Chronic Migraine, Coping

Migraine Expectations

Three days of a migraine unresponsive to medication last week and I was fed up.

The evening of the third day, I was worried that I’d broke something by eating some triple-chocolate brownies and the pain would never again relent. Melodramatic, maybe, but the fear of reverting to constant migraines again is omnipresent. Then I remembered that I started a new probiotic a couple hours before I ate the brownies. I skipped the probiotic the next morning and quickly shifted into migraine hangover.

You think I’d be used to days of migraine after so many years of chronic migraine, but the expectations I’ve developed over this year of feeling better have displaced those of so many previous years. It used to be that three days of an unrelenting migraine was just normal. I didn’t plan much because the default was being on the couch with a migraine. Now I’ve gotten used to being functional most days, to Amerge stopping many attacks in progress, to having the pain rarely above a 4. I really notice when I’m laid up for three days.

I’ve gone from assuming I will have a migraine all the time to assuming that I won’t have one and, even if I do, it will respond to medication and I’ll be able to manage it fairly well. The latter has finally become normal. And now I’m frustrated when life doesn’t meet the massively revamped expectations. How awesome is that?