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Moment of Darkness
Consuming
the Darkness Surviving the Darkness
“I should
have undressed
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Dealing
with Migraines:
When you look at me you see a normal everyday average woman. What you don’t see is that I suffer, daily, with chronic pain. I Have Migraines. I also suffer from Depression and Fibromyalgia, but we won’t get into those right now. Let’s talk about my head. Migraines are commonly a misunderstood disease. No, it is not just a headache and those of us that suffer from the debilitating disease tend to become defensive when people refer to it as “Just a Headache” It is so much more. I won’t go into all the details of what a Migraine is and how it works, but I will tell you my experiences. For more information on Migraines, please see the links above. The first recollection I have of having head pain was when I was approximately thirteen. I had been in a minor car accident (rear ended) and had not been wearing a seat belt at the time. Though I was shaken up, having experienced my very first accident, I had no idea I was injured. It wasn’t until the neck pain started the next day did I realize I had been hurt. But the neck injury (which I learnt some years later had been whiplash) went untreated. My parents didn’t want to cause trouble for the driver (who happened to be a cousin of mine) so nothing was said. So I suffered.
It wasn’t just the neck pain, though that was enough to make anyone crabby, but more things began happening as time went on. I found I couldn’t use my right arm as well as I had been able to before the accident. I began having headaches, visual disturbances, nausea, dizziness, passing out and disorientation. It was minimal, occurring occasionally, but went undiagnosed. As the years went by, and my complaints of the pain increased, I was taken to a chiropractor. She only made matters worse in my opinion as after seeing her, the pain increased. I was referred to in my family as ‘The Sick one’ I was sick often, but no explanation as to why I was sick all the time was given. I was just sick and weak. It wasn’t until I met and married my husband (and with his encouragement) did I pursue my headaches. Still, I was told, they were just “Headaches” I continued to suffer.
During my first pregnancy they increased. And once again, I suffered. The pain was always on the right side of my head, stabbing into my eye, at the back of my head and neck and down into my shoulder. It felt as if someone were driving a hot poker into my eye while another was stabbing a dagger into the right side of my head and neck. I was nauseous and dizzy but attributed that to being pregnant. When the pain increased after my first child was born, I sought help again. This time I was sent to a Neurologist. He diagnosed me as having, Migraines. My reply was, “What’s that?” He gave me a card with information about my condition and told me to take aspirin or Tylenol when the pain began. What a joke. Taking an aspirin or a Tylenol for a migraine would be like putting a tiny band aid on a gaping wound. It’s useless. But I obeyed and gave it a try. Still I suffered. My family suffered.
When the pain hit, I couldn’t function. Bright lights were like daggers to my eyes, burning a hole into my skull, so my house was often shaded and the windows were covered with thick blankets. I couldn’t take my children outside because the sunlight hurt too much. I couldn’t go out with my husband because I was just in too much pain. The relentless stabbing pain was unbearable, every noise amplified times ten, every movement of my head was excruciating. The nausea, dizziness and disorientation irritating. I was incapable of dealing with myself, or my children. We all suffered. And it only got worse with age.
By the time my third child was born, I was experiencing daily pain. My head felt full, as if it was ready to burst from the pain. We Migraineur have a scaling system to let each other and doctors know what pain level we are at. One being mild, Ten being intolerable. On a daily basis, I was at a steady seven. When the pain increased, it would go to a ten and beyond. Again I sought help, and again I was sent away with a mild analgesic. I was frustrated and slipping slowly into a world I had no idea was called Depression. Then one particularly rough Migraine hit me and it threw me completely off guard. I woke in the morning to the usual dull ache on the right side of my head. To say I was used to it would not be correct. To say it was a part of me would be more accurate. I dealt with it. But by noon, the pain increased. My eye began to water, the pain was beyond incredible. The nausea set in as did the dizziness. And every noise was like cannon fire in my head. I couldn’t handle even my children’s voices. By the evening, it was so bad I couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t think. I was alone with my two young boys, as my husband was at work. I remember my husband coming home. I don’t know where my boys were, I remember telling my husband I was in pain, he later told me my speech was slurred and I was disoriented. I have no recollection of what happened at that time, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t function. The pain was all consuming that it filled my head, blocked out my thoughts and scrambled my speech. I am so lucky nothing happened to my two infants sons. My husband rushed me to the emergency room where I was prescribed Tylenol with codeine and sent home. I took the pills, they knocked me out, took away most of the pain but when I woke, I was exhausted. I literally felt as if someone had drained my body of all its fluids, had me run a marathon, starved me to the point that my stomach was in knots and cramping, then slammed my head into a wall. Now wasn’t that a good idea. So I tried it. When the pain began, I would do anything to end it. Including slamming my head against the wall. Now, you might think, what the hell were you thinking. But as I told my husband, when I would slam my head against the wall, there was that moment, a split second, when there was no pain, and it was euphoria. So I continued to do it over and over and over again. It didn't take the pain away but fdor that split second and I realized soon that it only made matters worse. So I quit.
