My Life with Chronic Migraines

I was first diagnosed with migraines after the birth of my second child by c-section twenty fours years ago. That one lasted six months because I was nursing and could not take medication. Since I have lived with some amount of head pain every day. At first I pursued all medical treatment available, my doctors had me on about twelve different meds., without much relief. I followed the doctors advise for about ten years until I got tired of the fog all meds put me in, so I stopped all med. I told my doctor that I was done trying to find relieve that wasn't coming and I would learn to live with the pain.

Today as I write this I am battling with a nasty ten week monster. I go to work everyday with a smile on my face as I scream on the inside from the pain that is made worse by bright lights and loud machines that I work among for eight hours each day.

Each day as I get up in the morning, I tell myself I am stronger then the pain in my head and I will get through the day. Some days are much harder then others but I try to find some small action that makes someone else day better.

The hardest part of this disease is that I have passed it on to two out of three of my children. My son has migraines with seizures that started out of know where when he was twenty-four and my daughter's first migraine was at five and today at twenty two she has them with face numbness and auras. It is bad enough I have to deal with them but the guilt of knowing that my children have to feel the pain and effects of this awful disease at times is too much.

I tend not to share with others the fact that I live with chronic migraine because they want to give advise or suggest that maybe there is some other problem like a brain tumor. I know their intensions are well meant but after twenty-four years of migraines I just don't have the patience to listen.

I don't know if my story will help anyone else, I know it helped me to share it. Thank you migraine.com for giving me the opportunity to share my story.