a candid look at managing and living with headaches & migraines

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Migraine Preventives & Weight Gain

The threat of weight gain as a side effect of migraine preventive is a major concern for many migraineurs. Though I’ve been sympathetic to their worries, I never really understood. If something reduces the migraine severity and/or frequency, I thought I’d be willing to gain even 70 pounds. Then I started gaining weight on cyproheptadine [...]

Searching for Fatigue Source Reveals Overlooked Midrin Overuse

As you’ve likely noticed, fatigue, both physical and mental, ranks high on my list of migraine complaints. Since finding some effective preventive medications in the last year, fatigue has probably become my most debilitating — and annoying — symptom. Though my doctors and I think the fatigue is a migraine symptom (it is far worse [...]

Migraine Preventive Wins & Losses

When I write, the words often flow from my fingertips before I consciously assemble them in my mind. I type and suddenly thoughts I didn’t know I had are splayed across the computer screen. This can be an exciting, almost magical experience. It can also force me to face truths I don’t want to acknowledge. [...]

Ritalin Three Weeks In: A Turbulent Relationship

Like so often happens with love at first sight, the spark I initially felt with Ritalin has faded. That first week, I had energy and a clear head even when I had a migraine. Week two began with a five-day migraine full of fatigue and head fog. Since that attack let up, I’ve had intermittent [...]

Begging & Bargaining With the Migraine Gods

Day four of a migraine attack and I’m begging the migraine gods that Ritalin isn’t the trigger. Please let it be that I worked too hard in yoga Friday (never mind that those migraine attacks always last two days), or some invisible weirdness with the weather (since the storm cleared on Sunday). If not those, [...]

Ritalin Side Effects

With my lighthearted approach toward Ritalin, I fear I’ve diminished the fact that it is a a real drug with potentially serious side effects. Sorting through information on the medication was surprisingly complicated. On one hand, it seems like a relatively mild, safe medication; on the other, there are dire warnings about its risks. I [...]

A Morning Person After All? A Return to Normal With Ritalin

When I was teaching public speaking in graduate school, I had a student I called Lawyer Boy who argued about everything. I told the class, which began at 7:40 a.m., that I was not a morning person. He responded, “You’re a morning person, you just don’t want to be.” This was about a year into [...]

Trying Ritalin for Migraine Prevention… and Loving It

Wait-and-see-if-it-goes-away is my method of dealing with house problems. Not because I want to see if a minor issue will develop into a major problem, but calling someone and meeting with a service person is an exhausting proposition when you have a migraine all the time. So yesterday when Hart told me the shower was [...]

Excedrin Migraine Campaign Trivializes Migraine & the Women Who Experience it

Two-thirds of women would give up shopping at their favorite store for a year to stop their migraine attacks. Excedrin Migraine has launched an advertising campaign with this so-called fact. Seriously? The willingness to give up shopping at a single store exemplifies the impact of migraine a person’s life? Could they have trivialized migraine or [...]

Recommended Product: MgBRIGHT Magnesium for Migraine

I’ve recently switched from Bluebonnet chelated magnesium to a kind called MgBRIGHT, which the company describes as “pure, safe, non-laxative and high-absorbing.” The company sent me a sample bottle, which I tested for a few months, even increasing my overall dose during that time. As the bottle neared empty, I decided MgBRIGHT was OK, but no [...]