Dr. Williams

January 2013
My newest neurologist is a headache specialist that only treats adults.  Dr. Williams.  She's wonderful.  The day before my first appointment with her I had a migraine from hell.  It wouldn't respond to anything I took.  It was so bad I couldn't sleep at all.  At 3 AM I was in excruciating pain and the percocet I had taken an hour earlier wasn't even touching this thing.  My doctor's appointment was at 10 AM.  I just had to make it to 10 AM. I didn't make it.  At 5 AM I woke my husband and made him take me to the ER.  I was out of options on the medicine front - I had hit my acetaminophen limit with the percocet.  (Actually, I was having difficulty recalling exactly how much of what I had taken and when and was concerned that I may have already OD'd on acetaminophen.)  So off to the ER I go where I was given morphine.  Morphine didn't touch my migraine.  So I was given another dose.  Nothing.  We moved on to dilaudid.  FINALLY!  Some measure of relief.  But I also started puking every 10 minutes.  (And the anti-nausea medication they gave me didn't help.)

I got out of the ER just in time to go to my neurologist appointment.  Bless her, she met me drunk on dilaudid, still in some pain, quite confused and foggy, struggling to stay awake and running to the bathroom to puke every 10 minutes.  I was a hot mess.  But I came prepared and organized with my headache logs and my medication/treatment journal.  I had made copies for her to keep.  I still remember how surprised she was to see it all and I remember that she said to me, "I wish all my patients were this organized." 

I think my favorite thing about Dr. Williams is that she makes me feel like we're a team.  She thinks out loud so I can feel like we actually discuss things and not like she just tells me what we're going to try next. 

Graston Technique

So on the premise that a possible cause of my headaches and migraines was muscle tension and chronic inflammation of soft tissues my chiropractor tried the Graston Technique. You can learn more about it here
http://www.grastontechnique.com/  
Now, this isn't a photo of me, but this is what I looked like when I was done

Pretty, isn't it?
It doesn't hurt much while it's being done, but once finished it looks like you just had a very painful procedure. 

It's been a while

I can't believe how much time has passed since my last entry.  I sort of began this blog as a way to keep everything straight for myself so when a doctor asked if I'd tried something I could remember 1) if I had, 2) if it worked (the answer here is usually "no") and 3) what were the side effects. Well, thanks to a wonderful program called Evernote, I haven't needed a blog to keep track of my migraine and headache filled life anymore.  But I came to realize a few months ago that at least one person keeps track of me on this blog, so maybe I should write every once in a while.


So let's see ... November 2012 was my last entry .....
Dr. Hansen is the newest chiropractor.  He's great.  A no bullshit guy, really up front about things.  He tried something very new with me.  It's called the Graston Technique.  (I'll post later what it is.)  It leaves me with red and purple bruises that look like hickeys all up and down the back of my neck and on my shoulders and back.  Well we tried that twice a week for several weeks.  Finally he said it was clearly not going to work or it would have already. 

Time

I bought a Groupon for a massage and as is often the case, there are strings attached, the massage comes with a sales pitch.  Only it wasn't a pushy sales pitch at all.  The massage is at a chiropractors clinic.  I began thinking about my insurance (it only pays for 12 sessions a year) and when it ran out and when it reset and then it hit me ...
It was over a year ago that I was seeing Dr. Nate. How long had I been suffering before I decided to go to Nate?  And I've just had another anniversary.  It was sort of demoralizing to realize how long I've been suffering with no solution in sight.

Keppra

The Verapamil was a no go.  Perhaps I was being overly optimistic that it would work.  Perhaps I am still overly optimistic that anything will work.  Not ready to give up hope yet (although I do have my days).

Tried Keppra for 8 weeks.  I experienced virtually no change.  I look back on my journal and I see a week where I was headache free, but I think that it may have been a reporting error more than anything else.  I was transitioning into a new job, while still working at my old job and I think I just forgot to always log when I had a headache and it's severity.  (It's hard enough to remember when I don't have life changes happening.)

Called the doctor last week to report that the Keppra wasn't working and I was ready for something else.  When he prescribed the Keppra 9 or so weeks ago he wanted me to know that we hadn't quite exhausted all of our options.  But that he completely understood if I chose to pursue another avenue with another doctor.  I thought that was nice of him.  When he found out I had visited the horrible doctor at the University (the so-called "expert") I felt a little like I'd betrayed him so this was nice to hear.  I know, it's silly of me, but when I've been seeing someone for over a year - even in a professional manner like this - I feel some sort of loyalty to him/her.

Keppra dosage has been upped.  I guess that was his next plan of attack.  Will it work?  I'm not one bit optimistic about it (although I admittedly refilled the prescription anyway).  Looks like I'm doctor shopping again.  What avenue to try next?

Verapamil Take 2

Went back on Verapamil.  Felt like, at this point, I was running out of options, and since it had been years since I was on Verapamil and of everything I had ever taken it had worked the best, the longest, and with the fewest side effects, maybe I had been off it long enough it would work again.
So I am now 5 weeks in and ...No luck.
My neurologist was kind enough, when I went in 5 weeks ago to ask for Verapamil, to tell me that we really aren't out of options and to give me some hope.
Monday, I was back to the doctors.  It was my regularly scheduled Botox injection which I opted not to have.  Sure the reduced wrinkles are nice, but it's not working (and I miss being able to look surprised). :)
So my newest experiment is Keppra.  Another anti-convulsant.  This one doesn't have the side effect of ADD like Topomax did (thank goodness!).  It has a much more pleasant side-effect - it may make me ornery.  Some of you may not be able to comprehend how I can possibly be any more ornery.  This is going to be an exciting discovery for all of us! I have horrible nightmarish memories of my days on the Nuvra Ring still fresh in my mind and how much I hated the entire world and nearly everyone in it.  So honestly, the thought of a mood change as a side-effect is not appealing to me.  But I thought of it this way, if I continue to have headaches and migraines every day I'm going to be miserable and that is going to make me ornery and hate the entire world and nearly everyone in it anyway.
The appeal to me when the doctor mentioned Keppra is that it is believed to act on the nervous system and bring it back to balance.  Since migraines are now believed to be the result of an over-active or over-sensitive nervous system I have been considering treatments and medications that are more in tune with regulating my nervous system. We'll see if I'm back on here in a month or two complaining about Keppra or signing it's praises.

Ultracet

Trying out another abortive since I can't take triptans and Fioricet didn't seem to be working.
Took my first dose of ultracet on Monday.  Took another one yesterday.  So far, I'm not impressed :(
Need something today, but I see no point in taking ultracet and I am trying to figure out what has been making me feel nauseous, dizzy, and "yucky" the past 3 days