new migraine relief?

yesterday morning i made my first-ever trip to the neurologist, referred by my GP because i get these chronic headaches and migraines. neat right? kind of. there were a series of tests where they do stuff with the little light, tap your head, test your reflexes, push (or have you push) your muscles. (no shit, there was even this whole "pull my fingers" routine, which i did with a totally STRAIGHT FACE). one of the funniest parts was when another neurologist came in and did this gentle head-tapping thing while listening to my skull with the upside-down side of the stethoscope. i wanted to tell him, "no, no, you need to turn that thing around-- where did you get your neurology certificate, tijuana?" alas, none of the doctors i met had ANY sense of humor, sigh.

the good news: i got THREE new prescriptions for combating the headaches, THREE! here's the super-amazing-i'm-bursting-
with-joy news: one of them (topamax) is a daily migraine preventative pill, with the major side effect being WEIGHT LOSS. hello god? a pill that prevents me from getting migraines AND makes me thinner?? i've died and gone to heaven.

when the doc told me this, i chuckled and said, "i've heard botox is being shown to help reduce migraines, too-- once insurance covers that, i'll be ALL SET, haha." [a side note here: the doc chuckled uncomfortably, looked perplexed and said he had never heard of this ... uh, i heard of it a couple of YEARS AGO, and i'm not the goddamn neurologist. click here for info.] anyhoo, he went on to say that he lost 40 LBS IN SIX WEEKS when he went on topamax.

(earlier, in the fall, i did a post about how i was happily [mysteriously] losing weight. well, mystery solved: i was just smoking like a chimney, not eating as much, slightly depressed, and was losing ALL my muscle tone. the holidays rolled around and my body said, "oh sylvia, you dumbass, did you think you were going to lose weight so easily?? mrah-hahaha!! have another holiday snickers bar, why don't you??" and then i gained [cough] a little back.) SO, while i would have to be hospitalized if i lost 40 lbs (putting me somewhere slightly BELOW nicole ritchie in her scariest days), losing a good 10-15-20 lbs would make me excited to put a swimsuit on again.

the other two drugs are for treating headaches: one is specific for migraines (zomig), and the other is for tension headaches (bupap). according to the first neurologist, i had an incredible amount of tension in my back-neck-head area (medical term for this location, anyone?), and when i suggested this might be because i JUST DROVE 20 HOURS STRAIGHT [didn't mention i had two dogs in the backseat] ON SATURDAY, he just sort of absently nodded and said it was a good drug.

although the doctors yesterday were very nice older gentlemen, i was a little perturbed i didn't have an opportunity to ask a lot of the questions i had brought with me in a notebook. there just wasn't a good window. and they gave me a list of migraine triggers that I'D SEEN 100 FUCKING TIMES, the only surprise was aspartame (damn! good-bye normal diet coke, equal in my daily coffee ...) i wanted to say, "yes, yes, OK, you're the neurologists, really, and i'm NOT A DOCTOR, to be sure, but i've read a million things about migraines, including the oliver sacks book titled, appropriately, migraine, and so i have some specific questions now ..." but [sigh] there wasn't a chance and i didn't have the energy (i actually HAD A BAD HEADACHE yesterday, go figure) to tackle them as they were leaving the room.

tomorrow i go to the hospital for a brain MRI, which i assume judging from the way they mentioned it so off-handedly, is just a lawsuit-precautionary measure. (usually, my migraines change sides each time -- one month pounding behind/in/around one eye, the next month in the the other. i guess the MRI will rule out the possibility i have TWO similarly-shaped tumors on both sides of my my brain, or something like that).

speaking of the pain, i can remember it the way you can remember a smell ... hazy at first, then sharply clear. i might explain someday how during my migraines over the years, my fantasies of REMOVING THE PAIN WITH A DEVICE have evolved ... first i remember, when i was young, wishing plainly for a vice, to stick my head in a vice and crank it tighter and tighter. then later, the notion of a drill came to me: drill a hole in the offending temple, and the pain would (magically) flow out. in recent years, all i can imagine over and over when i have the pain, is a melon-baller: scoop scoop! into my eye socket and around in the temple, and i could scoop it all out. i wanted to ask the doctor if anyone else had mentioned taking a melon-baller to their eyeball/head ... i actually had it written down to ask about.

i'll keep you posted, faithful four readers. :) maybe my migraines will soon be a thing of the past! maybe if you get them, you should see your doctor, too! and maybe if you're desperate to lose weight, you should go see your doctor and explain about your chronic debilitating migraines, that you'd kept secret for so long ...