Tips for Diagnosing Causes and Finding Solutions
Dear Migraine.com Community,
My name is Julius and I am currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine. I am actually asking this with regards to my girlfriend, another volunteer, who is the one suffering.
She has been suffering chronic migraines almost our entire time here (since about October). I looked into what differentiates chronic migraines from episodic ones and it's definitely (and unfortunately) the former as she has them 15 days or more each month and they last 4 or more hours on each occasion.
I'm starting to get quite worried about her as she's visited our medical HQ a few times and had an MRI here in Ukraine (everything looked normal luckily), but there still hasn't been any conclusive results nor improvement even with the medicine she was given. She's very resilient and has been taking all of this in stride but I'm worried as it has affected her ability to work consistently and is beginning to take a pretty significant toll on her emotionally and spiritually.
I suppose I'm kind of taking a shot in the dark here, but I love her very much and wanted to see if I could glean any information from here. So if anyone has any tips on either alleviating the affects of chronic migraines or - even better - tips in finding a proper diagnosis (as everything up to this point has been inconclusive). i know being in this part of the world complicates things a bit, but perhaps if anyone also knows of anyone we could contact as well (Headache specialists, etc.) who would be willing to talk via email, that would be amazing!
Well, I thank you all in advance and I wish you well.
Best regards,
Julius
Hi Julius,
Thank you for reaching out on behalf of your girlfriend, we're glad you're here. Would she be able to read in as well?
I'm afraid we can't give a diagnosis, only a qualified medical professional can do that. Once there is an accurate diagnosis your girlfriend can learn about her type of headache disorder and get the proper treatment. Does that make sense?
I'm afraid I don't know of a headache expert in the Ukraine, but will try and do a bit of research.
Nancy
Check out this article from a Harvard professor on urgent vs non-urgent headaches. It also has a pretty cool quiz you can take when you have a headache.
Can anyone lend feedback on what contribution that improving cerebral blood flow may add or detract from long-term migraine management?
