May

5

Migraine Support for Moms - Build Empathy not Bitterness

Filed Under Migraines | Comments Off

Having children and coping with migraines can be overwhelming and depressing.  My five year old asks me nearly every morning if I think I will have a bad headache today.  His blue eyes look at me with a degree of pity that I hate seeing in someone so young.  He hurts when I hurt.  I wish I could be the supermom that never gets sick, never cancels a trip to the park because of a headache and is always running around tossing her children merrily in the air.  I am not that sort of supermom.  However, I am a supermom none the less.  While it breaks my heart that my boys already know in life that I am not very well and that our day is suspended by the tiny thread of my health and that it can snap at any moment.  But, I can not help but feel proud of them.  Already they show signs of a deep compassion for people who hurt, and for me when I can not do what they or I want.  It is my hope that if I work hard, my boys will not be badly impacted by my health problems, but will be better men for their sincerity and empathy.  Even in the grips of the worst pain of migraines and other sickness I cling to my belief that nothing can keep me from giving my children the best opportunityto be great people.  Adversity can breed depression and bitterness but given the right angle and determination it can also create a sort of quantum leap in character growth.  My children are already characters, I simply need to help it grow into something wonderful.

Apr

15

Migraine Pain Cycles - The Brakes didn’t Work

Filed Under Migraines | Comments Off

It is a common complaint among women that they tend to get their migraines during or around their periods.  This is true of me as well.  As mentioned before I suffer from hypothyroid and am being treated for it through a medical doctor.  I do not like medical doctors, but am left with little choice when it comes to some problems.  So in a wild attempt to stop the migraines and a few other health problems I cope with around my period I went to my thyroid doctor and suggested that I try going on a birth control pill to stop my periods all together. I wanted to try putting the brakes on the cycles of pain I seemed stuck in. This seemed like a good idea to her, so the next day I started taking the pill.  Six weeks in I had no migraines and my other major health problem (inerstitial cystitis) had not flared up so I was getting hopeful. However like most of my experiences in the medical world I was destined for disappointment and additional bitterness.  On the seventh week of taking the pill I had a migraine and a cystitis flare up which are usually markers that my period will start soon.  Sure enough my period started two days later withanother migraine.  I was frustrated that the pill had not worked but I figured that it was fluke and when it was over I would press on in my theory of stopping the cycles.  Unfortunately my period lasted 4 weeks and three days.  I called my doctor concerned after the first ten days had passed and was shocked that my doctor casually said “I am not surprised, women with thyroid problems react to the pill like that fairly often.”  Wow, I wonder how difficult it would have been to mention that like a couple months ago when I first came in.  Of course she has not had to suffer through five blinding migraines and an array of miserable pains and ailments so it should not be shocking in the end.  Why should I be surprised at all? I blame myself really.  If I would just learn to stop hoping that doctors have cures or any reliable help to offer.  If you think about it when a doctor says with a big grin ‘We have a treatment for that’ they are not saying much.  The medical world is in the profession of treatment not healing, and rarely curing.  If I continue working with doctors on my health, I will die young and probably addicted to a heaping pile of medications, not to mention insane.  Insane may come first, or maybe it came already and I missed it, or worse I have lost it and am mistaking it for being eccentric.  I wonder if their is a pill to help people who are eccentric?  And if so does it work on people who have hypothyroidism?

Mar

29

Migraine Blindness - Are We Having FUN Yet?

Filed Under Migraines | Leave a Comment

Migraine headaches are as different as the people who get them.  Where one migraine will offer nausea as its strongest symptom another will bring near blindness or severe pain as its particular personality trait.  It is hard to know when a migraine is beginning where it will take you.  I love and crave adventure but would not say that these particular wanderings peak my interest.  More recently throwing up during my migraines seems to have dropped off and blindness has come to the forefront of my suffering.  Where once I was only blind partially in one eye for the duration of my pain I am currently enjoying partial blindness in at least one eye and often both for up to five or six days after the migraine pain has passed.  This blindness is wielding a wide range of devastations on my life.  For instance when speaking to people I cannot focus very well on their faces and when I do they have big blacked out areas where I can see nothing but a fuzzy dark haze.  Also sudden bursts of light that no one else would notice like a passing car’s windshield that catches the sun and reflects it in my direction or a fluorescent ceiling light overhead at the grocery store.  These random lights not only strike me with a disorienting temporary blindness but also feel equivalent to be slapped full on across the face.  The pain drives through my eyes and deep into my head.  Functioning with this situation has become a daily challenge to maintain my dignity and not scare people by acting like a total freak.

