It’s been some time since I did a migraine log. Let’s slog through some data.
Frequency
Back when I did my last migraine log at the end of May, I was all aflutter about topamax, which I’d started 6 weeks before. I’ve had some serious ups and downs (downs and downs?) with it since then. Based on the data here, I think my preliminary supposition about topamax impacting the frequency of my migraines was wild fantasy. There was a drop off in my migraines, but I think it was more likely related to seasonal triggers.
Severity
I did a quick visualization this time of the severity of my migraines. When I record my migraines, I write down the date, treatments, and notes on symptoms. I pretty consistently use mild, moderate, severe, and extreme to classify the severity of my migraines, though I’ve become more consistent about that language through time. For the graph above, I just classified the data based on the presence of those words. It would take more time to go back through my notes and classify all of my migraines and many I might not be able to. Regardless of all that, the more severe a migraine was, the more likely it is to have been recorded as such.
August/Sept/Oct look better than May/June/July in terms of the ratio of Not too bad to Pretty bad migraine days, but August/Sept/Oct doesn’t look too different from the time period right before I was taking topamax. My severity data starts to get a bit spotty there, though, so it’s hard to compare. I don’t see my neurologist until January, so I’ve got a few more months of data collection left before I decide.
Kill me migraines aren’t too much of a threat now that I’ve got triptans and a few other tricks up my sleeve.
Worryingly, Very bad migraines seem to be getting a bit more frequent.
Migraine Proof
I heard about this supplement called Migraine Proof that’s a combination of fish oil and vitamin B2. It’s advertised as “formulated specifically to support a migraine free and healthy life.” In mid-September, I went to a fancy health store and bought nice formulations of each and started taking them in the doses you would get if you took Migraine Proof . I had one fewer migraine in October than I did in September. While the number of Very bad migraines did decrease, the number of Pretty bad migraines increased. Definitely not migraine proof.