16 shots to the head

Every three months I get Botox treatments from my neurologist (a wicked smart man I greatly admire), in an effort to reduce the migraine headaches I’ve enjoyed since about age 40. The good news is that he’s down to using one vial instead of two for each session; the bad news is that means I still got 16 shots in my head today.

Actually, I’ve become fairly inured to the process, and as unpleasant as I find shots to be on any part of my anatomy, the stings and pricks of the needles on my neck and hairline don’t bother me much if I take a Xanax a bit prior to the procedure. That one little pill keeps my anxiety in check and relaxes me enough to not tense up with each warning of “a little stick.”

June brought only 3 migraines this year; a look at my records shows I had 6 in June last year, 7 in July. Many of last year’s migraines were multi-day affairs, returning for extended runs despite my desire to create “one pill only” experiences. This spring, almost all my headaches have been banned with one pill, so that’s another improvement.

Because of my progress, I start each month optimistic and happy, convinced I can get down to 1 migraine … or 2. Or none! But weaning my brain away from the ingrained patterns that lead to migraines is tricky business. Though I once experienced 4 weeks migraine-free, I haven’t been able to repeat that feat.

Maybe in July. Maybe this will be the month. Actually, it’s easy to see why June was not the month when I could post zero migraines. I was racing to finish my chapter on the 70 year olds in three weeks so I could go on vacation to Texas guilt-free. And I did, but it was a rushed process and I felt the stress. Then there were tense days in the hospital when my beloved friend Clarence Clemons suffered a stroke. And the sad trip back from Texas for his memorial service when the stroke proved fatal, despite our optimistic hopes after the first 3 days. An almost-immediate return to Texas followed, to complete a vacation somewhat altered (but still very special) to honor my mom and my niece on their shared birthday.

Since I frequently will get migraines from the altitude of airline trips or the jumbled schedules they cause, it’s no surprise that one of my June headaches was directly attributable to those factors.

But you know what? Three is NOT BAD, people! Not considering my history and not considering the stressors that cropped up in the past 30 days. So I’m declaring the month an improvement migraine-wise.

And though my habit is to start each month delighted with the clean slate and hoping to keep it that way, I’m having trouble with that tonight. That’s because tomorrow I have a dental appointment and I have this terror that they will try to install cross angle rubber bands again. The attempt was made last month, but my tongue shredded on the rubber band hooks in just hours, and the effort was abandoned. I’m praying my dentist has suffered amnesia since our last meeting, and no longer feels the need to recommend such a drastic procedure for my tortured mouth.

Please join me in this harmless prayer. My mouth thanks you.

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A month without migraines

It happened.

For the first time in 15 years I went a whole month without a migraine headache. In fact, I’m approaching the six-week mark. My last headache was Feb. 7, and although I’ve had two or three days with aura, no migraine developed.

I know. Can you believe it?

I almost can’t. I go along and live my life, do the things I always did — but I don’t spend all that time sick, and fighting being sick and wondering when the sick feeling will end and then wondering when it will come back. Now that I don’t accommodate all that pain and suffering, I wonder how I was able to find space for it.

See, there’s all this time now. Every single morning is a morning when I can get up and start my day thinking about breakfast and work and exercise and errands and accomplishments. And I have slid into this world so quickly and easily that now I fear any return to the old ways, when mornings were all about whether or not it was going to be a migraine day and if so, how to adjust.

I saw my neurologist this week for my quarterly Botox migraine shots (ugh) and when I told him I’d finally assembled a successful arsenal of defense weapons against my headaches, he said he liked that image. I said I believed both the braces and cranial sacral work were contributing factors, and he agreed, calling the latter physical therapy. (His acceptance of alternative medicine is one of many reasons he remains my hero.)

The bad news is that a few weeks of success isn’t enough for him to recommend I stop taking Lyrica, the anti-convulsant I began taking in August as a migraine preventive. (You see ads for it on TV for fibromyalgia patients; it’s used much more rarely for migraine sufferers.)

I dislike taking medicines longer than I need to, and this one brought along the unwanted side effect of a solid tire that now sits around my waist, mocking my efforts to banish it. I am hopeful that once I stop these meds, I can lose the inches, but we’ll have to wait and see. My fear is that by the time I get off Lyrica, the tire will be entrenched and immovable, mine to enjoy for a lifetime.

Sigh. One thing at a time.

The braces are surely helping to reduce migraines as well, and now that I’m into my eighth month, I understand why the dental specialist said, “you underestimate the mess you’ve got going on in your mouth.”

Boy, did I. My whole structure — top and bottom teeth — was tilted inward, not outward. And reversing that is like turning a river: nothing about it is easy. The rubber bands I’ve now had for a month are pulling individual teeth up out of their sockets, creating uneven surfaces where my back molars were once smooth. I know they’ll all even back out later in the process, but meanwhile … ARGH!

To review: almost 2 years of quarterly Botox injections, 8 months of Lyrica, cranial sacral work and a massive braces project. These are the most recent (and most successful) weapons I unleashed against my migraines.

Big guns indeed, and they do bring their own messy side effects. But the results are worth it. Life without migraines is an unbelievable joy.

Next week: Book update, I promise, filled with fun stuff teenagers told me during their interviews about sexual desire.