Category Archives: Migraine

despair, Migraine

Life by candlelight.

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It wakes up before I do, wresting me from unconsciousness with a thick unstoppable thumping.  I feel the fearsome pounding knocking at my dreams, pulling me from sleep with it’s tenacious teeth. Before my eyes even open I know the world will be too bright, too loud, too much.

Once awake I have to convince myself to move.  I know I will probably end up vomiting before I am even dressed as the act of sitting up causes waves of nausea to shoot through me.  I climb out of bed and stumble towards the bathroom, wishing I could teleport, fly, or maybe even sleep forever.

The light burns in my eyes as my stomach heaves from the motion.  I struggle through teeth brushing, a hot shower, and the donning of clothes.  The act of getting up has exhausted me.  I nearly convince myself to go back to bed.

If I am lucky, I will get better enough to move about the world in dark glasses. If not, it will be me in my room with an oil lamp on.  The stronger my headaches get, the more often I resort to candlelight to make it through my day.  The soft flickering glow caresses my fragile eyes instead of piercing them.  I have learned to read by candlelight, write by candlelight, crochet by candlelight.  I mute my screen to nearly black to work and write on the computer.

I have tried so many things, medications, therapies, treatments.  None have worked.  At this point I wonder if I will forever have to live my life by candlelight.

health, Just me, Migraine

My robotic shiatsu master.

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I suppose I was bored and dumb enough to announce that to the universe.  Whatever the reason, my headaches, after being exactly the same for over twenty-five years, decided to change in nature.

I have had all the tests necessary to tell me several things:

1.  I don’t have an aneurysm, high blood pressure, a brain tumor, or an alien seed pod silently waiting to kill me.  (So the good news is that this won’t kill me! Yay!)

2. Medical science has no idea why my migraines would suddenly change in nature.  The official word from the leading headache clinic in the country was “Sometimes that happens.”  (Yep. Still a practice.)

3. All those doctors who told me my migraines would stop after menopause were either bald face lying, drunk, or attempting to use anecdotal evidence to provide their suffering patients with desperate kernels of hope because they simply couldn’t stand to look them in the eye and tell them they would live like this forever.  (I would like to think the latter, as it indicates an inherent kindness and gentleness of spirit instead of malpractice.)

Now I not only get my usual headaches, but I also get randomly punched in one side of my face several times throughout the day by an invisible boxer.  (If this continues and I get better at ignoring it maybe I have a chance at being a contender!)

But wait, there is good news!  After several massages from people and one hell of a massage chair it would seem that the punching sensation on the left side of my face is somehow connected to my right shoulder blade.  (Don’t ask me how, my doctors don’t even know how.)

So I have a plan.  I will somehow convince my insurance company that it will be cheaper and more effective for them to buy me a $3500.00 massage chair than it will to keep filling $1800.00 prescriptions each month for medications that really aren’t all that effective.

Then I can sit in the massage chair several times a day and see if being beaten about by a robotic shiatsu master can cure what ails me.  Massage chair for the win!

Of course, my plan hinges on somehow making an insurance company see the reasonableness of spending $3500.00 on a preventative treatment as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars on abortive medications that don’t work.

What are the odds?

health, Migraine

Ring theory, Practical Paleo, and issues of control.

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Today one of my closest friends posted this wonderful article on “ring theory”.  It better describes what I was trying to say in my recent post “Losing my voice“.  It discusses creating a ring for a person suffering from illness, or trauma, and then adding progressive rings around it, with their family, friends, and caregivers in increasingly outer rings.  The idea is a way for people to provide help to those in lower rings and seek help from those in outer rings.  (Dump out, Comfort In.)  I think this analysis is beautiful, because it acknowledges the difficulties faced by all people in an ill person’s life.  They have the illness to contend with, the guilt caused by the effect that illness has on everyone in their lives, and often only enough energy to try to care for the people in their immediate circle, usually their partner and children.  The partner has the role of caring for the ill person and picking up the slack that person drops in caring for their finances, house, children, etc.  Further, the partner often has to deal with concerns of friends and family who don’t want to burden the ill person, but still want comfort.

The article is powerful to me because it acknowledges that seeking comfort when someone we care about is ill is important, but points out that seeking it from others who aren’t as close or closer to the ill person than you may be better for everyone.  I call it a must read.

Now onto other things…

This week I started the Paleo diet at the suggestion of a friend.  She was kind enough to send me a book, Practical Paleo, after reading my headache whiny posts and feeling for me.  This is exactly the type of help I welcome.  She not only showed me her love for me by thinking about me, but she provided me with the materials I needed to learn about controlling my own health issues using diet.  I have been too low on spoons to parent, work, exercise, and devote a lot of time to researching my own health issues.  I try to look into all the things my family and friends lovingly suggest, but usually when I get to the point of the day when I have the time, I lie down and go to sleep.

However, when Marie sent me the book, I didn’t have to do anything other than read it.  I placed it next to my bed, so when I awoke randomly in the middle of the night I could read it while I waited to fall back asleep.  By the end of the week I had read the philosophy behind the diet and I have to admit, it makes sense to me.  So I started the diet.

It’s day four.  I find it intriguing that I don’t have a headache now, and I haven’t had one for two days.  I am off all medications.

The author wrote something that really stuck with me.  She said that we all turn to medicine to solve our health issues, but we don’t realize that we control the majority of what we put in to our bodies, and therefore we control our health.  For the first time in years I feel like I am in control again.  I feel as though I have a choice in my own health, and that I am not simply going from doctor to doctor, diagnosis to diagnosis.

For the first time in years I have hope.