialist to have an Ultrasound and a Push Test done.

The Ultrasound was no biggie at all – pretty much exactly what pregnant women get all the time. They took all kinds of pictures from all different positions and did not find anything. The Push Test, however, was a whole different story. They hook you up to an IV with just your basic saline solution, then they take a big needle and push really hard and fast, agitating the solution until it bubbles, and then they force all those bubble into your veins leading to your heart. Trust me, it’s no fun at all. But, at the end of the day, they determined that I do not have a hole in my heart – or at least, not one that is big enough to cause any problems.

By that time the results from the blood test had come in, so I got a phone call from my doctor to go over the results of that. There were some surprises, actually. Apparently I have the Epstein-Barr virus in me (it either causes or is caused by Mono, which I had as a child): it’s not active, thankfully, but it is there.

More surprising, however, is that I am apparently Gluten Intolerant! She recommended a gluten-free diet from now on, so I am dealing with that now. How to adjust my diet to avoid all forms of gluten, and what I can and cannot eat anymore. Bryan is – as always – very supportive and is actively helping me find new ways of cooking some of our favorites meals.

Yet another result of the blood test is a bit more alarming. There is a marker in the blood: the name has lots of letters in it that mean absolutely nothing to me, but normal levels are anywhere between 5 and 60 = mine are at 226!  She told me that there is a distinct possibility that I have a tumor in my Pituitary Gland, so now I get to have an MRI scan to see if there is one. If there is, I will have to have it removed (yup: brain surgery). On the bright side, the doctor doing it is my Neurosurgeon, Dr. Kralick. I like him.

I am also on a waiting list to see an Endocrinologist in Anchorage – just in case the MRI actually does turn up something worrisome. Not sure what to expect from that, but it will certainly be interesting, whatever it is.

And today I gave yet more blood for even more tests. I guess my doctor is leaving no stone unturned in her search for why my head hurts so much.