How Does My Husband Handle Migraine Differently?

Outside of a few minor things, my husband has been blessed by relatively good health as long as I've known him. He's had the flu, food poisoning, kidney stones, and this year he got COVID twice actually even though he was fully vaccinated and super careful. One thing thats changed over the last two years has been watching him get affected by migraine.

When did my husband first experience migraine?

The first real migraine I witnessed was a little more than two years ago. We'd just gone through some trauma, and neither of us had been sleeping. We were at the grocery store and he said kind of simply, I can't see out my of left eye, everything is blurry. We rushed to sit down, and a short while later things resumed as normal, but that was one of his first experience with ocular migraine.

How did he manage his doctor's appointment?

I made my husband call and schedule an appointment with my migraine specialist, but to be honest, he hasn't been the type of patient or complied in the ways I hoped he would. Maybe this is because it's being written by someone with several chronic illnesses, who has less choice in the matter of following up with doctors and doctors instructions, but I was in a word, flabbergasted.

After his first appointment the neurologist ordered some bloodwork testing which my husband did go do, and then he put him on an injection preventative medication. Now, as someone who has never done injections before, my husband thought this was overkill. I, on the other hand, thought it was perfectly within reason.

What was my role here?

After his third month of the monthly shot, my husband decided that it had worked, and that he no longer needed to continue doing the monthly shots. As you can imagine, when I found this out I had some choice words to say, but I also had to remember that in this case and this case only, I was the caregiver and not the patient, and therefore the decisions were not mine to make.

How is my husband managing now?

This was about a year ago, and my husband still struggles with migraine attacks I'd say 1-2 times a month. His usual regimen is using an ice pack on his head, taking two ibuprofen alternating with two acetaminophen, and sleeping for 2-3 hours until the migraine has run his course. I obviously am grateful that this is all it usually takes for him to become headache-free, but as someone who typically requires injections and/or ER visits to abort a migraine, I also find myself struggling with some jealously towards his migraine experience and associated attitudes.

How can I tell it's migraine?

Some would say that perhaps these are just headaches, and I could see where that perspective could come from, but having watched the ocular migraine attacks he's had, I know that at least some of what he is experiencing is migraine-related. Now, if he'd just follow up with his neurologist, I could prove myself to be right lol.

Have any of you as migraine patients also been migraine caregivers? Has it felt easier or harder to be a caregiver to someone with the same condition you manage?