Until March of 2008: I had very frequent migraines, usually four days per week but up to 6 days per week. I even had a really fun time in March 2007 when I had a headache/migraine for a month and 1/2 straight. Woohoo.  I also sometimes have "regular" headaches. I also struggled with analgesic rebound headaches from taking over the counter pain meds too frequently, though I quit those after my month-long doozie in March 2007.

When did my migraines begin? ... well, I recall having maybe one per year as a child. I remember laying in bed with the curtains drawn, feeling so terribly nauseaus with a throbbing head. I had no idea what these headaches were at the time, of course.

As I entered college, my head pain became more frequent and I started popping Tylenol like it was going out of style- probably 3x/week about 4 times per day (every 4 hours- as the package says!). I also had "killer headaches" (these were probably migraines) about 2-3 times per year.

After college, I got my Ph.D. in clinical psychology. This program was perfect for me in that it allowed me to work on my own terms- at my own hours. I didn't know it at the time, but this probably saved me from developing frequent migraines. Ah, those were the days. Anyway, I kept up some of my college habits and continued to have a lot of tylenol, but just 2 or 3 migraines per year. Not bad.

After I received my Ph.D. I moved and started an internship. For the internship, I had to commute everyday for 1.5-2 hours each way in *terrible* traffic. Plus, I didn't get enough sleep. To top it off, the internship itself was emotionally draining (seeing very troubled adolescent patients... more on this later). And, I was in a long-distance relationship, so I traveled 4 hours to visit my boyfriend every other weekend. [All of these things (sitting in traffic, lack of sleep, emotional stress, travel), I would later discover, are my "triggers"]

Within a month, I developed serious and frequent migraines. I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with sinus headaches (interestingly, my nose does feel stuffy when I get a migraine- always on the same side of the head as the throbbing pain) and told to take tylenol with sudafed. This began the worst year of my life. Basically, I took tylenol with sudafed every four hours every day all year and it did nothing. I developed what I think was "transformed migraine"- which basically meant that I had episodes of intense horrible migraines (that I often tried to work through because I thought they were just sinus headaches) maybe every other day for about 5-10 hours or so and between these migraines I felt like **** (am I allowed to say "****"?), i.e., my head hurt and I felt vaguely dizzy and nauseaus and run down.

After this horrible horrible year, I ended my internship and started a research post-doc in the city in which I lived. I, thus, stopped commuting (Yay!) and stopped doing emotionally-draining clinical work (for the best). I still had stress, but it was lessened. And, the best part? I saw a primary care doctor who diagnosed me with migraines and prescribed imitrex as an abortive!!!! Imitrex saved me. The first time I took it, I could not believe it. My migraine actually went away. Woo hoo!!! I got migraines 4 times per week, but I didn't mind. I just took my trusty friend imitrex and felt better after a few hours. What's a few hours of pain after a year of 24 hours of non-stop pain?

Then, one day, I went to refill my imitrex. It was a bit before my usual once-per-week refill time, but I had had a bad week. I went to my pharmacist and he said my doc needed to authorize the refill. What? I said. Why would that be? Can't I take as many as I like? Um, the answer to that would be--- NO.

 This began the next phase of my life- 2 years of trying to cut down the number of migraines so that I can keep my imitrex usage down to 3 times per week. Oh, this journey has really stunk. I was started on Depakote first, which did nothing except make me sleepy and chubby. Lovely. I got myself off that one after 6 months (because my doc convinced me to give it a full "trial"). Then, I tried to go it without the preventatives for the next year, trying relaxation/meditation/trigger management/migraine elimination diet/vitamins/etc/etc. This strategy did not work out either- it just made me developed a form of learned helplessness ("I am doing everything I possibly can and yet I am still getting migraines.").  

So, from march 2007 to jan 2008, i worked on: getting off of the over-the-counter meds (goodbye, my old friends), which was not easy let me tell ya, and 2. starting on a new preventive: amitriptylene and topamax. Unfortunately, this new medicine did not work either and I ended up with low energy and depressive feelings (perhaps due to the topamax) and worsened migraines.