Lost Weekend - an ugly reminder - & 8-wk push

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Stripeness
Stripeness Posts: 511 Member
I can't remember Saturday (3 days ago). Sunday is spotty, mostly gone too. By yesterday, I was able to function well enough to work a simple job, although I kept forgetting things/transposing numbers, and was a bit off-balance.

What happened? On Friday I tried to push through warning signs that I was spiking my intracranial pressure. The heavy, pulling sensation near the bottom/back part of my head? I ignored it and went right on lifting things over my head (think military press). It was for a "good" cause: some hourly warehouse work to help dig us out of a financial hole caused by vet bills.

But the net effect was that by the time it was over, I felt concussed. By the time I got home, it was like a severe migraine wrapped in a concussion. I took Diamox (for me I can use it for up to 48 hrs before the side effects are worse than IIH, so it's useful for spikes) and apparently didn't go immediately to bed. I know this because over the next few days, I found clean dishes mixed in with the dirty, and a few other weird/displaced items.

I'm in the rare ~10% who doesn't have headaches all the time. When I do get them, I don't know how long it will take for them to go away. I got lucky this time - just 2 days for the pain to ease up. I'm still in the "post-concussive" phase, not quite all there and tiring very easily.

I wanted to post this because I'd almost forgotten I have IIH. Having found my sweet spot for managing: avoiding shoulder/military press, and graaaaaaadually losing weight. Heck, I even cheerfully put back on a few pounds over the holidays because I consciously chose to eat more cookies/heavy foods.

It's still there, and it's disabling. Also? The correlation of IIH resolving with weight loss is too strong to ignore. I'm not gonna kick myself, because you get through the day however you can. (and I'm truly happy with how my eating habits have improved!) That said, I'm also going to do an 8-week push on the weight loss front.

The holiday weight had already started coming back off, so MFP is definitely helping my long-term habits. I'm not going to try to reach my end goal all at once, just pushing for a substantial drop to try and move the IIH needle, as it were.

Anyway, posting this here just to let you all know I was thinking of you and hoping your IIH journey is going as well as possible. And because IIH is so invisible, yet has such impact.