Botox for migraine works reasonably well. It has to be re-done every twelve weeks, but it doesn't last for every minute of that quarter of a year. Somewhere in the last two weeks, the effect stops, and with me, it stops like a light switch is flipped. I'm in the dark phase now, between the end of efficacy and the next chance I have to get re-poked. It's great and all that I am capable of scowling for these fifteen days, but it's terrible that I'm hallucinating the smell of cigarette smoke when it isn't really anywhere near me, and that I'm barely able to form sentences because I'm so distracted by the sensation of every nerve in my body having a surge of electricity all at the same time. Speaking is particularly difficult not just because of the distraction, but because my tongue is actually buzzing. My skin is so sensitive that wearing clothes is an agony, but taking them off is worse. Resting my hands and wrists against the laptop is sending shockwaves down my forearms. In short, this really blows!
I barely slept last night, and after the fourth or fifth wakeup, I stayed awake and read Twitter and Facebook in bed. There was a link to an article talking about all of the various ways lupus affects the body, and I am ashamed to admit, until I read this it never once occurred to me that there was a simple trigger for the "brain fog" and changes in cognitive function: the inflammation in the brain. I read everything I could put my eyes on two and a half years ago when I was diagnosed, but in the grand tradition of "Joe Versus the Volcano," I just accepted "brain cloud" without following up on what exactly that meant. This article this morning also said there was a lack of oxygen feeding the brain, but I didn't quite read whether that was directly a result of the inflammation or a different effect.
That forgetful brain, whether from the gap in Botox treatments or from the permanent brain cloud, has had me kicking myself over and over tonight. I needed to take care of something at the condo in Boulder, after running some errands in town ahead of a friend's birthday (he doesn't read this so I'm not ruining a surprise). I picked up my foster daughter, and convinced her to accompany me while I zipped over to Boulder. We had made it almost all of the way there, less than half a mile from the building, when I suddenly realized I never grabbed the key to get in the door. I screamed at my forgetfulness, and we barely slowed down as I turned the opposite direction from the condo, and looped back around to head back to town. I can't stop calling myself stupid, but maybe I can blame other factors for my brain fog. ("They told you you had a brain cloud, and you didn't ask for a second opinion??")
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