s4e7 “Scientific Method”
I see a neurologist regularly for migraines. It’s a curse of my genes (my grandmother, mother, and several siblings also get them). Maybe once a week I get one (of varying intensity). It can get very bad, and can last a long time. Even after a migraine is complete, the “migraine aftershocks” can last for another day or two. It’s awful.
I’m on some some pretty gnarly meds, which do help, but no matter well “under control” they are, there is no cure, and there is no avoid them.
Sorry to hear that. Can’t be an easy thing to live with. A coworker of mine winds up leaving early about once a month because of theirs.
Thank you. What really sucks is that scientists still don’t really know what migraines even are. They used to think they were the brain swelling (leading to the early Aura Phase, which looks like this: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U8XtiTO95vA/maxresdefault.jpg), then they thought it was the brain dumping large amounts of magnesium into the brain, bu now they think that’s a symptom. It’s perplexing.
Have you tried the new class of drugs? I’m on Qlipta and it’s been life changing for me
As background, I’ve suffered migraines since 2012, typically one per week in average but as many as 15 in one month. Mine almost always start between midnight and 5am, so I’d typically wake with one.
I’d tried all the typical drugs with mixed results.
The keys that worked for me, each reducing my migraine counts by anywhere from 5-50%
- starting magnesium supplements
- using a mouth guard at night
- a cervical pillow
But taking Qlipta has been a game changer. I’ve currently gone 30 days without a migraine — my first time doing that in over 12 years
I’ve had migraines since around 1998, so a good long time now. I’ve tried quite a few different medications, and classes of medication. I am currently using Qulipta as well, and it is indeed the best, by quite a margin. I also take Ubrelvy as a rescue medication. It’s the best managed migraines I’ve had yet.
Waking up with a migrate is the worst, as you can’t take rescue/abortive medications, as you need to take those as soon as you start seeing symptoms. Waking up with one means you are too late for those. I’ve been there (many times). I’m intrigued by the Cervical Pillow. Do you have a recommendation by chance? Amazon has quite a few it seems.
My most recent successes have all been about finding really early symptoms (a day or so beforehand). Things like irritability, excess thirst, lots of (usually unproductive) yawning. If I notice those, I take the abortive, and it usually works well. I don’t always notice ahead of time though.
Happy to share. Between the pillow and the mouth guard, my head, neck and jaw all stay well aligned while sleeping, and I wake with far less tightness or soreness
Pillow: https://a.co/d/fXMDob8
Mouth guard- far cheaper than at a dentist and pretty easy to do. Wish I’d done it sooner https://a.co/d/dU2IHF9
Really does not look quite painful enough!!
I’ve heard there’s also a lot of light sensitivity.
And sound!
“shut up Wesley”
I got my first migraine this year, in my mid thirties. It wasn’t a particularly bad one, but I had visual hallucinations beforehand that were really weird and worrisome. Like an expanding ring of colorful noise that eventually expanded larger than my field of view. It was definitely a brain hallucination, and not an eye hallucination, because it was exactly the same in both eyes.
The weirdest thing was when it was obstructing words in my vision, I could still read them. Like, I could read an article on my phone, but I couldn’t see the words I was looking at. Definitely incredibly weird.
Voyager is lower on the list of my favorite Treks, but there’s some episodes I enjoy. This is my favorite Janeway.
Unhinged Janeway is best Janeway.
I prefer unapologetically badass Janeway, like in Macrocosm and Coda. Though there is a lot of overlap lol
See also “The Chute”
Personally my migraines feel like each cell in my skull is being poked with a hot needle
