A Migraine

I suppose I should mention (since I never write on this blog anymore since my migraines haven't been much in my life --I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, I promise!) that I had a migraine.

When I became pregnant early this spring I had a few migraines--though they were nothing, really; but they were more than usual. When I moved to a different state, quitting a job that was very stressful and going to no job, my headaches went away except for just a few a month. So for me, just a few a month is nothing. Even once a week is like nothing, really.

But anyway! Back to the pregnancy: just a few headaches.

Then I had a miscarriage. I was just short of eight weeks when I miscarried the baby. After delivering the baby and placenta on my own (no need for a D&C, I was so grateful!), I bled for just one week.

The day after I stopped the bleeding was a Sunday. It was also Day 1 of a serious migraine. It lasted and lasted and lasted until Wednesday morning I knew it was a beasty one. So I didn't fool around: I went to my midwife and asked her to prescribe me a 12-day tapering course of Prednisone, starting at 60mg the first day and decreasing 5mg a day until the last day of just one 5mg pill.

I started that morning (always good to start prednisone in the morning, especially if you're taking 60mg, so that there might be a chance to sleep that night!). After ten days, yes TEN days (!) of the taper, my headache finally went away.

I firmly believe, based on previous migraines, and in particular, previous unmedicated-with-prednisone migraines, that the beasty migraine I started after the miscarriage would have lasted months, bringing me into the cycle of migraines I started on that fateful day of July 21, 2007.

Instead, the migraine was controlled after ten days of the dose and I didn't have any further migraines.

Yes, I have had a few headaches this week, since my menstual cycle begins sometime soon. I usually get some shoulder/neck spasms around now, and headaches that go along with them; but nothing out of the ordinary.

I am grateful for Prednisone. Nothing else works for me. It is a beast to take (irritability, hunger, restless sleep at night) but it stops the cycle that my body gets into and gets me back to life quickly. May I not ever have to take Prednisone again; but if I have another Beasty (my nickname now for the long unrelenting days-and-days-on-end headpain, nausea, vertigo): give me Prednisone!