I have mentioned my migraine woes before, and unfortunately, I haven't seen much improvement. I kept holding out, hoping that my body would adjust to my Crohn's medication and the migraines would subside. And while they haven't been quite as frequent as they were a few months ago, they're still fairly debilitating and I finally had to cry uncle and seek out some additional help.
I originally had an appointment scheduled for September because that was the earliest I could get in to see the neurologist {!} But God was incredibly gracious and a spot opened up for me to see her this week! And she is awesome. It was a really good consult; she spent a full 45 minutes with me. I got all of my questions answered, I learned a ton, and I think we have a good game plan moving forward.
Once again, it was comforting to have my symptoms affirmed. I know that I am not making them up, but sometimes I question just how bad things are, if I am just a baby about my symptoms, if I should just suck it up and deal. But based on our conversations, she confirmed that I am definitely in the category of "chronic migraine." {So I'm not just a whimp! Haha} And despite all I have tried to help prevent them, I have the deck stacked against me in a lot of ways. There are just so many factors at play {hormones, weather, Stelara}, I didn't really have much of a fighting chance haha.
If I plan to stay on Stelara for the foreseeable future, which I do, since I am feeling so much better from my Crohn's, then I will need help in combatting these suckers. So we are going to try a daily preventive medication, as well as a "rescue" medication. It may take some time to find the right dosing and drug combination, but I feel hopeful that I may be able to see some relief soon.
Because of my history {remember Tumorthy??}, she wants to do a repeat MRI, just to rule out any other issues, and be able to say definitively that this is indeed chronic migraine. She also mentioned that oftentimes, white spots will appear on the MRI scans of migraine sufferers, so I'm interested to see if we can see that. There's no real medical benefit to that, I'm just curious :)
She's also going to check my prolactin, B-12, and magnesium. Prolactin to see if there's anything amiss from my history of a macro adenoma. B-12 because that low levels can cause migraine {who knew?!? When my GI checked my levels last year, they were fine, but I haven't been supplementing so I am really curious about that one}. And magnesium was my request, simply because I have read a lot of research that shows low levels can cause migraine {and it's not something I have ever had checked}. She said it's more of a one snapshot in time, so it's not always as telling as you might think, but she wasn't opposed to checking anyway.
So there are still a lot of steps along the way, but I am so thankful that I am able to start that process now, instead of 5 months from now.
Here's to another health journey...
No comments:
Post a Comment