I'm Back! + Terrible Pain

Briar does research on Airplane Headache(AH)

Yes, it’s true! We are back in full swing! Time to regular post again! I planned to start editing my Alaska posts this morning, but today turned out to be a crazier day than anticipated.

Maybe I will write up the first one this evening after I hit publish on this. I’m going to be linking them at the bottom of my daily posts as I finish them, as well as restacking them into notes, so keep your eyes out for that so you can hear the entire adventure. Some fantastic things happened, and some wild things happened. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

But, let’s talk about today, shall we?

I wanted to sleep in(didn’t quite end up happening). I made it home just before 4 AM Central Time (Which felt more like 1 AM for me). There were some detours along the way that made the drive longer than initially anticipated.

There were a lot of deep conversations happening in the back of the van on the way here, but I couldn’t hear and thus didn’t join in on the early morning chat. The reason I couldn’t hear was that my ears still hadn’t popped from the flight. Even still, my hearing is muffled, but every couple of hours, they will pop again, and a bit of hearing gets restored.

On my flight yesterday and the bush flight the previous day, I experienced some of the worst pain of my entire life. I have quite a high pain tolerance, so to the people around me, I just looked like I was having some discomfort. I wanted to scream or pass out from the pain. It was terrible. But, I don’t know, being myself, I just kept quiet and clenched my teeth.

I have been sick with typical sickness symptoms (stuffy nose, sore throat, etc), and I believe that is why I was getting these headaches. I looked it up out of curiosity, and it turns out they are called Airplane Headaches. Fitting name if I do say so myself. They aren’t necessarily rare, but also aren’t particularly common. I read a study that said about 0.2% of flight passengers meet the requirements of Airplane Headache. With how bad it was, I think I would also meet those requirements.

The headache is known for only being on one side of your head and very pinpointed around your eye. It felt like I was being stabbed in the eye. I thought I ruptured a blood vessel in my brain or something, and I was internally bleeding/dying(thankfully, the second time I had already survived one, so I figured I’d be okay). Seriously, not fun. They last about 30+ minutes, and both of mine lasted around that long. As soon as we landed, I was better. I was a little surprised to find out in my 5-minute research spree that most people rate the pain at about 8 to 10 out of 10. So, close to the most severe pain you could be experiencing. Mine were probably more like an 8.5.

I mentioned on the second flight to the girl next to me that I felt like my head would explode. She offered me some pain medicine, I honestly don’t know why I didn’t take it😆.

Out of curiosity, I looked up what a few other painful experiences were usually rated on the pain scale. Turns out breaking your leg is usually a 7-8, and childbirth is around an 8-9. Those headaches were no joke, guys😅.

I hope this was just because I was sick, and it’s not going to become a recurring symptom of flying for me, because it was pretty awful.

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Darkness!!! I didn’t realize how much I would miss it! Yes, the midnight sun is something special, but it got old by day 3. Sure, it’s fun waking up in the middle of the night and not needing to use a flashlight, but it throws your circadian rhythms waaay off. My internal sleep clock was lucky that each night, I was so tired that I crashed immediately. Yeah, darkness is lovely. I’m peeking out of my window right now, and I very much appreciate it.

Well, a good chunk of the day was chatting with my mom about all of my adventures. She picked me up around 11 AM, and we ran some errands while I recounted my stories.

We went to Walmart so I could grab some groceries. While I was snatching some sandwich-making supplies, my eyes saw something that made me laugh.

I know airport food is ridiculously overpriced. Yesterday, I bought a meat and cheese tray at the Anchorage airport because I was starving and about to get on a 6-hour flight. It cost me $10.

The exact same tray was being sold at Walmart for under $3. Why do they need to make it that much more expensive?🤣 Oh well, it was pretty tasty, and I needed the protein badly at the time.

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That’s all for tonight!