Day 16: The Health Effects, So Far

Our vegan(ish) experiment officially began two weeks ago last night. One of my main purposes for starting this experiment, aside from just being more generally healthy, was to decrease my migraines.

I've been getting 5 migraines a week for several weeks now. It's hard to describe how physically and emotionally difficult it's been to have pain more days than not. And I've been concerned that the prescription pain medication I've been taking nearly every day would lead to rebound headaches. Eventually, the brain starts depending upon the analgesic effect of pain pills.

So where am I now?

• I did not have a migraine Monday, January 12.
  
• I did not have a migraine Tuesday the 13th. I checked my migraine log that my neuro makes me keep: the last time I'd gone two full days without a migraine was December 16-17.
• I did not have a migraine Wednesday the 14th. The last time I'd gone three full days without a migraine was Thanksgiving weekend.
• The migraine I had on Thursday the 15th was mild; I caught it early and the meds worked fast.
• I did not have a migraine today, Friday the 16th.
  

So something is working. And it's not just the headaches; I feel like new. I have more energy. I have less of that general feeling of malaise that I think many of us start to have semi-regularly in our late 20s or early 30s. After I eat, I feel rejeuvenated instead of weighed down.

Something is working.


***
And now, a jerk back to reality: I have not been doing this experiment in a controlled, scientific way. To really test the vegan(ish) diet on myself, I should try to change just my diet, and nothing else. And, of course, a double-blind or even triple-blind trial is what a real researcher would do.

But this is not a university research department, this is my life. And I am sick of pain. So I have made other changes besides my diet.

I haven't had coffee since New Year's. I still drink tea, but I find that the lower levels of caffeine in tea make it produce much less of a "crash" than coffee does.

And my neurologist has helped me make some changes, including preventing and better treating neck tension (a big trigger for me). She also put me on a new migraine prevention/reduction drug. (It's one I've never taken before, but is actually not a "new" drug.)

The drug she put me on is supposed to take 3 weeks to take full effect. The doc said that sometimes people start to feel an effect after the first full week.

I started it last Saturday, 6 days ago, and Monday is when my three day no-migraine run started. I can't imagine that such a long-acting drug would have taken effect within 2 days. I really think that I have the positive lifestyle changes to thank, more than the drugs.

Something is working. And I have been breathing the world's biggest sigh of relief for the last five days.