War on Headaches readers, meet Ellie!

Hi, I'm Ellie and I'm a spoiled puppy!

Jonathan and I FINALLY found the perfect dog for us! We adopted Ellie 11/11/11, which is how we (Jonathan) came up with her name. She came from Saving Grace which is near where we live in N.C. They think her mom is a Sheltie/Cavalier King Charles Spaniel mix and they don't know what her dad is, but some people tell me they can see long-haired dachshund. She 3 1/2 months old and about 8 lbs. so she'll probably be a small dog (her mom is 16 lbs.) which is good because we're still living in our condo which isn't the largest.

The first weekend we had her, I got up about 3-4 times each night/morning to take her out, and she had diarrhea from giardia (parasite) so I had little sleep and lots of messes to clean up. Even so, I didn't have a headache the entire weekend. Unfortunately, after that they came back as normal and got bad for a while because I was under so much stress with final projects and exams. Now that the semester is over with, I've had fewer headaches although I did have one today that Aleve didn't help much, but walking Ellie in the crisp, fresh air did help!

Ellie has been SO much fun and definitely worth the extra work. I've been getting more exercise just from going up and down the stairs to take her out every few hours, which is good because I had been slacking ever since I had costochondritis.

Oh a quick update unrelated to my puppy...I was taking 5-HTP for about 3 months and didn't notice any improvement in my headaches/migraines, so I stopped it - gradually, of course. It did help my anxiety, but I don't feel like the anxiety is bad enough to require pills. I need to do more research, but a friend gave me an article from Prevention Magazine about melatonin helping migraines, so that's probably going to be the next thing I try. Have any of you tried melatonin for headaches/migraines?

More cute puppy pictures? Of course!