... well, if they don't make it worse, at the very least they don't make it all better either. My loyal following will recall that I've had headaches off-n-on since about March this year, and that the headache when it comes will last for days, and nothing seems to relieve it. Painkilling medication doesn't actually "kill" the pain, just makes it so that though you can feel it, it's not ruling your life.
I could review the painkillers I've been taking in terms of their headache removability:
1. aspirin, pretty commonly regarded as "good for what ails ya" but in fact it's only really good for hangovers or dehydration headaches. Not for my special kind. But at least it didn't make it worse ... 
2. paracetamol, always recommended as a first choice after aspirin, but didn't have a huge impact on the headache either. 
3. ibuprofen, well this was not too bad. The neurologist recommended taking it as soon as the headache started and it seemed to reduce its severity - but then I'd have to take another dose or combine with another drug for full functionality so it's not awesome - but a good standby and very cheap. 
4. "nurofen tension headache" - this is ibuprofen lysine. The pharmacist (whom I asked for advice, as you're meant to) said "oh, well it works better than normal nurofen because it's targeted specifically for the tension headache." Funnily enough the package next to it, " Migraine pain" was the same dosage and same everything except "targeted specifically for the migraine headache". She knew nothing, so I researched it a little bit and it's meant to act faster than straight ibuprofen. It was ok, acting faster is fine but the net effect was the same as the regular stuff. And it's twice as expensive as homebrand ibuprofen which brings its rating down to 
5. prodeine forte (a strong paracetamol/codeine blend also marketed as panadeine forte) - wow, now we're getting into the strong stuff. Its main side effect is incredible wooziness, though it's also very effective at helping you ignore the pain. In fact you can ignore just about anything! So I would recommend taking it if the pain is stopping you sleeping, but that's about it. And then the sleep you do get when you have taken one, is pretty weird (you'll notice the same effect with codral night time tablets) so it gets
6. tramadol ( Zydol, or Tramal) - or as I like to call them, "tiny little capsules of joy". These were the most effective, least side-effective of all the drugs I tried. They work reasonably fast, you can combine them with nurofen, and they don't cause any weird drowsiness or hallucinations. So two thumbs up and 
from me.
Unfortunately as you'd probably gathered from the title of the post, in the end though the drugs weren't solving the problem, only addressing the symptom. I'd been to see my GP a couple of times, with no conclusive diagnosis, a neurologist who said it *might* be a migraine brought about from muscle tension, and I'd had CT and MRI scans which showed nothing abnormal. So despite being reassured that there wasn't anything wrong, and being about $600 poorer for the knowledge, in fact I still didn't know anything at all. (Relax, this story has a happy ending - I went to medicare and got nearly $400 back so I'm only $200 poorer after all.)
So this week when I had a debilitating headache on Tuesday, I went to a physio recommended to me by a good friend. The physio poked me in my neck and said "does it hurt here?". When I recovered from the intense pain of said poking, she informed me that the headache was probably referred from tension in my neck and that my neck shouldn't actually feel like a solid lump of bone but should feel like the soft tissue which it in fact is. When I told her I'd been renovating and this so far involved repainting our house, she said "well there's your problem" and told me to stop painting for a few weeks. (what a pity!)
So here I am, two physio treatments later and drug free and loving it. I'm going back for more treatments quite possibly for the next couple of months as there are neck, shoulder and back muscle issues that she has yet to deal with. But in general ... I'd say it's a good outcome! And 
for the physio!
or, how to spot a nerd at 5 paces ...
This story revolves around my love of parent radio, you know, the radio station that parents listen to when driving the kids to school, because it has a nice mix of news, current affairs, opinion and music. See when I was a kid, it seemed pretty boring. Then I discovered JJJ and "rebellion" of a kind ... and then Adam Spencer left JJJ and I was adrift in a sea of podcasts and MP3s on my iRiver. Ah! But then I found Adam again on the aforementioned parent radio ... then started listening to other programs there ... and decided that the mix of news, current affairs, opinions and - well - Adam's choice in music - really suited me! So here I am, a triplej convert (or maybe I'm just getting old ..) and the other day I was listening to the Drive show and there was a segment about fake movie reviews, someone was trying to guess which of a series of wildly improbable descriptions was the real movie review.
One of the reviews was for the movie "Dummy" (1979) which turned out to be "A deaf and dumb young man is accused of murdering a prostitute and defended by a deaf lawyer, starring LeVar Burton as the young man" (rather than "Babies see red when clinical research into pacifiers gets contaminated").... waaaaaaiiiiit a minute. Isn't LeVar Burton that guy who was in Star Trek? Wow, turns out he did a lot more stuff than that.
So anyway they had fake reviews for other films, one of which was "A hairdresser sets up shop in the trenches of WWI" - which was referenced in an episode of Black Books that we watched the other night. The world really is fundamentally interconnected**.
... but wait, there's more ...
The inspiration for this blog was that I was sitting watching other people play poker (because I had lost already) and somehow, somewhere, someone said something about "Potemkin" .... and I said - that's the name of the Starship in the episode where there were 2 Will Rikers ... *gulp* ... instantly I was hounded about the depth of my nerdiness, not only did I know of Will Riker, but I know the names of the starships in the episodes ... at least I didn't know the episode name, I had to google for it. So I did, and that led me to LeVar Burton, which led me to Dummy, which led me to Black Books, which led me to ... well, wherever we are.
Oh and btw - in that episode of Star Trek, Will Riker wins a hand of poker (with Worf and Data) with a full house. And then plays against himself and there's a whole lotta bluffing .... but anyway - I believe we have come full circle.
I am going to take my nerdiness off to bed now.
*megaphone diplomacy has nothing to do with this blog entry, but it was mentioned on parent radio recently. And I liked the term.
** oh and hey, it's funny how the java thingammy that shows how all weblogs are fundamentally interconnected, has failed because there are too many blogs. Hehe.
.... we're hunting WABBITS!
Last night we played a game of Trivial Pursuit - those two words that meant so much back in 1983 have been revamped with a shiny new board. Whoever came up with the idea to change the names of the categories should be shot though, because whatever "GT" is (Gran Turismo, maybe?) it's still full of sport questions... but I digress.
One of the questions we had was what is the common name of Sylvilagus palustris hefneri - well it seems Hugh Hefner has had a species of Rabbit named after him. Isn't that interesting. I wonder if the writers of the new Tribble Forsooth used Wikipedia as their main information resource. That, and the Big Print Guide to the Sydney Olympics ....
And of course the inevitable controversy arose - should they be called "Pie" or "Cheese" or just the boring "Wedge"? When I played it was always Cheese. But D™ thinks it should be Pie. And the rules say Wedge. So who knows, but at least it's consistently about food.
In unrelated news, yesterday a young man was taken to Goulburn Hospital suffering a gunshot wound to the thigh. Apparently his dad mistook him for a rabbit, or something.
Son: "Dad, what are we hunting again? Rabbits, or ducks?"
Dad: "DUCK, SON"
*kapow*