Headache

I woke up with a headache yesterday - something that is not as uncommon as it used to be. When I was younger I'd only get the occasionally, but I'd be able to sleep them off - they'd be gone after a nap or the next morning. These days, not so much.

When I gave blood on Thursday I was asked if I'd taken any pain medication in the past seven days - I realised I'd had ibuprofen (it's in Nurofen, but I take it in Herron Blue because it comes in a handy handbag pack) on Monday night and Saturday night. She told me she hoped it wasn't for the same headache and I reassured her that no, it wasn't.

As I lay in bed with a dull thumping behind my right eye I counted the amount of ibuprofen I had taken recently: 2 last Friday, 2 on Saturday, 2 on Monday, 2 on Thursday, 2 on Friday, 2 on Friday night. Hrm.

I decided (and The Hun insisted) that I perhaps give it a break. Obviously the headache couldn't have been withdrawals (having taken 4 in the past 24 hours) but it can't be very good for me. At all.

I must say, yesterday was a sh!tty day. I drove over to The Hun's mechanic friends place so his car could get serviced, I made Hash Browns for breakfast (ZomgSoGood*) and then I lay about on the couch for 5 hours moping and pouting and napping and considering just taking the tablets. At Jey's suggestion I heated up my wheatbag for my neck (all headaches seem to come with some neck pain for me) which didn't really help but felt lovely and cosy. At another of Jey's suggestions I nagged The Hun for a neck massage which was nice, but also rather unhelpful. The fixer? Heading over to The Hun's parents for dinner with his grandparents - 2 vegan sausages, a turkish roll, a baked potato, some fruit, some cashews and tonnes of those Rosemary and sea salt biscuits.

So, first step is going to be trying to cut out the ibuprofen. I'm hoping it's not too much of a big deal, but if yesterdays headache had occurred on a weekday I'd have been completely useless (or more so).

Then, I'm going to try to cut back on processed foods. Which really, won't be too big a deal - mainly my snacks and my redeye (Sob! Goodbye love!). But, no rush - gradual might be the way to go (those caffeine withdrawal headaches are going to be a total b!tch without ibuprofen!).

*Hash Browns:
- Grate a small onion into a bowl and grate three peeled potatoes into another bowl.
- Heat a frypan on medium and add half a tablespoon of olive oil and half a tablespoon of Nuttelex.
- Cook a third of the onion.
- Squeeze one third of the potato between paper towels to get out as much of the juices as you can, then add to the frypan and squoosh flat with spatula.
- Cook for roughly five minutes until the bottom side is cooked then remove.
- Add half a teaspoon of olive oil and half a teaspoon of Nuttelex into the pan and put the uncooked side of the hash brown down into the pan.
- Cook for another five minutes until you're happy, remove from pan and cover in salt, exclaim to all a sundry how fantastic it is.