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Archive for the ‘migraines’ Category

Migraine Control

Posted in migraines, miscarriage on November 2, 2006| Leave a Comment »

I've decided, after having had a migraine every single day this week, without relief from Aleve or Codeine, to call my doctor's office and ask to be put back on Depakote temporarily. My logic is: I cannot take Provera to start a fertility treatment cycle until four weeks after my hCG level bottoms out. Since my hCG level doesn't appear to be interested in bottoming out any time soon, I'm not going to get bloodwork done until 11/10. I actually doubt it's going to have bottomed out by then, but even if it does, the earliest I could take Provera would be December 11th, and it would be at least 14 days after that before a treatment cycle could start (bringing us to December 25). That's the most optimistic timetable.

This means that I have probably a minimum of 7-8 weeks before I have to worry about the effects of Depakote. Seth says it should take no more than 5 days for Depakote to get out of my system, so I'm good there. I don't know if two months on Depakote is enough to help my migraines enough, but I do know that other than ridiculous weight gain, I didn't have many horrible side effects from Depakote, so it can't hurt to try. If I'm lucky, it will take, say, 2 weeks for the Depakote to start being effective and that will still give me a good six weeks of migraine relief that I don't have right now.

If the codeine were helping enough, I'd say that it's not worth it to do this. It's a lot of trouble and a lot of ifs for some "maybe" results. But I don't think at this point I have much to lose. There's no possibility of me becoming pregnant between now and if my doctor's that worried about it, I will resume my previous practice of taking regular pregnancy tests to ensure that I'm not pregnant while taking it. (Wouldn't THAT be funny?)

I'm sure my RE would disagree with me, but my RE isn't the one who has had five migraines so far this week. Plus, my RE is on maternity leave, and I'm not calling the pinch-hitter-RE to confirm what I already know he's going to say.

So I have a call into my primary care physician's office asking to please speak with the nurse practitioner (who follows most of my care) so that I can have her call me in a prescription for Depakote. I feel good about this. Particularly in light of the fact that I don't have anything stronger than Aleve here at the office.

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migraine-city

Posted in migraines on October 23, 2006| 5 Comments »

Yeah. So I would like for these migraines to stop now, please. I feel like I’ve been in a constant state of headache since the miscarriage, and I am decidedly unappreciative.

Yes, that which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, but ENOUGH already. I’m happy being a weakling girly-girl.

When I was actively cycling, or when I was actually pregnant, I could handle the migraines. I knew I was “taking one for the team” by not taking any preventive medicine. But right now, with everything in flux, I just want to take something prophylactically to stop them from happening in the first place, but I can’t until I find out how long it will be until I can go through a treatment cycle again. If it’s going to be three months, then it might be worth taking Depakote in the interim. But if it’s only going to be 6 weeks, it’s not worth it. Depakote is a miracle drug in my opinion, but not unless I can take it for a while.

Meanwhile, taking pain medicine is starting to backfire. See, if you take too much pain medicine for migraines, eventually you get these lovely things called “rebound headaches.” Truth be told, I think the rebound headaches are worse than the migraines and there’s even LESS I can do to relieve the pain, because just about anything I could take for the pain would result in just more rebounding. It’s fun, really. I think my first experience with rebound headaches was when I was around 12 years old and I found it just as insulting and irritating as I do today. Argh.

Oh well, at least I can take Aleve now, which I couldn’t have taken if I were still pregnant. One small victory. You know, if I’d remembered to bring any to work, that is. I started a new job last week, so I’m trying to remember to bring things like that back in to the office. And when I do finally remember, oh sweet joy!

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migraine-city

Posted in migraines on October 23, 2006| 7 Comments »

Yeah. So I would like for these migraines to stop now, please. I feel like I've been in a constant state of headache since the miscarriage, and I am decidedly unappreciative.

Yes, that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger, but ENOUGH already. I'm happy being a weakling girly-girl.

When I was actively cycling, or when I was actually pregnant, I could handle the migraines. I knew I was "taking one for the team" by not taking any preventive medicine. But right now, with everything in flux, I just want to take something prophylactically to stop them from happening in the first place, but I can't until I find out how long it will be until I can go through a treatment cycle again. If it's going to be three months, then it might be worth taking Depakote in the interim. But if it's only going to be 6 weeks, it's not worth it. Depakote is a miracle drug in my opinion, but not unless I can take it for a while.

Meanwhile, taking pain medicine is starting to backfire. See, if you take too much pain medicine for migraines, eventually you get these lovely things called "rebound headaches." Truth be told, I think the rebound headaches are worse than the migraines and there's even LESS I can do to relieve the pain, because just about anything I could take for the pain would result in just more rebounding. It's fun, really. I think my first experience with rebound headaches was when I was around 12 years old and I found it just as insulting and irritating as I do today. Argh.

Oh well, at least I can take Aleve now, which I couldn't have taken if I were still pregnant. One small victory. You know, if I'd remembered to bring any to work, that is. I started a new job last week, so I'm trying to remember to bring things like that back in to the office. And when I do finally remember, oh sweet joy!

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