Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Alcohol and Headaches

About five months ago, Felicia started experiencing some killer migraine headaches. Felicia will spare you the gory details, but the frequent episodes involved vertigo, inability to keep food down and the sensation like a hundred angry gnomes were digging out chunks of her brain with sling blades (Felicia calls it a kaiser blade). Trying hard to be a good patient, Felicia explained her migraine symptoms to her doctor, who inevitably asked, "How much alcohol do you drink?"

Never answer that question honestly if you are a bartender, mixologist, lounge owner or general cocktail enthusiast.

Even after Felicia minimized her drinking habits so as not to frighten the doctor, the advice was still, "Alcohol can trigger migraine headaches. You should stop drinking alcohol." Ummmm, is this an option?

To Felicia's relief, a weekly shiatsu massage ($65 a pop - yep, city folk, it's more affordable in the pseudo-country) and a regimen of allergen-free dietary supplements (multis - $24; selenium - $12; calcium/magnesium - $22) seems to have resolved the migraine problem for now. For around $300 per month (ouch), Felicia is living pain-free and yep, she's still drinking.

2 comments:

pigeon said...

good lord how i miss felicia's.
hilarious with the "kaiser blade" comment.
xo dawn

Anonymous said...

The best thing for Felicia to do is to stop drinking so that her migraines will also cease. The doctor has already advised her, and all she needs to do is to follow his orders.