Waiting For Excedrin's Baby Headache Medicine

Yesterday was one of those days I had all these things planned to do and got pretty much none of it accomplished.  The reason was because in the morning Georgia came down with a migraine.  I know some of you just looked at your computer cross eyed and thought WHHHAAAA??  Yes, Georgia suffers from migraines at the ripe old age of 2.  I thought I had mentioned that on here before, but after researching my back blogs, I didn't see anything.  We discovered it over the summer.  Here's the quick back story.


Georgia would have these episodes when she would, out of nowhere, start to cry and whine that she was going to "frow up".  Then she would.  Every 15-20 minutes until there was nothing left in her stomach.  Afterward she would pass out cold for a nap or  for the night if it was close to bed time.  I kept thinking she had a stomach bug, but when she would wake up she'd be completely fine, ready to eat anything and never developed a fever.  When I took her for her two year check up in June I mentioned these symptoms to the Pediatrician.  He wasn't extremely worried, but thought it best to refer me to a neurologist, just to check things out.


 A few weeks later we went to see a very sweet and extremely informative neurologist, who deals with kids and adults.  After relaying all of Georgia's symptoms, she did a quick check up on her. I also informed her of our family history (migraine candidates on BOTH sides of the family).  She came to the very certain conclusion that what GG was displaying was the kid version of a migraine.  Apparently, they can get them as young as SIX MONTHS OLD!  Instead of the normal headache migraine that adults get, they do this throw up and then pass out thing.  I guess some adults get that too.  The sleeping is what resets their brains and gets rid of the migraine.  Other than sleep there is not really any medication or anything to be given to kids this young.  Trying to prevent the migraines, by learning Georgia's triggers is probably the best way to help her.  It's figuring out the triggers that's the tricky part.  It can be anything from certain foods (chocolate, sugar) to lack of rest.  Plus, everyone has different triggers.  Up until yesterday she hadn't had and episode since June, before we even saw the doctor.  I was even beginning to think maybe she didn't suffer from migraines, until yesterday happened.


First of all, I partially blame Andy for the one yesterday.  Just five days ago, when he was on the computer with his parents, he mentioned to them how Georgia hadn't had an episode in a while.  Does he not know that the universe targets people who say such things like that?  Does he not know you're supposed to knock on wood or something if you're going to say such a thing OUT LOUD??  Have I taught him NOTHING?!  I guess not.  On the plus side, I did discover one of her triggers yesterday.


Thursday mornings is my alone time with Georgia.  I usually run errands with her that day, because it's so nice just having one kid to worry about  and she loves all the attention.  She's usually really good, because she's alone with me. I had plans to go to the bank, post office, get the car washed.  That kind of thing.  Originally the car wash was last on my list, but for some reason I decided to make it first.  Regretted THAT decision later.  It was the only thing I got to do yesterday.  For those of you who live in Los Angeles, you know there are car washes everywhere.  Nobody really ever washes their own car here.  Maybe during the summer on a hot day for fun, but it's so much easier to just go get it done, and it's not that expensive.  Since my in-laws are coming this Sunday, I thought it best to have someone get rid of the goldfish, cheerio, pretzel infestation on the floor of my car.  So we went to the car wash down the street and I decided which wash package I wanted.  Some of the packages  include an air freshener spritz.  Sometimes I get it sometimes not, depends on how much money I feel like spending.   Yesterday I did.  THIS was my downfall.  I chose vanilla scent.  Also probably a bad idea.


Most of the time the scent is not overpowering, but someone went a little crazy with the spritz yesterday, and the smell hit me in the face as soon as I climbed in the car.  Georgia commented on it immediately too,


"It smell like I eat in he-a."


I kinda got what she was saying.  The vanilla smell is reminiscent of a vanilla cake baking, but more perfumy.  So at first she kinda liked it, until 30 seconds later when she didn't.


"I gonna frow up!  I gonna frow up!" She started to whine.


What?  She was fine two minutes ago.  We were having fun at the car wash with the cute doggie, someone let us pet, and the gumball I bought her. Now, all of a sudden, she was going to throw up??  I was confused.  We stopped at the post office on our way home and I got her out of the car.  She was pale and listless, but seemed better outside of the car.  Then we got back in to go home and she was right back to,


"I gonna frow up!"


Then I realized it must be the scent.  Could strong scents trigger migraines?  I had no idea, because I don't suffer from them myself.  I got her home without "frowing up".  I laid her down on the couch with her blankie


Then I Googled migraine triggers and strong scents was indeed on that list.  Son of a BITCH!  I found a trigger for Georgia!  Suddenly I realized, Oh crap.  I had to put her back in the car to pick Sonya up from school at 1:20.  So I rolled down all the windows, but that didn't seem to be getting the smell out fast enough.  Then I remembered how coffee beans cancel out strong smells, so I put a bowl of beans in the car.  An hour later I went to see how it smelled.  Well, the good news was the vanilla scent was dissipating.  The bad news was my car smelled like a vanilla latte now.  I felt like I was driving inside a Starbucks for the rest of the day.


Unfortunately, I had to wake Georgia  to pick up Sonya from school, which was not a good thing to do.  Her brain had not reset entirely and I could tell she was still in migraine mode as soon as I picked her up.  She was very pale, very weak and still claiming she had to "frow up".


Then she did.


In the van.


The one I just had washed.


She did, thankfully, manage to keep it contained to her blankie and car seat, so it wasn't everywhere.  But once the vomiting starts, it just keeps going until nothing is left.  Every twenty minutes or so she would whimper and cry and I'd bring her the bucket until eventually, her stomach was empty. She would still cry every so often, but nothing would really happen.  Poor thing.  I felt so bad for her.  She layed on the couch all day, looking like death's door.


I tried to get her to sleep again, but she couldn't.  Then we got to a time where it was just to late for her to go to sleep unless I wanted her up at 3am.  No thanks.  So we waited it out.  I was just aiming to get to 6pm to put her down, but somewhere around 4:30, she sat up and started acting more lifelike.  Then she said,


"I going to go pway now."


She got down and went to play with her sisters for the next hour.  She ate her entire dinner later on too.  The migraine had apparently disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared earlier in the day.  It was as if nothing had ever happened.  It was just... weird.


My youngest sister, Megan, has suffered from migraines in the past and when I told her this story none of it surprised her like it did me.  Strong scents will trigger her migraines too.  She also told me how terribly awful you feel when you have one and when it's gone, it's just gone.  Like it never happened.  Usually, it happens after you sleep though.  That's what threw me off with Georgia yesterday, because she never slept again before it went away.  It was like a light switch just flipped off in her head.  Like I said, weird.


So, while it's true I didn't get much accomplished yesterday, it wasn't a total loss.  I did learn to keep Georgia away from strong scents, particularly the car freshener spritz.  Well, at least I'll save a little money next time I get my van washed.