Back to square 1.

Recently I revealed that I’d gone off Aimovig. Well, I cracked, and I’m now back on it. But it looks like I’m back to square 1.

When I first started on Aimovig over 2 years ago now, the first shot kicked in on day 6, but in that first month it only cut my migraine attack days in half (30 to 15). The second month was a little better, down to about 10 days, and it continued to improve so that by 6 months I was at zero days. The hemiplegic attacks stopped pretty much straight away, it was the brainstem attacks that persisted for a while.

I took 10 weeks off Aimovig. And since starting again, I’m still dealing with a lot of migraine attacks. Yes, less painful, less debilitating, but I didn’t go straight back to wonderful. So, it’s back to square 1, and another 4-5 months before I’m awesome again.

Yes, the main attacks I’m still getting are brainstem, or some just garden variety migraine nausea + noise sensitivity + headache type attacks – the hemiplegia has stopped cold. Which is so amazing on so many levels.

The straw that broke the proverbial camels back? My neck was so sore and I couldn’t turn my head. I could barely sit up – not even push myself up to sitting – because my left side was so weak, and my right side was being all uncordinated. I said enough! And I crawled to the kitchen, took the Aimovig out of the fridge, and sat there on the kitchen floor waiting for it warm up to room temperature.

Two hours after the shot my neck was still a little sore, but had massively improved, and the weakness in my left side was gone.

TWO HOURS.

These are truly amazing drugs. I’m very very sorry I ever stopped. I won’t again.

I just have to accept now that I do not have any insurance, and need to work hard enough to ensure I have enough money to always pay for my health care.

(And yes, I may move to the US to make that happen. At least there I can buy insurance that will cover my drugs, rather than having insurance that doesn’t dover what I need.)

Actually when you think about it, there is a lot about managing migraine that is like a real world game of snakes and ladders. You suddenly uncover a new trigger and go up a ladder. Have a misstep with medication or get injured and go down a snake. Finding Aimovig was like climbing the biggest ladder on the board for me: I can only hope that you all find your ladder too.