Migraines

Two months ago The Bean, our 12 year old, started having migraines. Since my sister and mom have them I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me, but still it did. They suck. They hit instantaneously as migraines with all the yucky symptoms: nausea, light sensitivity, sore neck, and of course the bad pain. But worst of all twice a week. Poor thing. We were fortunate to find an awesome Pediatric Neurologist who has migraines herself and has children so she really gets migraines in kids and is so good at talking to Bean. Since they hit so fast and hard I was concerned so we went in six weeks ago for brain scans to make sure it was "only" migraines we were dealing with. Let me tell you how nerve racking that is. The night before I was so cognizant that we were at one of lifes forks in the road. Either we were going to get to go on with life pretty much as we knew it, but with the new normal of trying to decrease the migraines frequencies and get rid of them faster when she got them, or gulp, dealing with something that would turn our lives upside down and her life wouldn't come close to ever being the same again. Very frightening. Very stressful. Made the stress of waiting for that MOWA letter look like a walk in the park. Thank goodness it was wonderfully, fabulously all clear:) So now I feel so fortunate that 'all' we are dealing with is migraines! Funny how life can be put in perspective so fast.

The neurologist put her on a supplement called MIGRELIEF. Omg, love that stuff:) I'm not a supplement person, we eat pretty darn well and have never felt extra stuff was in the least bit necessary, but this stuff ROCKS! It's taken her from 2 migraines a week, to 1 every 17 days. Woo Hoo!!!! You take it twice a day, it takes 4-6 weeks to see a difference, and apparently raises the B2 levels (which if I remember which is which correctly tends to be low in people with migraines) and magnesium levels (which helps reduce the frequency of them or something like that!) I've found it to be cheapest on Amazon - I'm now done with my plug! These migraines are horrible enough just from the pain standpoint but they have also been very problematic in terms of lifestyle too. Each time she had one I had to race to school to bring her home and we'd be there for hours until it eased which meant she was missing a lot of school and I was having very unpredictable days. Teachers were not happy either. Ugh. In addition to the Migrelief we've started throwing everything at them we can. Acupuncture has been shown to be really effective with headaches so 3 weeks ago we started that. She's a trouper about it and is relieved she can barely feel it. It's giving the chance to read "Emma" together twice a week so that's an upside to the visits! Today is Day 17 - according to our previous schedule it should be migraine day today, so we are all holding our breath to see if we can buy a few more days thanks to the acupuncture. Fingers crossed here! The neurologist also suggested trying bio-feedback. I have no experience at all with this, nor any knowledge about it, but if she recommends it we're trying it! That has been a little harder to find than the acupuncture which was more an issue of finding someone reputable that was covered by our insurance. Looks like Childrens Hospital will be doing it through their Chronic Pain Management program. Hoping to get that going next week. So that leaves the prescription meds to try to get rid of the pain much quicker than the Excedrin can, so perhaps it can be treated at school and she can go back to class. We're about to try Imitrex because the Maxalt didn't touch it. Aargh. More fingers crossed that we'll have better luck with the new stuff, but hoping we don't get to try it out soon if we can postpone the upcoming migraine!!!! Crazy!

I'm really wanting this to all work so life's a little more manageable. School field trips, sleepovers, and all those other things have become really problematic since we know have to prep for migraines if she goes. No field trips unless I'm chaperoning right now, and with sleepovers she has to carry a large bag of migraine stuff in her purse: water to take the pills, towel to cover her face etc wherever she goes if they go out for dinner, to ice-cream etc. Not so fun when you're 12.

But thank goodness we are only dealing with migraines.

And perhaps today she won't have one.......