9 Years and Counting

9 Years ago I was a university student, working for the school at the weekly pub night. I left early - had a bit of a headache, took two Advil and went to bed. That headache hasn't gone away.

It's been 9 years. On any given day my headache is at around a 3. It gets worse. (These days its almost always worse more like a 7-9) I have been to 3 neurologists, gone through 3 GP's, 3 psychologists, 2 psychiatrists, an ENT, an allergist, an ophthalmologist, laser eye surgery, a naturalpath countless hospital visits, craniosacral and osteopathic manual therapy, and who can remember what else to get to where I am now.

I have tried so many medications some which have had horrible side effects (including giving me ulcers) and whatnot I can't even list them so I'll go with what I'm doing now..

50mg of Topirimate in the morning
500mg magneseum
500mg riboflavin
150mg Topirimate at night

200 units of Botox every 10 weeks

Zomatripaline when I get a migraine (and when that doesn't work after a second dose, I also take another 50mg of Topirimate, and if that doesn't help I end up taking 50mg of benadryl because that just knocks me right out)

With all that I used to be a Kindergarten - Grade 8 music teacher for my local school board, but who wants to have a teacher who misses school all the time because of migraines. So then I became just a regular supply teacher. Now I'm looking into other jobs when I can. I'm going back to school (night school 3x a week when I can actually make it to class) to become a Paralegal. It sounds good but basically my migraines have become so unbearable that I'm basically a 29 year old unemployed migraine sufferer that's back in school and relies on her boyfriend to pay for everything and who can't even hold up her end of the bills/household tasks because she has difficulty getting out of bed or even taking a shower most days (I'm a delight - have I mentioned).

I used to be able to look at the bright side - its only migraines, it could be worse. But thats long since passed. My migraines have taken over my life and made everything horrific and icky and terrible. Its like a horror movie where I'm trapped in a life I don't want and I'm just waiting for the movie to end and the constant pain to stop.

-end rant-