Winter

So the winter is with us with a vengeance now and as long time readers will know that means it's the migraine cluster season again and, oh boy, is this one a goodie. It started just over a month ago now, probably triggered initially by having to work pretty much flag out for over a week (which I got away with without getting ill).

But then the migraines started. Initially it was the usual pattern of one on about two days out of three but for the last sixteen days I've had a migraine event of some sort on every day except two. Some have been complete stinkers and have had me up at 3 or 4am for drugs, other have been relatively mild. With some the after effects have lasted until evening, other times (especially with very early ones) I've managed to go back to sleep and slept it off by 10am.

Today a new twist though. First a pretty bad migraine headache woke me up at 5am so I had drugs and went back to bed. It cleared fairly which was lucky as I had other problems to deal with today but then early in the afternoon I got migraine visual aura (which is pretty rare for me). So it was back to the sofa, more drugs (I've not had to have two doses of triptan in a day in a long while), and wait for it to wear off.

Sigh.

Anyway, as I said it's been over a month now and I've never known it be as concentrated as these last two weeks, even during a cluster. No sign of it ending either. I've already had to abandon a trip to London to see a new customer, and another to the coast to look at a boat I was thinking of buying. Planning anything in the morning is a waste of time, planning anything in advance with anyone for the afternoon has to be surrounded with caveats.

It's very frustrating. I would go and see my GP but what's the point: once you get beyond triptans you're into prophylaxis. The options there are drugs which I'm already on (sodium valproate, which I take for my epilepsy) but don't work for me for migraine suppression, or can interact adversely with anti-seizure medication, or often cause weight gain (which I still struggle with).

Still, mustn't grumble eh.