![]() Then the nurse brought in the vials: at least 30 of them. I returned on the assigned day, thinking that injections would be limited to my face and would not exceed two, at worst three, in number. A big proponent of efficacy, I figured maybe it would fix some of my wrinkles, too.Īfter spending two minutes speaking to me, five minutes typing something into the computer and 10 minutes consulting with his secretary on whether my insurance would cover Botox, my new neurologist scheduled me for the procedure. (Patients treated with a placebo also improved, though not as much.) I booked an appointment with a neurologist. According to studies financed by Botox’s manufacturer, Allergan, patients treated with the drug experienced a decrease in the frequency of migraines. But during one hasty session I came upon Botox injections as a possible treatment, and I was intrigued.īotox, a neurotoxin that blocks nerve signals to muscles, temporarily paralyzing them, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for chronic migraines in October 2010 - two months after my migraines began. Spending time on the computer turned out to be one of my migraine triggers, so my searching was sporadic. When I took it - either with a meal or with the entire contents of my refrigerator - at the onset of a migraine, I doubled over with stomach pain and nausea so severe that I thought my eating days were over.Įxhausted by these side effects, I turned again to the Internet. But there was one problem: The pill made me sick. None of those things could do what the new medication did, though, which is take away the blinding pit of quicksand that my head turned into during migraines. A massage, a pair of shoes, a night in a hotel at some exotic and exciting location. Every time I took one, I thought of things I would much rather spend that money on. It was blue, came in its own plastic pillbox and set my insurance company back about $900 for eight tablets. When the results came back showing no abnormalities, she did what a Western-trained physician knows how to do best: She phoned in a prescription for a new pain-relief pill for migraines. Just in case, my doctor ordered an MRI scan of my head when I showed up in her office, printouts from WebMD in hand. Every site I clicked on pointed to the migraine diagnosis, although there were other, much scarier propositions. I discovered all that when, as soon as I recovered from my seven-hour ordeal, I did what most modern Americans would do in my situation: I Googled my symptoms. According to the Office of Women’s Health at the Department of Health and Human Services, most sufferers are between the ages of 15 and 55, have a family history of migraines or disabling headaches, and often have such symptoms as nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound. Migraines affect more than 29 million Americans and are more common among women than men. From that day on I no longer had regular headaches. My normal headache seemed to have matured into a migraine the way a baby crocodile grows into a human-snatching beast. The first time a migraine hit, I barely made it from my car to the bathroom, where I promptly threw up my entire lunch before spending the next seven hours in bed, in a fetal position and unable to open my eyes. My usual headaches stopped responding to over-the-counter painkillers and instead began worsening, with lights and sounds. The word “migraine” took root in my vocabulary only after I turned 40. After that, it invades both temples and finally reaches the top of my head, then ebbs out across my scalp. It first settles along either my left or right eyebrow, hovers there until it runs out of space, then begins to spread to the other eyebrow. My eyelids take on the weight of an oil tanker, and a few minutes later the pain arrives. It usually begins with a drowsy fog of fatigue that makes me feel as if I haven’t slept in days.
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