As I write this, it has been about seven weeks since my first round of Botox injections for my chronic Migraines. I will receive my second round of Botox injections in about three weeks. Overall, I am happy with my results. However, I do not attribute my improvement completely to the Botox. I believe there are three reasons that I have seen improvement:

• Botox injections
• Caffeine
• Learning to deal with stress better from my meetings with my neuropsychologist

Before I go any further, I want to explain the caffeine reason. Very early on in my Migraine journey, I quit drinking caffeine completely. I seem to become addicted to caffeine very easily, so that is something I chose to completely take out of the picture early on. To rule it out as a possible Migraine trigger, I quit drinking caffeine drinks. Well, this past month I decided to see if caffeine and medicine might make me feel better on the days that I am struggling with a Migraine. I tried it a couple of times and realized the caffeine and medicine combination didn’t make much difference but the caffeine alone did. Because I was feeling better, I wanted to feel even better. I hope that makes sense. So when I was struggling with my Migraine, I would try to drink a caffeinated drink. It did make me feel better. So I have been drinking caffeine again. I will discuss this with my Migraine specialist when I go back at the end of June for my second round of Botox injections. I really don’t see any improvement with my Migraines when I take my medication but I do see improvement with the caffeine. (Please understand that I am still taking my preventive drugs.) So for now, caffeine is my “drug” of choice. I realize that this is probably a controversial subject, but it’s what I am doing and I am sharing it because it is where I am right now in my Migraine journey.

I do want to stress that I still have not had a pain-free day, but for now I am okay with that. I am very hopeful that one day I will have pain-free days, but for now, maybe that is just not going to happen. However, I am much, much better than I have been at other times during this Migraine journey. Let’s see…what is different?

• I have less neck pain.
• My forehead is still “frozen.” That’s what I call it anyway. I can’t make my forehead wrinkle up. That’s just funny to me. It has nothing to do with how I feel. It’s just a weird side effect. 
• I am enjoying my life more. I attribute this to the fact that I am able to participate in my life more. When Migraines were a constant daily presence, it was such a struggle to just get through the day that I didn’t have any energy left to enjoy life.
• I don’t have a Migraine constantly any more.
• I can think more clearly.
• It has been about a month since I have had a severe, debilitating Migraine.
• I am not as afraid as I used to be about the Migraine becoming worse.

Thank you for reading. I hope that by sharing my journey this is helpful to others who are struggling. Please know you are not alone. Take care of you! You deserve it.