'There is no sincerer love than the love of food.' – George Bernard Shaw

I've been on this dose of my current daily medication for several weeks. The preventative medication  is working fairly well, but there is a downside. Until now I thought I was handing it well, but it seems not. The problem is that I never feel full and as soon as I think about a certain food, I crave it. I was told that a side effect could be weight gain and I was fine with that since I'd lost some weight during the beginning of the year when I was getting ongoing migraines. I figured I could manage it; I didn't anticipate how the weight would be gained,  i.e. how hard never feeling full would be. Today I put on some pants that used to fit perfectly, have been too loose for the past seven or eight months and now are tight. Now I'm going to have to rely on my will power, of which I'm not blessed with much. I plan to ride to work as often as I can and redouble my efforts not to eat much after 8pm, even if I get home from work around then.

'The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don't have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.' – Chris Pine

Today's neurologist appointment was a lesson in perspective. I'm down to a mild migraine per week. Compared to the past several months, that's a huge improvement. My neurologist pointed out that, even increasing my current dose, I may not totally rid myself of them. He said I should balance reduction in severity and frequency, no side-effects and one weekly migraine against several a week or going onto some other drug which may not work or causes worse side-effects.


So, how many migraines is too many?

'Medicine sometimes snatches away health, sometimes gives it.' – Ovid

I have mixed feelings about my new migraine medication, sandomigran.

On one hand it's working really well on my chronic migraines. When my neurologist prescribed it, he warned me that the side-effects included sleepiness, constipation and weight gain. I wasn't too worried about the sleepiness because I often don't sleep very well. As it's turned out, they should be called twenty-minutes-awake pills. I fall asleep almost as soon as I take them. Constipation hasn't been an issue. The weight gain is the one occupying me right now. I wasn't worried about gaining a little weight because I had lost a bunch of weight over the last few months of being constantly nauseous from migraines. The upside is that I now eat anything I want, as much as I want. I almost never feel full. I've realised I need to use visual portion control to make sure I don't balloon up too much. I've also implemented a low-carbs and no dessert after 8pm diet. Hopefully I have the will power to maintain this plan.