I've continued to be relatively well this past month. Frustrated I don't have more energy to socialize, but thankful my health remains non-terrifying.

However!! Now Sam's unwell. We don't know exactly what's going on. Right now, he's about as disabled as me.

About 8 years ago, Sam noticed he started getting headaches from sun exposure. At first, this was entirely resolved by wearing sunglasses. But he's slowly gotten more and more sensitive.

Usually, he gets a headache, but not always. Sometimes it's just brain fog and fatigue, which still impairs him significantly.

Last month, his day could be ruined by 30-60min outside. Even with sunglasses on a cloudy day. This month, he's ~never going out when the sun is up. He's wearing sunglasses indoors, and spending a lot of time in our bedroom, where we've totally blacked out the windows.

Relatively small amounts of stress/effort can force him to rest for hours.

Talking to LLMs, I learned that this could be due to migraines. Even though he doesn't always get a headache, and his headaches aren't severe, his experience still could be classified as "having migraines." We spoke to a migraine specialist at Neura Health, and they confidently confirmed the diagnosis.

He was given rescue meds (triptans, nurtec) plus preventative meds (amitriptyline). But nothing is helping, besides resting in the dark.

He's been on 10mg amitriptyline for 3.5 weeks. Can take 6 weeks to kick in. (Apparently that's a low dose — we're probably going to try to ramp it up.)

The rescue meds aren't doing anything. We gave him a ton of supplements recommended for migraines, and they also aren't helping much (or at all, idk). He's taking magnesium (as Magtein), fish oil, B2, D3, multivitamin, CoQ10, NAC, and curcumin.

Ibuprofen might help a bit.

We haven't tried an elimination diet — I'm not sure if that's worth the effort or not. With how unsuccessful everything else has been, I'm wondering whether "chronic migraine" is a misdiagnosis. He's not having acute attacks centered around headaches; it's more of a constant sensitivity, leading to varying levels of impairment (with or without a headache).

I've run this through Deep Research. It sounds like his symptoms and treatment-reactions are atypical for a migraine, but nothing else is clearly a better fit. (It suggests: Intracranial hypertension, MS, chronic infection)

I think I'm going to book him an appointment with a neuro-opthalmologist at UCSF. I welcome recommendations on who else to see, or what else to investigate.