I can understand the personality thing on topamax.  I just thought it made me stupid sometimes.  Like I couldn't remember the right word for stuff sometimes...even simple words.  And it made my hands and feet tingle.  But all of that went away after a while for me.  I think it's hard to find one of the preventative ones that work without too many side effects since most of the are neuro drugs.

I forgot about the tingly thing!  But yeah, I was starting to have that when I decided to go off the topamax.

I don't know, maybe after the wedding I'll try the Neurontin again - maybe we can talk about increasing my dose every 2 weeks instead of every week to see if that helps me get over the drugged feeling.  Or increasing it by 100mg at a time instead of 300mg at a time.....

Who knows?  If I leave my job, I may not need the preventative (here's hoping!) ;)

I'm sorry you're having those problems! My doctor wanted to put me on Topamax, but I found out it interferes with birth control and decided migraines are better than babies at this point in my life.

I have to say, I LOVE my new doctor. After I left a message about the Topamax issue, she called me and spent 40 minutes on the phone going over a series of different options I could try, the pros and cons, and what she thought. In the end I felt like I was able to make an informed decision for myself, instead of having a doctor be like, "Do this" and not knowing why.

I wound up on a low dose of propanalol (I probably spelled that totally wrong) which is a blood pressure medication. It's worked really wonderfully for me, but she said it's something that either A)REALLY works or B)Doesn't work at all.

I know it sucks to keep trying different things, but I think there are a lot of options out there for controlling migraine, if you're willing to keep looking. There are so many factors that play into migraines, and different medications that will work on different things (ones that control blood vessel constriction, ones for blood pressure, ones for pain...)

*HUGS* to you!

Claire - Can't you go on FMLA - Family Medical Leave Act?  I know it wouldn't solve your part-time dilemma, but they may be able to be able to try some new treatments on you.  You would be able to get 3 months off through FMLA and from what I have seen (I am a manager, do hiring, deal with all this crap) it's not all that intensive to get in the program. 

As for your supervisor, I know you are disappointed in her, and I would be too.  It sounds as though she is not very effective as a supervisor if she can't put her friendship with you aside and be truthful.  I know I sometimes have a hard time breaking bad news to the employees I am more friendly with.  Sadly, she probably didn't have much input to the choice of going part-time and she was scared to disappoint you.

I hope everything starts going better, I know that Migraines are absolutely awful!  Hugs to you!