Posted by Barbara D. (152.163.201.202) on November 13, 1999 at 10:32:33:
In Reply to: chronic and cycles posted by Henk on November 13, 1999 at 04:11:18:
I went from episodic to chronic over a period of years and stayed chronic to the point of having to quit work and finally got totally disabled to the point that I had surgery and became almost blind. It was NOT a fun time!
In fact without this board I probably would not be here today. But thanks to the help and support of some wonderful people I did keep on and keep trying things (now the hot peppers up the nose we don't mention too often, but....) and now I'm back at work and doing a lot better.
I'm taking Topamax 100mg twice a day now (it doesn't seem to work on everyone (like everything else), but for once, something worked for me. But without this board and someone letting me know about a NEW drug on the market, I would still be banging my head on the wall and screaming.
I personally don't think these damn HAs have anything to do with big city/small city, smog/clean air or anything normal. It's the grey matter and we're just all too darn intelligent and all that stuff.
For the record, since I went chronic, I've not had "doable" times. It's been 2-7 HAs a day. Some were "tolerable", but most were "knock you to your knees and wipe you out of your mind" kind. O2 helped with some, drugs (ercaf, cafagot, DHE, etc. helped with others), but I pray every night that the Topamax NEVER quits working. I NEVER want to go back to that time again. I'm just too old for that s*#$!
I wish each of you a LOT of pain free and GOOD days.
Hugs BD