Back to the frickin' drawing board

[bronwynrh]

Well dammit. Dammit all to heck.

So I told you all on Monday that I'd begun taking Topamax, the putative wonder drug that was going to banish my migraines forevermore. I had a lot of hope. A whole lot of hope.

I also had an annoying little side effect called menorrhagia. Follow the link if you really want to know what it is. The definition sounds severe, but it really isn't that bad right now. Granted my dose hadn't increased yet, so the menorrhagia may have gotten worse. I don't know.

Anyway, I called my neurologist this morning, told him it was annoying, but not that bad, what should I do? He said stop taking it.

But it's not that bad, really, and I'm not active right now, so pregnancy isn't an issue, can't we just wait?

No. Stop taking it now, try the frovatriptan if you get a migraine and we'll try to come up with something at your next appointment.

Fuck. I am so disappointed right now, I'm almost sick about it. And I'm getting a headache. Goddamit.

Maybe I'll wind up back on the elavil, at a higher dose. Which means I'll be dead tired in the evenings and I'll probably gain weight. Fantastic.

Comments

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

):

Poor Bronwyn.

Migraines suck.

I think we should stage a protest against them.

Live for free in the Dunn Meadow, claiming that we'll never leave until migraines have been banished forever!

snicker

But seriously, I hope you find something that works for you! It's just no fair to have to give up half the week to a "headache" that feels as though someone's ripping your left hemisphere out with a spaghetti spoon...and then banging on a pot with the aforementioned spaghetti spoon...

Migraines bad.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, my wife's got those, too. :( You sound like you've been through the whole runaround wrt drugs, but she takes imitrex (pretty common, I think--so you've probably already tried it or can't for some reason). There's some handy books out there on the subject, I'll peek at our bookshelf when I remember.

Imitrex's side effects are a bit scary if you're not used to them (weird heart rate stuff), but then again, I'd call those other symptoms scary, too. (!) It's good to be male, I tell you.

Some possible precursors of hers:

Low blood sugar
Dehydration (maybe)
Being out in sun all day
High sodium

The last is kinda interesting--she'd get sick+migraine after chinese red sauces (sweet and sour type). We couldn't figure it out. Wasn't MSG, and we eventually just figured it was probably the high sodium.

-Rich