I am pleased to report that it finally happened again: I went four weeks straight without getting a single migraine headache.
Blessed are those who have no migraine experience, for they shall not understand the cause for celebration. But anyone who’s pitched a tent in migraine camp knows how divine this news is.
I’m particularly pleased—and a little surprised—because this is hurricane season, which is traditionally a tough time for those of us saddled with cluster migraines. The atmospheric fluctuations and barometric pressure changes that accompany such weather can be brutal. (In fact, the worst migraine of my life—a three-day killer—happened during Hurricane Frances. Ah, sweet memories of my roomie whisking me to the emergency room for an 8-hour wait for a pain injection.)
Thanks to my obsessive record-keeping (don’t judge!), I can tell you that it’s been almost a year and a half since I last put together four weeks with no headache. That’s a bit discouraging, true. When I hit that milestone the first time, I hoped it meant I was on the way to having frequent spells of no migraines.
That’s not how it’s worked in my case.
Instead, after that stellar month, I went back to three or four headaches a month, although I did have a couple of months last year when I had only one migraine. So far, in 2012, the fewest I’ve had is two in a month, so I’ve been feeling like a backslider and wondering if migraines are perhaps destined to eventually follow me into the nursing home.
I really despaired in May: That month I had five migraines, the most since mid-2010, when I started on Lyrica to reduce the frequency.
Let me pause briefly to reiterate that five migraines in one calendar month is no picnic. Recurrence can cause each headache to affect more than one day, and you also have to contend with the hangover feeling that the powerful migraine medications create. It’s a nasty cycle.
Which makes it beyond lovely when week after week passes and no headaches intrude on your life.
I didn’t realize quite how good a spell I was enjoying until a fellow sufferer texted me the second week in August to ask if the heavy, overcast weather was giving me migraines like it was her. I replied no, and then realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a migraine!
I checked my charts as soon as I got home and saw it was July 20. I tried not to jinx myself by going into cheer mode, but I was already pretty excited because it had been 20 days. When I finally got my next migraine, on Aug. 23, I was in no mood to complain. I took my triptans and counted myself lucky because it didn’t recur the following day.
Since I count my headache totals in calendar months, my chart won’t have a big fat ZERO for August, but in my heart, I am cherishing the victory of 33 days straight with no migraine. Such a sweet stretch of pain-free living.
As for an update on the Kiss and Tell front, that will have to wait until next week when things are sorted out. A few days ago, I received an unexpected response from my editor (who impresses me more and more) and I’m sorting through some thorny structural issues with Dr. Whelihan before we proceed further.
Stay tuned.
A Certain Age 