Report from the Valley of the Dolls

For those of you following the odyssey of my migraines and efforts to find a successful treatment regimen (and, really, it's all so very interesting, how could you not be?), here's the latest after an appointment with my doctor yesterday.

In the first place, it was a group appointment -- she scheduled patients with like ailments to come in all at the same time. We met in a conference room at the professional building where her office is, wore name tags and, one by one, told the doctor our concerns or symptoms. Other patients would chime in with strategies or alternative experiences or non sequiturs or what have you. It was... interesting.

So. In no particular order:

• I am not alone with the nut sensitivity. Nearly everyone there also gets nut triggered migraines. And chocolate triggered ones. And weather triggered ones. And flashing-light triggered ones. And, based on what they shared, I'm going to avoid a few other apparently common triggers and see if I notice any improvement -- hot dogs, luncheon meat, bacon (no!), wine (how will I console myself over the lack of bacon?!), and a few others.
  
• I've battled insomnia my whole life, and Lynnie noticed that my sleeplessness seems to go hand-in-hand with migraines. The doctor prescribed Ambien for me, figuring that even if there's no direct connection with my headaches, I really should be sleeping. Every day.
  
• The doctor also switched around one of the preventative medicines I take. I start that tonight, since the pharmacist indicated it might make me dizzy and I also wanted to be sure the other medicine was completely out of my system.
• And I got a prescription for an anti-nausea medication. Both the migraines and some of the intervention drugs for them make me really barfy. Hopefully this will help me keep down fluids at least when I have a headache.

We (the doctor and I, not the collective) also decided that if these changes don't make a significant improvement in the frequency and intensity of the headaches, then I am off to a neurologist. Which is nice in a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel sort of way but also kind of scary.