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I had a fairly routine follow up appointment with my primary care physician Dr. M yesterday. It went well, but I know she feels at a loss in determining what we should do next.
I told her how much pain I've been having in my neck and that this often seems to be the cause of my migraines, or at least a strong contributing factor, so she gave me samples of a different muscle relaxer called Soma.
Otherwise we're keeping my medication the same for now and I'm staying on the gluten-free diet. Additionally, I'm going to go back to the neurologist and see what she might be able to do for me. It seems like the most reasonable option for right now.
Technorati Tags: pain, neurologist, doctors, depression, migraines, chronic illness, health, somebody heal me
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Content by Diana E. Lee.
5 comments:
I hope that the gluten-free diet will help, eventually!
Hi, new to the feed - and it's been interesting. Thanks for having this available.
When I last spoke to a doctor about how often shoulder pain was contributing to my migraines, we tried physical therapy to get the muscles to relax. And also (being female), the topic of bras came up - if your shoulder straps are leaving indentations in your skin, they are too tight and you need to shop for a different size.
Hope that might help, you or someone else.
Thank you, Shauna. Your writing has made the GF journey far more pleasurable than I ever thought possible.
Thank you for reading along and for sharing your experiences, Tracie. PT did not seem to be the answer to treating my pain, but I know it is for many people and is often overlooked. Bra fit is such a fantastic suggestion, too. I'd love to have a medical reason to go lingerie shopping!
Diana, I'm curious to hear how gluten-free is going for you. I'm fascinated by the prospect of simple lifestyle changes that are relatively inexpensive compared to drugs. I had a little chat with the neurologist a while ago about trying a ketogenic diet, and he called it "drastic"! I didn't tell him I'm usually spilling ketones because of the low-carb thing, and my diet doesn't seem drastic to me at all, just delicious and even decadent! In all other ways, he seemed like a good guy, so I didn't fire him. :)
I know that a lot of patients go into a doctor's office wanting a script, and I sure know that there are a lot of migraineurs who have tried every variation of an elimination diet that's ever been devised and don't want to hear about it again. And it can be hard to live in America, the land of plenty, and be asked to deprive oneself of something. I respect that. But there are also quite a lot of others who would readily make lifestyle changes if it meant being free of the drug and insurance companies. What I'd like to see is more doctors offering a choice. The thing is, I don't think doctors receive adequate training, or continuing education, on topics like diet and lifestyle. They get their info the same place the rest of us do!
Drastic compared to what, right?!
The gluten-free diet has worked miracles on my stomach issues. So I'm encouraged by that and willing to stick with it for that alone. My doctor said she thought those improvements were a good sign I might see improvements in my migraines from it, too. It's hard to know, but definitely worth sticking out.
I could tell for sure that I'd been benefiting from the gluten-free diet when I ate all the normal stuff on Thanksgiving and suffered horribly.
I wholeheartedly agree with you about less severe options, including diet adjustments, being overlooked. And even if you have tried every permutation of an elimination diet, something like gluten-free living is totally different than any elimination diet.
When I look back on the options I was presented four years ago when I knew nothing about how to approach my migraines, it makes me sad. If I'd known I didn't have to take those horrible medications I might have tried a bunch of other options first and left them as a last resort. Oh well, live and learn, I suppose.
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