The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness. – Friedrich Nietzsche

How much is too much? I've been wondering this for a few weeks now, particularly every time I get a migraine, which is about once a week at the moment. When I don't have one I tell myself I'll keep a really diligent migraine diary for another month (making a total of two months reliably recorded) then go back to my neurologist to adjust my medication. At other times, when I'm feeling plagued by the latest migraine, I'm tempted to call him right then and book in.

Image from: http://erviluca.com/2014/03/05/

I'm also struggling with whether I want to continue on the current medication or not, which I need to decide before I see the neurologist. On one hand, I have very few side effects from it, and virtually none on the current dose. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to be working very effectively if I'm getting a migraine a week and taking 2-3 days off every fortnightly pay cycle. If I raise the dose again, I'm worried I'll start gaining weight again (woo-hoo for big, fat side-effects!). However, if I go off it, then who knows how long it'll take to find another medication that controls them even a little and has manageable side-effects.

I'm also starting to contemplate treatments I'd never considered before: botox and ECT (electroconvulsive therapy). I'm feeling the emotional toll as well and wondering about support groups or seeing a counsellor again to help manage the despair, frustration and hopelessness that's creeping in.

Does anyone have any suggestions? 
(Please post in the comments below.)

'Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.' – Douglas Adams

Right now I’m living between migraines. It’s like flying: when it’s working it feels wonderful and light and free; but when things go wrong it’s going to hurt. I’m getting about one a week and on the days when I don’t have a migraine, I am grateful and productive. At first I would be on tenterhooks anticipating the next fall (migraine), but that’s a waste of time and energy. This has helped me to be more present and appreciative of health, when I have it.

There’s a problem, though. My current prescription will run out just before I see my neurologist in a week or so. I’m hoping he will suggest some other medication so I don’t want to fill another repeat of the current one. I am coping pretty well on this lower dose with only a mild weekly migraine. If I go off all medication, I might go back to two or three migraines a week. Now cheapness and treatment are battling it out in my head. Which logic will win?

'Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world… Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen.' – The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Findings were released this week about the effectiveness of placebo pills and patient's expectations in relation to migraine pain relief. (One of many articles can be read here.) I find it interesting but not surprising that our brain 'trick' us into feeling better than medicine alone. Given that this week I'm going to start weaning off Topomax, I'm wondering if I can convince my brain that it doesn't need to give me migraines in the process. Even if I can't do that, it would be nice to convince myself that feverfew and lavender are an effective substitute. Fingers crossed.

'Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with migraine; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy.' – Akhenaton

I'm going to do something this year that I haven't done before: make migraine New Year Resolutions (and no others). This is with the hope that it will help me continue to get a handle on my chronic migraines, but also improve my quality of life.

As it stands right now, I've been on Topomax daily for about fifteen months and been sick on and off for about fifteen months. My migraines have been pretty manageable, which is good, but I have been losing weight and struggling under constant minor illnesses. I don't know if the two are related, but anti-epileptic medicines are pretty heavy-duty and hopefully my resolutions will help with overall health, not just migraine-maintenance.

My resolutions are:
1) Drink more water – 1.5L is what the calculations seem to say I should be drinking.
2) Replace Topomax with herbal migraine prophylactics such as feverfew and lavender – the caveat on this one is that my quality of life needs to be the test. If these herbals don't sufficiently control the migraines, then I'll re-evaluate.
3) Do more meditation/yoga – aim for three times per week (or more).
4) Try a variety of anti-migraine alternatives throughout the year and record the results – approach them open-mindedly, try at least six this year.

‘Migraine, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me.’ – The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

I thought I should share my migraine credentials. I started getting migraines when I was 17 (about half my lifetime ago). I would wake up every Friday in the middle of the night. After a trip to the bathroom to be sick, I would go back to bed and usually be ok by the next day. For weeks it happened like clockwork. Then in university the migraines would flair up during exam times, sometimes lasting for a week. I got through it, became a teacher and continued getting them during stressful times like camp and report-writing weeks at the end of each term. Throughout this period, I relied on painkillers and rest, although somehow I rarely took sick days.

Then during one summer break in my twenties things changed. I don’t know what triggered it, and my doctors didn’t seem interested in helping me find out. For weeks I got migraines every two to three days. I would be recovering from one when the next one would hit. I feel immense gratitude that I wasn’t working at the time because I would not have been able to continue. I saw GPs and a neurologist, who gave me stronger painkillers and the first of my daily, chronic migraine medications. Since I didn’t like the idea of being on drugs that could be doing who-knew-what to my brain, I began exploring alternative treatments.

Today I have gone on and off many daily, preventative medications with varying results and side-effects. I’ve visited many alternative, non-Western, traditional (whatever you want to call them) practitioners also with varying results and side-effects. I think I’ve been given advice from every medical and non-medical person I’ve met, whether I asked for it or not. This blog will be my chance to document some of that and (hopefully) explore some new or untried options so that I don’t need to rely on the current brain-chemistry altering medications forever.