Migraine: A Full-Time Job

Managing my life with chronic health conditions, such as chronic migraine, has become a full-time job. Between medications and doctor appointments, a lot of planning is required.

How do I manage my migraine treatments?

Unfortunately, I am on quite a few medications. I have a Word document that lists my medications, the dosages, and how frequently I take them. This is great to have for family members in the event that I am unconscious. That is a situation that occurred before when I was very sick with pneumonia.

How does my system help with refills?

This list is also helpful when it comes time to refill prescriptions. I have a hard time remembering all of them off the top of my head, so the list allows me to check them off one at a time when I call them in or when I receive them.

While my pharmacy has been trying to autofill my prescriptions, they can forget some of them sometimes too. We are all human after all.  It is better to go off a list, to be sure I have received them all than to find out as I am filling my Sunday through Saturday pill containers.

How do I organize my daily medications?

As I just mentioned, I use a Sunday through Saturday pill container to manage my daily medications. On Monday, I sit down with my daily medications and put my pill container together for the week.

I use these containers because it is easier than opening all the medication bottles every day. Plus, for some of my medications, I take several of the same pills a day.

How do I organize my as needed treatments?

Due to chronic migraine and chronic pain conditions, I have a variety of as-needed medications. These are medications that are intended to be used when I need them, instead of daily. To keep all these organized and together, I keep them in a large makeup bag.

This is helpful because if I need someone to bring me these medications, they only need to grab the bag. I find this is much more helpful than trying to tell someone the specific medication that I need. Especially since I randomly suffer from aphasia.

How do I schedule my doctors' appointments?

Managing doctors' appointments is another task that requires too much memory for me to do without writing them down. I keep a paper in my purse that has all of my appointments written on it.

Prior to making any new appointments, I review this paper and my calendar. Through trial and error, I have learned to spread out my doctor’s appointments as much as possible. When I have too many in one week, it is overwhelming both mentally and physically. It can also be very draining financially.

How do I prepare for my appointments?

To prepare for my doctor’s appointments, I write down all my questions for the doctor ahead of time. I do not like to try to remember what I want to ask during the appointment. Additionally, I write down the name of any new medication that I may have started. Unfortunately, as my migraine condition continues, my brain fog gets worse.

Do you have any systems in place to manage your prescriptions and/or your doctor appointments? If so, we would love to hear about what works for you.