Thursday, February 6, 2014

New year update

I've recently started seeing a new neurologist who said she was very optimistic that we can get my migraines down from 18-23 a month down to just a couple a month.  She was also very nice and really listened to me/asked a lot of questions.  My last neuro wasn't as such.  He was always rushing through the questions and seemed sort of agitated.

Once again, we started off slow with some vitamins that I hadn't tried before.  Vitamin B2 and Magnesium I tried for about 4 weeks each and it didn't do anything to lower the instances of the dreaded miggy.  Next she prescribed the preventative drug Zonisamide.  I tried this medication for about 6 months to no avail.  I did have 3 weeks straight in there where I had not one migraine, that was a glorious time.  It was business as usual after that.  So a couple weeks ago I weaned myself off the Zonisamide after talking with the doc.

During my most recent neuro check up, the doc prescribed physical therapy, and Butterbur.  Butterbur is a plant derived medicine you can find over the counter.  It was used by Native Americans for inflammation and headaches and has been said to greatly reduce migraines in some of the more severe cases.  I have placed the order for this from Amazon and expect to receive it shortly. I am also waiting for my doc to send me to physical therapist that takes my insurance.  The physical therapist is supposed to use some massaging techniques to reduce tension in my neck.  She hopes that these together will reduce the migraine occurrences.

I'm excited to try out both of these.  Wish me luck!