Then once again I was taken to the ER during a nasty episode and the ER doc prescribed me a wonder drug called, Migranol. I was saved. Or so I thought. Sure, the Migranol took away the pain. It is an abortive, which means it will take the pain away immediately. But it didn’t last long. The daily aching continued. So I lived off of Advil, taking up to fifteen a day. Holy cow, you say, and rightfully so. The pain increased.
Again I saw a neurologist, only this time he was more thorough. He sat, he listened and he helped. He told me that I was not only suffering from Migraines, but Cluster headaches as well, and was also suffering from rebound headaches. Rebound headaches are headaches that form from taking a med too long. (Some meds) Instead of taking away the pain, your body develops a tolerance to it and craves it more. So it increases the pain, you take more meds, pain increases and so on. I was addicted to Advil.
So I was told to stop taking it, and yes, I would be in
more pain. But I made it through with the love and support of my husband. After my cleansing my body of Advil, I returned to the Neurologist and he prescribed me a preventative. A preventative is a medication taken daily to decrease the frequency of the pain.
I was in heaven.
For a while. It came back, with a vengeance. And the side effects of the med left me feeling like a walking Zombie. I was no good to my kids or to my husband.
So I went off those meds.
Then, one day, years later, I was walking my daughter to school and as I was walking home, my vision began to vanish. I was loosing my eyesight and fast. I made it home, and was completely blind. Talk about being terrified. After and hour, my vision came back, slowly. And the Migraine took over with a vengeance. That was my first experience with loss of sight accompanied by a migraine. I described the vision loss to my husband and Neurologist like this: It was like an eclipse. Something was moving over my line of vision, slowly, starting from he outside edges and moving inward. By the time I had walked three blocks over half of my vision was blocked and black. As I made it up my driveway and to my house, my vision was gone. I was in the dark, and I was terrified. I didn't know what to do, so I sat down on my sofa, laid my head back and tried to relax. Not and easy thing to do when you suddenly lose your vision. My husband was out of town at the time and I told myself if it didn't return soon, I would call someone for help. I'm a stubborn person and I hate to admit I am down in any way. When my sight finally returned I was overjoyed. The first opportunity I had I went to see my doctor.
I was sent for a Cat-Scan and nothing out of the ordinary showed, other than the fact that I might have suffered a small stroke in my youth. So I was given a preventative again, and sent home. It didn’t work. What it did do though was cause excessive aggression and anger, mood swings that would put Frankenstein to shame, insomnia and lack of sex drive. Not to mention weight gain to a tune of fifty pounds. Yikes! So I went off of those and dealt with the pain as best as I could.
Over the years I have been on several preventatives as well as abortives. None had worked. One took the pain away when the attack happened, only to have it return when the med wore off. Some gave me relief for days, but messed up my sinuses and caused a whole other set of problems for me. Another gave me chest pains, and the final one, the one I use now, takes the pain away on one side, only to shift it to the other side. And it only lasts a few hours then the pain on the right is back. Of all the abortives I have been on, the last one, Zomig, causes the least side effects. Sure, it has its down side, like shifting the pain and not lasting, but it is better than nothing. So you might think that everything is just grand for me now. Not! The older I get, the worse they get. I have what’s called ‘Triggers’ that set off a migraine, common in migraine sufferers. My Triggers are: Florescent lights (major for me) MSG (Also major) Aspartame (sugar substitute) Caffeine Stress Neck strain Heavy lifting Lack of sleep Too much sleep
Weather patterns, a change in weather patterns To name a few.
I can’t work because most places are lit with florescent lights. I can’t go to my children school because of the lights. I rarely eat at anyone else’s house for fear of the ingredients in their food. I look at every label before I buy my food to make sure there is no MSG or its hidden names in anything I buy. Which, let me tell you, isn’t easy as it is in practically everything. I am afraid to try new things for fear of ending up in pain. I suffer from insomnia and if I’m lucky, I sleep three hours a night. So I have secluded myself to my home, for the most part. I do go out to shop, but I make it as quick as possible to avoid being under the lights for too long. My husband hates it because he likes to browse.
Two years ago, I fell into a heavy depression. I stopped
calling people, stopped talking with my friends and family. I didn’t want to go
out, I was either crying all the time, or angry all the time. I hated
everything, and mostly, I hated that I was afflicted with the monster known as
Migraines. And on top of it, so was my Fibromyalgia and the Migraines. I was a mess.
So off to the doctor I went, again, and was prescribed an antidepressant. I still am down sometimes, because there is so much I can’t do. I can’t work like normal women. I can’t volunteer at my kid’s school, and I have to make my family eat what I eat (which tends to be very bland food). It’s not fair to anyone, including me. I hate that my kids see me in pain, I hate when I stumble around the house because I can’t see out of my right eye, or I am so dizzy that the room is spinning. I hate that my husband has to sit up with me while I rock back and forth, crying because the pain is so bad I want to die. I hate that I have to take heavy medications that can cause heart problems just to feel some relief. I hate that I was inflicted with Migraines. But I go on, as most of us do, and deal with what might come. I continue to try new meds, hoping, hoping that this time it will be the wonder drug. And I live my life in fear of when the next Attack will occur. As I sit here now, writing this, my head is throbbing. Not so bad that I can’t think, yet, but I know in a matter of time it will get worse. So I take my pills, hoping it will take the beast away for good. And I suffer.
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