Wednesday, November 03, 2010

grateful

October had many good things but a main theme was, unfortunately, nagging chronic migraines. I've had migraines before and went to a doctor in July or August because I was worried something might be really wrong with me. He told me ti was probably just stress and that I could have a bunch of drugs if I want. I told him that I would rather quit my job and leave my life here than take his stupid drugs. But I'm not quite ready to leave and I fear that I'll take my migraines with me, so I've been searching for alternatives.

I've been seeing a yoga therapist, meditating about twice a day (did you know that this can shrink the part of your brain that feels pain!?! cool), doing acupuncture once a week, given up coffee and wheat (no birthday cake this year) and for a while nothing got better. BUT, last Friday, the migraines kind of broke like a fever and I've been mostly ok since. I hope, I hope, I hope it lasts...

So my first free day and, as usual, I was out on my bike.

One of my favorite things about living in Japan is cycling in the mountains. I'm out almost every weekend. Occasionally both days if weather and social obligations permit. This week we had a national holiday on a Wednesday.

There were mountains and changing leaves and maybe 5 dozen cyclists working there way through the various passes and valleys. I ran into two I knew! Tokyo can be a very small place sometimes.

That's it for now. After a beautiful 100km, 1121m climbing, it's bedtime.



1 comment:

Seph said...

My sister used to have terribly bad migraines for a few years. She tried a bunch of things, including some migraine medications, which didn't help too particularly much. Ultimately, a doctor diagnosed her as having a wheat gluten allergy. She gave up wheat and about the same time the migraines went away.

It's unclear if this is a coincidence or not (she eats wheat again now and feels fine), but it's at least a data point for you to consider.

Anyway, I'm glad you're feeling better. Bike rides sound awesome!

(And PS: your first image is linked to a gmail attachment, so only someone logged in to your gmail account -- i.e., not me -- would be able to see it).