Hey y'all. Sorry I kinda went MIA. It's been a rough few months. I've been having some pretty severe migraines recently. But I think I'm finally back on track so I want to give a little update.
In October my FMLA got approved. A combination of things happened then. My migraines seemed to take a significant turn for the worst, my depression quickly followed suit, and I was left hanging in the crossfire. With the FMLA came the realization that I no longer had to push myself to work through the pain I was feeling. Which, I still strongly believe that no one should have to do. But, as I've explained before, being laid up in bed with a migraine makes my depression worse, and it's an endless cycle. So there have been days where maybe I could have pushed myself to work through the pain, but I didn't feel the need to, because I have FMLA days to cover me.
In combination with some other life things that are going on, my depression has been up and down. After all these years it's still weird to me how it can seemingly fluctuate drastically from day to day. But as of a couple weeks ago I have added some wellbutrin back in with pristiq and it seems to be helping.
Now for the big update!!! After talking with my PCP for the better part of a year about doing botox for migraines, she finally agreed to refer me out. It took a LLLLOOONNNGG time for the neuro referral to go through because apparently the neuro that typically works with my insurance had recently quit, so they were kinda in limbo. I was finally able to see a neurologist towards the end of November. After going through my history and doing an exam, he agreed that we should definitely give botox another try. They scheduled me for December 20 and sent off the pre-authorization to the insurance. I didn't hear back from them so I started to get worried. I made some phone calls, and left some messages (which is a big deal for me because I have major phone anxiety). They called me back on the 19th and said it was approved!! So I went 5 days ago to have my first round of botox injections. It hurt just as bad as I remember. But I'm willing to do anything to have more than 5 pain free days per month. Driving home afterwards I started to get a migraine. But I just figured it was a combination of stress and weather (it's finally turning winter in Oklahoma). The rest of the day was ok. The dr had told me it could take 4 days for the botox to take full effect. I knew it hadn't really set in yet because I could still move my eyebrows and wrinkle my forehead. I had started to get the cold that my dad had been battling for about a week, so before bed I took a couple nyquil capsules. I woke up in the early morning hours with a searing, stabbing pain through my left eye. I've experienced this a couple times before so I wasn't overly concerned with it. It wasn't gone by the time my alarm went off, so I called in to work, took some excedrin and benadryl and finally fell back asleep. When I woke up the pain was at a more manageable level. I googled botox side effects and quickly learned that headaches are unfortunately one of the side effects. I generally don't experience a lot of side effects from meds, and I didn't remember this from the last time I had botox, but it's been a while. And I figured I wouldn't take any more nyquil just in case. The next few days were hit or miss. Some migraines, and some pain free/less pain times. Once again, the weather is changing, I'm stressed, and sick, so these could all be factors.
Today is Christmas!! Sleep was hit or miss. Between feeling sick and coughing, and my normal insomnia, I probably got about 6 hrs of sleep. We were up early to see if Santa came, and I've been on the go ever since. It's actually 12:13 am, December 26 right now, and it's been over 24 hours since I have had any migraine pain!! I can tell the botox has taken full effect because I can barely lift my eyebrows up, and my rbf is gone for the most part. :)
I will try my best to update again in a few days on how I'm doing. But I'm so so excited and optimistic for this!
