1914 My Crazy Migraine Journey (Part 3)

DISCLAIMER, THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE, PLEASE SEEK OUT PROFESSIONAL HELP. FOR ANY OF THE METHODS OF RELIEF I TALK ABOUT TODAY ONLY TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK AND SPEAK TO A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL BEFORE TRYING THEM.

Just another little note, this post may not make complete sense if you haven’t read the first and second parts. I will leave the links for you to go back and read in just a few seconds.

Here are the links

Part 1

Part 2

If you are not interested in reading the first and second chapters, then here is a rough idea of what it said.

If you are not interested in reading the first and second chapters, then here is a rough idea of what it said. Part 1: I started getting migraines at the age of 11, I tried many methods of medication and relief. They randomly stopped happening frequently and then I only got 4 over the space of 7-8 years. Part 2: A few headaches throughout the years, sinus infections and ended up in the hospital once. Then had a killer migraine in August 2020. Click the above links to find out more.

Now then, on to chapter 3. I am slightly shocked that it has been this long, I thought it was going to be one little post but here we are.

Where did we land, oh yeah, I had just been prescribed the melt-under-tongue things. They continued to work. Do not taste good in the slightest but very much worth it. I just got on with my everyday life, if I felt a migraine, I would take one of the melt things, it would go, and the problem was solved. The melts did make me feel tired though.

Annoyingly I did use the 6 melts up quite quickly. I didn’t follow the instructions to phone the doctor back 3 weeks later. I was mostly waiting to see if they stopped happening because I had a change in circumstances, so I was seeing if that was the cause.

I did continue to get the dreaded migraines though. I worked out that on average I was getting 1 every 4 days which means 1-2 a week. That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? They were also hanging around for longer, for example, some migraines were in my system for 3-4 days and made me feel rubbish. I got a few migraines here and there throughout August, September, and October. I tried to shake them off, but then the next mega migraine hit. I am not sure if that is their scientific name of them, but I call migraines that last 3 days or more mega migraines or killer migraines. This is because they were knocking me out and making me feel so sluggish and gross for days.

Friday 16th August 2020, I woke up with another killer migraine. I knew it was going to be another bad one. I don’t know if this is normal, but I know from the minute I wake up how I will feel for that day. It could be from being ill so often, but I know if I wake up and jump out of bed, I know I will be fine, but if I am a little slow or struggle to get up, I know something is up.

I attempted to open my blinds and my head wasn’t having any of it. I made my way downstairs and had to hide my head from the light. We have an open plan downstairs, there are only three doors downstairs in my house, a front door, a back door and one internal door from the kitchen to the stairs, the rest is just open. My mum gave me a co-codamol to help, which it did. I managed to get out of the house but as soon as the co-codamol wore off it was back to kick my butt. I spent most of the weekend sitting or sleeping in a dark room, drinking lots, and taking various levels and types of medication to get rid of this migraine.

On the 20th of August, I gave in and phoned the doctors. I am not sure about everyone but my doctor’s surgery and doing mostly phone appointments. Then they decide if it is vital that they see you, if not they give you a prescription and send it directly to your pharmacy, I use a local independent one. So shortly after I phoned, I got a phone call from one of the doctors in the surgery, I didn’t expect it to be so quick. For privacy, I am not going to name the doctor, but I will tell you, she is brilliant. Couldn’t have asked her to do any better. When I was telling a friend about the phone call, my friend said, “Oh it’s good that they listened to you and believed you”. I realised that the fact the doctor wouldn’t believe me never crossed my mind.

I explained everything, the symptoms, how often, my background with migraines etc and after asking lots of questions, discussing it a little bit, asking about triggers and all the things to do with migraines my doctor decided to try a medication known as a preventative. In my case, it was a tablet that I would take daily to stop the migraines from happening. She gave me quite a lot of freedom which did put my mind at ease. She gave me a dose to start with and told me I can increase my dose twice without speaking to the doctors. If triple the starting dose didn’t work, then I should go back and maybe try something different.

I am now taking one a day. So far it is working, I haven’t had any of the side effects apart from one which is feeling a little tired but that isn’t anything new for me. I am on the fence about upping the dose as we speak. I am going to give it a couple more days and then decide.

That is the end of my journey for now.

So that is my journey so far, nothing new has happened since the new medication. I guess the next steps are just to continue with this medication and see what happens. Does it stop them, does it reduce them, do I have to swap to a different medication, do I need to change the dose? We will find out. Stay tuned because I do want to talk a bit more about food diaries, triggers, home remedies and anything else that I think of that I haven’t mentioned so far.

For anyone who experiences migraines or has done in the past I thought it might be useful or interesting for you to have an idea of how many I have had between July and October just for reference. If you have any helpful suggestions or things that have worked for you, please do leave them in the comments as they will be much appreciated. Here is a quick overview of the migraines I recorded (there were a couple that I forgot to record but here are all the ones I did keep a record of).

In July 2020, I got 4 migraines (the first one being on the 21st, so 4 in a matter of 10 days)

In August 2020, I got 11 migraines (approximately 1 every 3 days)

In September 2020, I got 3 (there were more, I just forgot to record them as September was a very strange month for me)

In October 2020, I got 4 migraines. I thought I was getting a fifth, but it fizzled out before it got anywhere.