drove today for hour and half in each direction to dr appt for son
 

so I left here 9am and returned at 1:30 and drove into nyc. I haven't driven more than 20 mins in the past 15 months! And my head hurts but no worse than any other day! I can't figure this out (unless the pain is yet to come tomorrow!) ANd to be driving in NYC no less!!!

If this appt was for myself I wouldn't go or would have gotten a ride, etc..but it was for my son -- I just figured I'd take the suffering later. So far, not nearly as bad as I expected....trust me not symptom free, but not much worse. I think I felt worse yesterday and barelydid a thing!!

I will say that I took an ambien last night and got decent sleep...whereas the prior two nights I barely slept.

am I in for a bad night and or awful day tomorrow?

IF you believe and anticipate an awful day tomorrow....you very well may have an awful day tomorrow. Believe that you will feel well. You set yourself up for failure if you keep saying over and over that you are going to have awful days because of x.y.z.

I drove to Santa Barbara from San Diego on Thanksgiving day. I had not driven further than 30 minutes for the past 7 months since my accident. It never once came into my mind that i wouldnt feel well during the drive...i believed it would be just fine. I did the 4 hours with no trouble at all. 2 days later, i drove the 4 hours home and had no issues at all. You can do whatever you set your mind to if you have to do it.

wtrpk and nightnurse30,

wow! I couldn't imagine a more intense driving feat than that!

I drove to a job interview the other day and had to deal with morning rush hour traffic in Phoenix in order to get to the appointment. I haven't driven in that for nearly a couple of years and it was a lot of visual information for my brain to deal with. Even more so as now I'm driving a car a much closer to the ground than my old SUV so I perceive things to be moving around much faster, as I tell my wife, "it's like I'm driving a go-cart"

It's not as bad as I imagined, tough, but not bad, mostly it was fatigue and slight eyestrain (which I don't understand). Overall, I can see improvement in my injury, and will continue to keep my brain healthy.

Mike

well i didn't suffer today ..but even with an ambien I didn't sleep well. I felt like my mind was racing...and that happens with any over stimulation of my brain like going to a restaurant, being out with friends..and now a long drive.

but the one thing I know for sure is I need to start doing more. I think I'm "afraid" of the consequences and not sure they will still be there.

well here I am today ...had to take my son for another dr appointment and I'm here to talk about it. (this one was only half hour away and we stopped at walmart too!)

I even took him for pizza and I still don't feel so bad.

The one thing I noticed after yesterday's long drive was that my ears were buzzing by the time I went to bed. I wasn't tolerating much..like my voice vibrating in my head was really bad and my left ear hurt, but I survived.

ALSO -- I couldn't sleep -- after half hour of turning I hit the ambien again..and only slept from 10:30 to about 3am then tossed and turned (with vertigo) until or 5 ...maybe caught an hour then tossed again until 8!! Could that be from too much stimulation?? Most times the ambien works better than that.

Yeah, insomnia was one of my early and persistent symptoms, until I got on amitriptyline.

Great news that driving is going better!

but didn't the amitriptyline make you exhausted? I tried it a few days and couldn't get past the exhaustion and I finally feel a little more energy during the day and don't want to sacrifice that!! I'm not even sure it will help with my symptoms of being off balance and my head hurting when I talk!!!

Yes, the first few days I was on amitriptyline I slept almost around the clock. It got better gradually (over a few weeks), and now I can function on a good solid 8 hours. Less than that and I'm still exhausted, but at least I'm able to sleep well during the 8 hours.

I too suffer from the insomnia. I can fall asleep but staying asleep was a problem. The doctor has increased my Amitryptaline to one hundred mg. at bedtime. When I first started the medication I slept like crazy which with our injury is a good thing.They increased it from 50mg to 100 mg about a month ago. I will say at first it worked well but I am finding myself having sleep problems again. I guess I have a high tolerance to medication,.

that"s exactly the opposite for me...i have no tolerance for medication. I tried the amitryptaline and felt so awful on it (which I later figured might have been from the drive to and from the dr) so I blamed it on the meds...(actually that happened twice). I'm really not willing to give up my daytime level of finally being able to function all day without crashing. I don;t feel right, but I felt this way just sitting in the house previously ...and was exhausted.

Hoping the ambien works tonight. I wonder how many take ambien..(going to post about that).