Welcome to my blog! My goal is to share my struggle with chronic headaches with others so that together we can find a way to bash these painful life interruptions. I do not intend to complain and will try to write in a hopeful tone.
First, a little background info. I started getting headaches my senior year of high school, they got worse in college (probably due to my awful sleep schedule) and became migraines, and when I graduated college in 2004 they were back to bad headaches. I have seen four neurologists and have tried too many preventative medications to name, but none worked and I have had side effects including partial hair loss, dizziness, fainting, ringing in the ears, dry mouth, weight loss, weight gain and others from these drugs.
My current neuro said I have chronic daily headache. I usually have 15 headaches a month. Right now I take Aleve for some (which causes rebound headaches so I don't take it much) and Butalbital for the bad ones, which is a combination of Tylenol and caffeine and other things in one prescription pill (which can also cause rebounds). The traditional drugs - Imitrex, Frova, Rexpax, etc. - did not seem to help and actually made my headaches worse at times.
Birth control may or may not have affected my headaches; I've tried many forms of the pill, the patch, and currently have an IUD (Mirena) - I am married and have not had children, nor do I intend to have them until I get my money's worth out of the IUD, which insurance did not cover, but I will not even get started on insurance...
Legal stuff I should probably add - I am not a doctor and have not had any medical education (although my mom and sister are both nurses and I volunteered in a hospital for a few months). Please consult a doctor/neurologist before trying anything I might have tried. If something ends up working for me, which I pray to God it does, it will not necessarily work for you, and vice versa.
Thanks for reading, and please add your comments so we can have productive discussions. I now declare a war on headaches.
