Rain in the winter makes me unsettled, especially a LOT of rain with thunder but no lightning in what should be a frozen mid winter. Though there has to be lightning somewhere as the lightning actually creates the thunder. However yesterday and last night we had lots of rain, dense fog and some thunder but no lightening of the skies. In an ordinary climate rain in the winter would be normal but here we are trained to expect ice and snow, not a couple of days of warm rain. 
However it is water in the ground and that is a good thing. It is unusually warm and wet for January. But this will change in a few days of course. Hopefully before any buds appear on the trees. This has happened before too.
Victoria is here, which is good as yesterday I was suffering from one of my infrequent ice pick headaches. Some people call them the ice pick migraine. Otherwise known, by me before I knew what they were, as The Bad Head. I have always had headaches and this is a nastiest headache of them all. It happens maybe once or twice a year. It just keeps jabbing and jabbing for seconds at a time, every few minutes, sometimes four or five hits within a minute, at random intervals for a day and sometime two or three days and one cannot help but cringe every time the ice pick hits. There is no warning. The pain is so strong that sometimes it makes your knees go. It is very hard to keep ones face calm.
I only mention this as I only recently found out what this headache is, up until now I simply never mentioned them to anyone because I did not want to sound pathetic, but yesterday was particularly bad, the random ice pick jabbing at my head all day long. Cringing and ducking away from the pain before I can stop myself. By the end of the day I felt sick with it all. And if you get them as well, I am here to say you are not alone and there is nothing you can do but wait until bed time then lay your head down. A still head seems to cope with the Bad Head better. It is a primary headache, in that it is not a symptom of anything else. The pain is the whole thing.
And it is still knifing into me at irregular this morning.
I have read them described as harmless which makes me want to give the author of that sentence a fast jab to the head with my metaphorical pick axe.
Now that I know what this is called, and know that other people get them as well, I don’t feel so bad somehow. The pain is still untenable but it is not threatening to kill me now. It has a name and company. Isn’t that just human nature.
You know I do not want messages of sympathy – I am only telling you this in case one of you has the same headaches and you might like company! Or at least know that you are not alone. And yes I know misery likes company. Tomorrow will be better.
It may begin to lessen today. But resting does not help, it is just an endurance test. So, after we have finished all the chores Victoria and I are going to gather everything necessary to make this years soap.
I hope you have a lovely day,
Love celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
77 responses to “Ice Pick Head Ache”
Joining that headache club with you C. I remember the feeling but thankfully they rarely come anymore. Wanted to literally cut my head off.. Feel better and be careful if all those puddles turn to ice soon.
That is what scares me – the rain is all very well but it will get cold again (tonight) and then we will be walking across sheets of ice.. c
Maybe its just time to lace up the ice skates 😉
Hope the ice pick headaches disappear soon but you may need an ice pick when all that rain freezes. Even here in the city there are some very treacherous patches of ice that weren’t cleared away (mostly on the paths in the parks) and I’ve taken a couple of falls already.
Oh NO! Falling on the ice is bad! You need my boots with the spikes. c
My husband has them but never uses them. Maybe I should borrow his.
My yard , only a half day’s drive from your headache, looks like it may be building towards one. Right now maybe more of a head cold–the fog and drizzle, the dark circles on tree trunks, the merciless drip-dripping, the thickness in the air. I think it just wants to go back to sleep for the day. I may just do that too, after I go back and read about Sheila and her piled-up straw.
I need to work on that shed today too – with the rain the calves are in the bedroom more and it needs a good clean up. c
I’ve been very lucky; I don’t get headaches except as an indication of something else very wrong, so only — gosh, I can’t remember when I last had one. But I once had a friend that had a “cluster migraine”, she called it, and if that’s what your ice pick one is, then you have my full support. It’s no fun! And with this weird weather, I wonder if they are brought on with changes in atmospheric pressures… perhaps in combination with that flu bug you’ve been fighting off.
Very mild and wet here also, with promise of more wintery weather by tomorrow evening when the temp drops back down below freezing again. I have always figured that any day in January with temps over the freezing point is a bonus. I love it! But then I’m not operating a business that is affected by weather changes.
Hope things are looking up very soon! ~ Mame 🙂
A cluster headache is actually different. That is when you get a series of headaches one after the other sometimes over a course of months. That does sound nasty indeed, your poor friend.. c
Well, knowing that isn’t what you’re suffering from then I can tell you she ended up in hospital for a long visit, and under severe drugs to bring her back around again. Poor thing is right, she was seriously out of it for an extended time. Hoping yours is easing.
I had a whopper of a headache yesterday too. Worst in years. Today is better. Hello to Victoria and soap making. What fun! Let her help and enjoy the visit. We have sunshine today.
I love the soap making period. The house smells quite divine as they all cure. c
Terry has been getting these type of headache lately. They are terribly hard to deal with. I hope you feel better soon.
Linda
I hope he is not getting too many bouts – they are wretched.. c
They are wretched…and there seems to be nothing one can do to stop them.
You have my sympathy anyway. Mine aren’t the Ice Pick variety, they’re the ‘large 6 inch nail through the right eye with associated light show’ variety and they last three days every 3 weeks. Beta blockers are helping, a bit. Anyway, I hope that your soap making activities and the soothing aromas of whatever you scent it with will help – especially if it’s lavender.
Yes, lavender is my favourite! c
I get that rarely and thankfully, short duration. Hours of it would be miserable. Feverfew helps migraines, maybe it might lessen the frequency and severity? Hope you feel better fast and good you have Victoria to help. This past summer I helped make laundry soap with my girlfriend who owns and runs a B&B in Glen Margaret, Nova Scotia. Reduce, reuse, recycle
I don’t like headaches. I used to have long lasting (days) pounding ones that just floored me, then those stopped and I’d get those ice pick things several times a year. Now those are gone too, only the odd, rare tension headache which is easily dealt with. You’re right the only way to deal with the ice pick ones is to do as much as you can and not give in to them. I think they are a blood vessel having a spasm and constricting strongly, doesn’t help but I would think lavender would help since it relaxes the whole body. I did find that getting my head lower than my body helped shorten the duration of the ice picks.
[J] I get those headaches too, Celi. I’ve been a migraine sufferer since I was a child, but these ice-pick headaches are different – they never morph into a migraine. Migraine for me is mainly environmental/chocolate/dark beer/tannin-rich wine etc etc, plus stress. The ice-pick ? No idea. Thankfully not very often. Tioraidh an drasd’ !
I suffer from migraines as well. But mine are the cluster variety. Half my head in agony. So I am with you, sister.
So many with nasty headaches, wishing you all well. i only get a headache if I’m not drinking enough water…..so I make I do. No ice here, but paths slicked with slippery moss from the heat, rain and humidity, so we will both take care where our feet go.
Sharing is caring ♡ I suffered from migraines for years and extensive testing by GPs focussed frustratingly on my mother’s early death from a brain tumour. It was only in my early 40’s a new GP advised me they were mini-stroke migraines linked to the contraceptive pill I’d been prescribed off & on since my late teens. I think info sharing and carefully considered Dr Google research can offer perspectives that may not be available via mainstream-irl medicine.
oh me oh my oh….get well soon.
Headaches like that are horrible. I have had them since my 30’s but they do not come very often anymore. For me, stress brings them on… always the day after the stressful situation goes away or ends. Always. I hope you feel right again after you lay your head down for the night. I wonder if it is the brain or something else that initiates those bastard headaches?