My Life of Migraine Pain...

Well, I have suffered since I was 14 or 15 years old from migraines. I am 50 now. My life is close to ruined. I lost my career, relationships, my mind, and all traces of hope.

Migraine is more than a headache

Besides a side-splitting headache, all the symptoms can occur when you have a migraine. Try to determine triggers, create a plan to prevent these vicious migraines, and recognize warning signals that require medical attention. Oh, and steer clear of migraine myths so they don’t hinder your diagnosis and treatment... or alienate everyone.

Headaches aren’t the only symptom of migraines. Migraines are an umbrella for multiple symptoms, and everyone experiences a migraine a little bit differently. In my case, I have a drooping eyelid, bloodshot eye on the side of the pain, regular headaches all the time, moderate to severe pain that lasts several hours to days in my case, tender scalp, throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head (usually on the left for me), and start feeling better after sleeping, day or night. Not to mention the nausea, vomiting, visual disturbances, sensitivity to loud noises and light, and feeling depressed and extremely anxious.

Navigating debilitating hormonal migraine pain

I still can't identify my triggers other than my period cycle. Hormones, which I have created a facebook support group for. We are now close to 4,000 sufferers from the hellish hormonal migraines.

Yes, I'm sick of dealing with migraines, so I did everything I could think of, except chopping my head off. See doctors or specialists for evaluation and treatment, try to identify triggers and avoid them, find medications that work and try use them properly. No, we are not drug seekers. Of course, the judgments and migraine myths prevent people from being diagnosed and treated properly. YES, this happens all the time, if not always. Who cares about the real story... you don't work, you cant keep the house in perfect order... you have it made, right?!?!? Well, no...

When doctors are no help

"Your doctor would have already told you if you actually had migraines". Not necessarily, that would be too easy! "It's all in your head, you're stressed, depressed and anxious... heres a slough of antidepressants, benzos, and Z class meds to sleep and come back in a year...". Well, how to ruin your life in 10 minutes flat. Well, been 30 years and still hooked to these drugs, prescription drugs, and guess what, still have as many, if not more, migraines.

Doctors know what causes migraines. No, they don’t! But many headache experts and neurologists believe that a disturbance in brain chemicals is the source of migraine development.... will see, I guess. I'm stuck with suffering from head pain because migraines are rarely treated successfully. Wrong/right... wrong for me... nothing helps. I did everything: pills, botox, nerve blocks, ear piercing, naturopathy, helmets, ice caps, all these new infiltrations, and CGRPs. Nothing helps me. If it does, only a bit at first. It's temporary.

40 years of debilitating hormonal migraine

I have suffered from migraines for close to 40 years. They are debilitating and always on my mind. I have to think about them everyday, whether I have one or not. I can’t “just” go somewhere without worrying, unless I have ALL my meds, sunglasses, vomit bag, and my fashionable migraine hat with me. I wonder if there will be a quiet place? Will someone have cologne on that triggers one? Will I get breaks when needed? Will I need to wear my sunglasses inside? The list goes on. There are so many times I miss out on, too many. An endless number of days have been lost to this horrific pain.

Migraine's impact on my family

My biggest issue is what my migraines do to my family, especially my husband and son. When I see that look of “oh, another migraine” it just rips me up. The guilt is overwhelming. No one understands, until it happens to them. I just wish those that don’t believe could be in my head during one, for just 60 seconds. Although I’d never wish this pain on anyone, one minute would be enough. Today I woke up to the pain and did what I could to relieve it, like always, and forced myself to run errands, because they have needed to be done for the last 3 days. The migraine monster was here for over 72 hours.

Those days when the black cloud is over my head are the hardest, when those thoughts of ending it and just letting the migraines win come to mind. I'm so happy that I am strong and refuse to lose hope, to give up... but OMG, does it ever creep up in your mind on bad days? Praying and crying and making an already hard migraine worse... but what can I do? Just sit there and choose what I would accomplish? It’s truly an exhausting, invisible condition, that people just don’t understand. So often, I feel that no one really cares and thinks I just complain for attention. Some have said that I’m “lucky” because I’m no longer employed and don’t get why I can’t get things done.

Migraine's impact on my career

I finally lost my career in early 2017, fighting the system since 2011, where a full hysterectomy was done to maybe help with the hormonal migraines. Yeah, wishful thinking. I was invited by a horrible boss and his posse to quit, to give up on my career because I was causing undue hardship to them, like really... I was in high management in the federal government, a CPA, managed through school up to finishing top of my class at the university. I was told, you miss work too much, you work from home to much... Lord, I was always on my blackberry and laptop, available even if I was dying in pain. Nope, not enough, no compassion what so ever by my superiors. They did not care at all. I was a liability and that was it. I nearly financially lost everything, took from 2011 to 2017 to finally wrap up my case and get my insurance to pay and retire on a medical basis... yeah, at 60% of my salary.

Just last year, yes in 2022, did I get approval for the disability tax credit, who would have thought they would go hand and hand. Well no, never easy... that fight took years and so many more letters, papers, and reports at a cost, of course, and I have to start over every year for my insurance and every 7 years for the tax credit. And so much more, I could go on and on....

Staying positive

I have other diagnoses and compiled with the migraines, well, they won. I could get a job on a “good” day, but, I’d never be able to keep it. I have, on average, 20 migraines a month. Some worse than others. Currently I’m sitting here with that aura around me, it may soon be time to medicate myself, yet again. I have empathy for all those like me. Thank you for reading my post. I honestly do try to stay positive and I’ve accepted the fact that I will suffer for the rest of my life. I didn’t ask for this, I mean, who would ? I often wonder what I did to deserve my physical issues. I know someone has it worse, but that just means, someone else has it better. God Bless and I pray those reading this are free from pain, if only for a little while.