Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I think the expensive drugs they're talking about switching me to are things like Imitrex, which I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression were developed as anti-migraine drugs. The beta blocker I'm taking does have a long history as a migraine preventative; they want to switch me to something else not because it's not good for migraines, but because they don't like the idea of keeping me on a blood pressure drug when I don't already have high blood pressure. (I'm not seeing a problem in practice, at least so far -- my blood pressure isn't crashing.) I didn't know about the depression side effect (and given my history with central nervous system drugs, yeah, that's one for me to worry about). So far so good: my delight at feeling like I'm getting "myself" back has improved my mood. But I hope that side effect doesn't bite me in the ass later, so yeah, switching to a drug that doesn't have that risk would be a good thing.

I don't think food triggers are a big issue for me -- I didn't have a significant diet change that would account for the months of problems since August (though of course it's possible that I developed some new sensitivity I hadn't had before), and I haven't identified any "I ate this and ouch" issues ... but I noticed in that NPR page you linked to that the lag can be up to 72 hours, which would certainly throw off my casual observations (especially not having known that before). I really need to start keeping a food diary for this and other reasons.

I've noticed that I start feeling generally crappy if I go a few days without OJ ... which doesn't rule it out as a migraine trigger, but does mean that I'd better find something else that fixes whatever problem OJ does for me if I'm going to cut it out. I also have problems if I go too long without chocolate, which is probably a simple addiction. I've used large doses of theobromine (100 cc of cocoa powder dissolved in water and chugged to minimize exposure to the bitterness -- to get the theobromine without getting a sugar spike-and-crash) along with the lavender/basil tea to knock the migraine-aura symptoms down. At that point the migraines were so frequent that I wouldn't have been able to tell whether there was a rebound headache later or not, because the next one would have been coming along anyhow. I haven't needed to do that since starting the beta blocker (though I have used lavender and basil a few times).

Right now the biggest factor seems to be lack of sleep. (But as noted above, in light of the new info I may be overlooking some food trigger.)

Thank you for the info. I'll be looking at it in more detail after Balticon, and I'll try to form a habit of logging what I eat in a food diary.