Tell us about your symptoms and treatment experience. Take our survey here.

Nightmare migraines ruining my life

Hi, my name is Viv and I am 43, married for 20yrs and have 3 beautiful children who are almost all grown. Firstly, my condolences to everyone who suffers from this horrid health issue but we should be thankful it's not life threatening... at the time it's happening. I had suffered with migraines from the age of 15 to 20yrs and then I didn't have one migraine for almost 20 years. I thought the trigger was stress back then as I had a lot of personal stress...well to me it was stressful but to most people it would be something they would shrug off as nothing. Once I met my husband life felt settled and I didn't have any health issues.....UNTIL we moved to Calgary, Alberta 4 years ago. I had a few migraines the first 2 years we lived here and then I didn't have one the third year...then the 4th year came and WOW migraines got more severe and more often and were part of my weekly regimen. We just thought my migraines were from the crazy barometric pressure changes that occur once and a while here. I started to watch when my migraines were happening and realized they weren't happening at all during the weather changes. We spent thousands of dollars on different types of treatments but nothing helped. The only thing I had in common with the time when I began having severe migraines was the fact that I had an IUD (birth control) put in. I had the IUD put in so it would lessen the heaviness of my periods as I had very low iron and my cycle controlled my entire life. With the IUD my cycle was almost constant but it wasn't as bad so I could travel and do things I usually had to work around my god forsaken monster. I asked my physician (more than one physician) if the IUD could be the cause of my sickness....on all occasions I was told no. My last bout of migraines was Christmas morning...I had my IUD removed the week after Christmas and I haven't had one migraine since - it's January 27th today. I don't know if this was the cause of my migraines as I would have to go at least 2 months without a migraine before I can confirm...but I would have had a batch of migraines and missed work at least once by now. At this point I truly believe my migraines were caused by my IUD. I haven't touched on the type of migraines I had so here I go: Loss of eye sight, numbness in the face and hands, nauseated, got the poo poos instantly, couldn't understand what people were saying nor can I remember how to say words, after about 40 minutes of having stroke symptoms I just want to sleep for hours and it feels like someone is scraping the inside of my head. Because of having migraines every week to two weeks I now get anxiety...mostly when I go to bed or when my eyes do anything slightly off from normal because I am so scared to get another migraine and eye sight change is the first symptom. I'm sure my coworkers think I am crazy because I have left work completely frustrated and crying or I just walk out. I try to make it home before my eye sight gets completely messed up. I love going to work having people ask how my headache is....grrrr...it's far from a headache... I would take a headache every day over a migraine. I hope my IUD is the issue...I don't want to live like with this. Also....the doctors...how upsetting they are...they just push drugs drugs and more drugs. I tried marijuana for the first time last summer in my tea during one of my bouts of migraines and it helped me sleep and lessened the pain. Don't ask me where I got the marijuana from...I don't have a dealer nor do I even know where to begin looking for one...seriously I don't know anything about buying so called illegal "plants". I have been to three doctors and I asked for medicinal marijuana and one doctor shrugged it off like my question didn't even exist, the next doctor laughed at me and treated me like a crack addict looking for a fix and the next doctor so far hasn't followed through with my request as he promised he would....I have never been a "pot head" as they called pot smokers in school...but after reading about so many people finding cures for cancer and so many other medical issues I am a big believer in marijuana....for medical reasons. I have read on the history of marijuana and I have a better understanding of our government, I have a better understanding of our pharma industry and I have a better understanding of why we are forced to take pharma poison. No I'm not an expert on any of these topics but I now have different beliefs and understandings of things we were taught and forced to believe. I'm sad that there isn't a lot of natural choices unless we do it so privately and keep it hush hush. I take my health seriously and I won't be stuck taking pharma for the rest of my life only to find out 10yrs down the road I have new symptoms from the poison I ingested the past 10 yrs. I hope for everyone's sake that things change as far as legalizing more natural alternatives. This is a plant..not a man made narcotic consisting of chemicals..it's natural, no chemicals! The fact that some human decided to call a plant illegal is just an illusion...no matter the outcome...it's just an illusion....you can't criminalize a plant...a plant that was legal and used for medicinal purposes 80 years ago! Ok my rant about marijuana is getting larger than my migraine experience rant...so I will close off saying that I hope everyone finds their triggers, finds some peace with their health and most of all finds love and support from loved ones during their sick times, I am so blessed to have my husband and 3 children and I thank them so dearly for their support. God bless!

By providing your email address, you are agreeing to our privacy policy.

This article represents the opinions, thoughts, and experiences of the author; none of this content has been paid for by any advertiser. The Migraine.com team does not recommend or endorse any products or treatments discussed herein. Learn more about how we maintain editorial integrity here.

Join the conversation

Please read our rules before commenting.

Community Poll

Do you feel comfortable advocating for yourself to your healthcare provider?