Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy.
I had my first migraine when I was 12. I thought I was going blind, the spots in my vision all grouped together and everything went black. The pain was intense and felt like my head would crack open above my right eye. It lasted for several hours, my mother called the doctor but no-one seemed overly concerned. After it went away the next day I began to forget about it.
Jump ahead 15 years until my next migraine. Now I would get maybe 2-4 a year until I was 30. Not enough for my doctor to worry about putting me on medication. No OTC medication would touch the pain, I just had to lie in a silent, and dark room until it would finally go away.
By the age of 34 I finally called it enough. I had a migraine that hit when I was driving home from seeing my horse. By the time I got home I could only see my right hand on the steering wheel. The pain lasted 2 days and I actually asked people to hit me in the head, begged them even, just so I could focus on something else for a few seconds.
The doctor prescribed an anti-depressant to try to prevent them, and Imitrex to take when they hit. The first didn't hit for 6 months and I had that brief moment when I thought I was cured. But no, I got one when I walked outside one day and had some glare. The Imitrex made me throw up, that didn't help the migraine at all. My doctor gave me another abortive drug to try, when that migraine happened the drug not only didn't stop the migraine but gave me vertigo, that I needed to take yet another medication to make go away after 3 days of being dizzy. The doctor on call that day wondered why I hadn't come sooner, like it was my fault I could barely stand, they also upped the antidepressant and gave me yet another abortive med to try. A week later I had another migraine, the new drug literally knocked me out and the next day I felt hungover. I wasn't sure if this was an improvement, but I'll take anything over the pain.
By now I was starting to try and find any links to triggers that I could. Caffeine, sunlight or briight lights, stress, dehydration, aspartame, not enough sleep, too much sleep, over hydration...you know what it's like. Tenuous links at best that I tried to cut out, but it's hard to avoid some of them and still be alive.
This month I have had 3 migraines. That's more in one month than I've ever had before. I feel like my body is betraying me. I have no idea why it's doing what it is. I get worried that maybe I've got something more serious than the label of migraines is. I wish there was an answer out there for something that I could try to make them go away and never come back. I'm 35 and sometimes I have to spend my day alone in the dark to feel better...that makes me feel nuts.
Sorry for the downer of a story. I am hoping there is light at the end of this tunnel for me and my migraines, but right now that light just feels like a high speed train running me down.
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