It's been about six weeks since my trip up to Mayo Clinic where I saw a neurologist about my chronic migraine. I came away from that appointment feeling a lot of feels - relieved that the MRI showed my brain was normal (some people were shocked!), hopeful because the doc said that there was a chance he could reduce the number of migraines I had each month and eventually get me off the medication, and frustrated because I didn't really come away with a lot of new info or a deeper understanding of what is triggering them. Just a lot of feelings and a mysterious new pill.
I was really surprised by the reaction my initial blog post caused - lots of people who shared similar stories. And so much support and compassion. I'm very thankful for all of your kindness and concern! I thought it might be a good idea to write an update because I get a lot of questions...
I'm up to my full dosage of gabapentin, which is two pills three times a day. Good news is I haven't experienced many side effects. My hands and feet are a little more swollen sometimes, but it doesn't bother me too much. Given that I'm STILL trying to take off baby weight two years later, I was super nervous about any risk of weight gain. My skinny-ish jeans still fit, ya'll!
The frequency of my migraines hasn't gone down, but the severity of them has significantly decreased. Now many of them can be treated with naproxen instead of maxalt or imitrex (which are really hard on my body and have awful side effects). Since I've been on this stuff I haven't spent one day bed-ridden with pain. The frequent use of naproxen has caused some problems with swelling in my mouth and ulcers on my tongue. I looked it up and apparently that's a thing. Some people get stomach ulcers. I get tongue ulcers. So if you ever catch me talking with a lisp, you'll know why.
Headache log. So many dots.
I've been keeping a daily log of my headaches per doctor's orders. Any time the dots go to the right, that's a headache. So yeah, still a lot of em. I go back to Mayo sometime in March for a follow up visit. Again, I have no idea what to expect at that visit. My hope is that we'll start discussing some triggers based on what he is seeing in my headache log. We'll see...I'll keep you posted. Thanks for listening! xoxo