'Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let everynew year find you a better man.' -- Benjamin Franklin

This year my goal is to have fewer migraines than last year. It's started out well since I haven't had one in over a week. As long as I don't start getting them a couple of times a week, then I'll be doing better. Ideally it will be a healthier year, but I'll have to see how hip surgery goes. Once the labral tear is all fixed, I'd like to get back into yoga, bike riding and tennis. I'd also like to restart boxing, which I did a few years ago and enjoyed.

What are your health goals for 2015?

You can read my Small Considerations blog for some links to websites to help you with your resolutions.

'People grow through experience if they meet migraines honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.' – Eleanor Roosevelt

I haven't written on this blog for a while. This much is obvious from the dates of posts. I hadn't really thought about posting because this blog, like many other simple routines, went out of my head for the last month or so. I've been getting about two migraines a week and that, I think, has led to mild depression. One of those factors would limit my ability to write, but two has slowed word count  production right down, and I didn't even care. In fact, it didn't even register until about a week ago.

Now that the migraines are back to about once a week and things are looking up again, I'm back. I feel like I should tie up some loose ends from the past six months of this blog. Then I'll move on to new topics in the coming posts.

New Year's Resolutions:
Yoga/meditate – I have not got into the habit of doing it three times at week like I had planned. I manage about once a week, formally, then meditate informally whenever I can: on the tram, walking home, when it's quiet in the office, in the shower or before bed. I was loaned an excellent book recently called The 5-minute Meditator by Eric Harrison, which talked about ways to incorporate more meditation into daily life. I will keep striving for more yoga and meditation, less TV and internet time.

Water – I have accomplished this one. I am drinking at least 1.5L a day, often more. I will try to keep this up. Although I haven't noticed any miraculous benefits, I'm probably healthier for it.

Topomax – I am almost totally weaned off Topomax, but not onto herbal alternatives. Based on the past few months of horrific, regular migraines and my resulting inability to cope, I am going onto a new drug, Sandomigran. In the two weeks I've been on it, it hasn't cured my migraines, but they have eased. I can still raise the dose if I need to and my neurologist assures me there are other things we can try if this one doesn't work.

Alternative treatments – I've tried two and a half new ones by my count.
Regular acupuncture: Acupuncture with a chiropractic adjustment seems to help keep things loose and working properly, especially around the time of my period. Weekly acupuncture was a nice, little, relaxing treatment on a Friday night, but it didn't seem to do anything about the relentless migraine spiral I was in. It's too expensive to keep up without major benefits on the migraine front.

The elimination diet: It had no effect whatsoever unless you count the general cleanse. I learned some new recipes, tried some new foods and am more aware of preservatives, sulphites and other similar baddies in processed foods. In terms of migraines, there was no change.

Kinesiology: I'm in the process of trying Kinesiology to get to the root of my chronic migraine problems. I'll post more about this later, but for the moment I'll say that the treatment sessions are a bit unusual, but my practitioner makes some interesting points about trauma manifesting in the body, suppression of anger and other emotions, and depressive tendencies which I can see in myself.

'The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own migraines.' - The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I've had my New Year's resolutions for about two weeks now and I feel like I should confess how I'm doing to hopefully push myself to do better. Usually when I'm trying to start a new habit I bribe myself with money that I can use on fun, off-budget purchases. I haven't set up anything like that this time, which might be why I'm having mixed results. I am drinking more water, at least a litre and usually the 1.5L that I'm aiming for. I am in the process of weaning off Topomax and have been taking a pill that has things like feverfew, valerian and butterbur daily. I have meditated a few times, but not three times a week. I usually feel good when I meditate (or do yoga), but I often find other, more 'productive' things to do when I first wake up or in the few extra minutes before I leave for work. Finally, other than the herbal pills (and my normal restricted diet and monthly chiro/acupuncture) I haven't tried any new remedies for migraines. It's partly because I want to stabilise on the non-pharmaceuticals first, partly because I haven't had many migraines in the last few weeks. I have been trying to record my migraines, but am discovering that it's often hard to know what to write down: which of the many variables from the past 24 hours contributed to this migraine? is this a migraine or just heatstroke? when does one migraine end and the next begin? I guess like everything it's a work-in-progress.

'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.