So if you run across a woman that will not look you in the eye, runs into chairs and people, and will occasionally without cause clutch her head and gasp because someone opened the shades nearby, try not to judge her.  She may not be crazy, just blind and miserable before the age of thirty.  Throw some pennies in her cap for she has a long road ahead of her, just be sure you tell her they are there since she likely can’t see them.

So much for my synthroid theory.  The search continues…….

Jan

23

Migraine and Headache Support Newsletter

Filed Under Migraines, Tension Headaches | Leave a Comment

Hey everyone, thanks for all the responses and support.  I really feel that emotional support is a huge key to living with and recovering from migraines.  I have gotten inspired and created a newsletter that I am very proud of and that I think you will enjoy.  These newsletters are not typical and are intended to be a ‘pick me up’ with helpful hints and ideas on how to live with and manage head ache pain.  If you want my free newsletter just go to www.headache-pain-relief.com and sign up, I think you will really enjoy it.    Take care and thanks again!

GG

Jan

19

Migraine and Imitrex - My Scary True Story!

Filed Under Migraines | 1 Comment

My name is Geri and this is a story everyone needs to hear.

Migraines come suddenly, I rarely have more than a fifteen minute window when my partial blindness alerts me to the wave of pain that is coming.  Before I had children I took over the counter drugs with little or no effect.  I remember one migraine was so painful I told myself at that time that I could never have kids because if the house was on fire I would not be able to get them out with that much pain pinning me to the bed and only able to make out the outlines of everything around me.

 I did of course have my wonderful boys later, and I live aware that if a migraine cannot be contained I may have to call someone to help me or if I’m driving pull over and wait for my sight to return.  I carried Imitrex with me for eight months before I had to use it.  I was at Chuckee Cheeses with my husband and kids when the flashing lights from the games disappeared and the laughter from kids turned into ringing in my ears.  These are my tell tale migraine alerts and I ran to the car and took the Imitrex immediately.  It worked great, minimized pain, no nausea and my sight came back within half an hour.

 The next afternoon at home I was surprised by another attack of blindness, my entire right eye went dark and my left was more shadows then light.  I took another Imitrex immediately as directed, hoping for the same results I had had the day before.  I knew within a few minutes this migraine would be very bad and called my sister in law to come watch the kids.

 The pain was escalating more quickly then I had ever experienced, the blindness was unrelenting and I began vomiting but there was something new that I had never experienced with my migraines.  I was beginning to feel pain in my chest, shakiness all over, and hallucinations.  My sister in law called my mom as it was becoming evident I would need more help.  My mom nursed me through hours of what became the scariest experience of my life. 

 I spiraled into a hellish nightmare of panic and hallucinations that still seem real to me today.  By the time my husband got home from work I was curled in the fetal position, my hands tightened into fists I could not release and I was hyperventilating.  All this was secondary to the pain of the migraine which was unbearable.  Even in this no doubt pitiable state I refused to go to the doctor hanging on to the belief that it would pass.

 My mom called the pharmacist and explained what was happening.  He asked her if I was on antidepressants, which I am.  He explained that Imitrex can have this effect on persons who take serotonin reuptake inhibitors.  What I was suffering with was the fine print.  The less likely side effects of a medication prescribed to me by the same doctor who prescribed me the antidepressants.

 I still do not remember the four or five days after the incident.  A sort of eerie amnesia came over me soon after the pain began to subside.  I do not know how I spent those days recovering, if I was in pain or if I seemed normal to others, if I played with my kids or laid on the couch staring at a wall.  I wish I did, I wish I could remember but wishing won’t give me back those days or make the sharp memories of pain and fear go away. 

 But there is one wish I can make a reality, and that is sparing others from this terrifying experience.  Please do not assume that your doctor remembers what he prescribes you.  Whenever someone offers you a new prescription always remind them of every other drug you are on.  To be even safer ask your pharmacist, they know better what can and can’t be done with your medications.  Never assume that just because you pay someone allot of money that they are automatically intelligent or capable.  There is nothing a doctor knows that you cannot learn yourself from a book which means they are not gods.  They are not infallable and we should not expect them to be.   If I had taken the time to look up my medications in the book my doctor had sitting next to him I would not be missing a week of my life today.  Please take care with my regards,

Geri Rene

← Previous Page — Next Page →