Saturday, June 14, 2014

My story as a migraineur Updated 2016 by Celeste Cooper


Updated June, 2016



I have suffered with migraines for fifty years. I always lived with the hope that my migraines would ease with age as did my paternal grandmother, but quite the contrary has happened. They have become more frequent and now I have not only classic migraine, I also have cervicogenic migraine. You can read more on the chronic migraine, migraine with aura, occipital neuralgia, and some weird type of migraine that is only treatable with lidocaine up my nose.

My life has consisted of unpredictable severe and incapacitating pain, vomiting until breaking all the blood vessels in my face, accompanied by irritable bowel attacks as my body revolts against the enemy within. My blood pressure has dropped out of sight, literally. 


I have always needed accommodations. I was the kid embarrassed by having to raise my hand to go to the nurse's office, stopping by the bathroom to vomit then laying on the cot waiting until I could get home, hoping I didn't lose my lunch or my bowels on the bus. I was the young adult who had to retreat to a dark room while in college and miss classes that I should not miss. I remember my first REAL job as a young adult and working with a very kind woman, who always made sure I had a dark place to go.

No difference came with age other than the advent of Imitrex, which has made my life more bearable, though it does not work as well as it once did. I have been made to feel that I created this problem. I have lived long enough to be judged as a neurotic middle aged woman who couldn't deal with life, and I have lived knowing the statistics of having a stroke as I age into later life, because I am a migraineur.

My brain has felt ready to explode, I have prayed for a hot poker to relieve the pressure behind my right eye. If you are a migraineur reading this, you know exactly the other things I have prayed for too. I know what transitioning is. I have lost my vision; have prodromal (early symptoms) of eye lid dropping and my right eye crossing. Sometimes after vomiting, it will move to the left, that is when I know my nightmare will soon lessen. I have tried every drug known to man to prevent them; nothing works. 


I have been poked and prodded, promised miracle injections that didn't work. I have had Botox(T)  in my neck, which rendered me in so much pain I cried every day until it wore off, that was several months. (I will clarify that the Botox was to treat my cervical degeneration, not the migraine protocol.)

Yes, I have lived the migraine life. There is no other pain like it, and I have plenty of other pain conditions to boot. We all know that even after an attack leaves, we do not feel like tripping through a field of flowers as pharmaceutical ads imply—If only. We have come a long way in understanding them, but we have miles to go before we sleep.

Help change the world. Raise awareness for migraine treatment and prevention. Join a group like the AHMA, follow AmericanHeadache Society. Even if you don't have them often, you know you never want them again.

My first blog of the month is here

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"Adversity is only an obstacle if we fail to see opportunity."  

Learn more about what you can do to help your body function to its potential in the books you can find here on Celeste's  blog. Subscribe to posts by using the information in the upper right hand corner or use the share buttons to share with others.


All answers and blogs are based on the author's opinions and writing and are not meant to replace medical advice.  

2 comments:

justjane said...

I am so sorry, Celeste. I hear every painful word. I feel it too.

The Pained Ink Slayer said...

And I am sorry to hear you share this horrible disease.

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