My life of hell with migraines

Hello everyone,

It's nice to have a platform where I can finally talk about the problem which I have faced for the last 8 years but sadly which most people don't take seriously.

I had my first migraine attack when I was around 25 years old. I had no idea that this was a migraine or even what a migraine was. I thought it was a regular headache and that it would get better soon. I remember that day as clearly and it was today. I was out with my cousins and this slow pain that I had on one side of my head slowly kept getting worse and worse still I started vomiting. I couldn't eat or drink anything. We went to a restaurant nearby so that I could have something to eat and then have a medicine but I couldn't keep any food down and kept puking in the bathroom every time I had a bite of food or a sip of water. I was so ashamed of the mess that I had made there that I have never gone back to that place again.

Thus started my years of terror.

My migraines slowly became worse and became a part of my life. I started popping pain killers and swiftly shifted over to more and more powerful ones because I couldn't bear the thought of the pain hitting me yet again.

Doctors didn't help in any way. I've tried every medication in the book but nothing has gone my way.

In March this year I discovered I was pregnant. Instead of being happy or excited, the first thing I did was, google "migraines and pregnancy". I learnt that there's a rule of 1/3. For 1/3rd of sufferers, the intensity of migraine remains the same, for one-third of them it decreases and for one-third, the migraines increase. Guess what, I was in the lucky third category.

My first trimester was absolute hell. I had the most debilitating migraines almost every single day and to make things worse I couldn't take any medicines. I would get up in the morning with a migraine, spend the entire day just lying in bed and by the evening the pain would get so bad that I would just feel like banging my head against the wall and crying and tearing my hair out. On top of that I had some problems with my pregnancy early on so my life was completely crippled.

I am 6 months into my pregnancy now and thankfully the intensity of the migraines has reduced I still have them once every 5 or 6 days but at least they're bearable. I am absolutely clueless about what I am supposed to do next about my migraines. Even when I wasn't having coffee and chocolates the migraines were hitting me hard so I know that's not the cause. I don't drink alcohol so that can't be it either. I have absolutely no idea what triggers my migraines and it's like I keep groping in the dark but I don't know what triggers it and what is going to stop it.

Migraines has taken over every aspect of my life. I dont go on long car drives because I know that is a sure precursor to a migraine. Anything from the smell of somebody's perfume, being woken abruptly from sleep or even somebody's tone of voice that I don't like can trigger off a migraine in me. I was so terrified that a migraine would hit me on the day of my wedding that that is all that my mind was focused on. Thankfully it didn't and I could get through the day without vomiting or creating a scene.

I only hope I don't pass on this horrifically dreadful thing called a migraine to my child. I don't know how many years of suffering I have left in front of me but I really well and truly hope that there is finally some solution to this problem which plagues all of us and has taken over our lives in ways that are different and yet so similar.