migraine

June 21, 2003

I got another one this morning. I’ve been getting these annoying things since I was about 12 years old. I remember the first one clearly. I was a C.I.T. at a summer camp and one evening I had a blinding headache like I never had before. I don’t remember what set it off, all I remember is that it lasted for nearly 2 days and was concentrated on one side of my head. My mother’s cousin is a neurosurgeon so I went to him for a whole battery of tests. The diagnosis was migraine, and he was right. A few months later I got another one, and this time it was preceded by a classic aura and that’s how I’ve been getting them ever since.

The only food trigger I know about for sure is nitrites (as found in hot dogs and cold cuts). I got one once after drinking red wine so I’m careful there. Cheeses are okay. A more consistent trigger for me is a strobe light or a bright flash of sunlight, particularly if I’m tired.

This page describes the kind of migraines I get. It starts with a small blind spot. If I’m reading something, I miss a section of the page about the size of a dime. Within 2-3 minutes the center of the blind spot starts blinking and it turns into a semi circle of a zig-zagging white line. The circle starts getting bigger until it expands out of my field of vision. Some migraine sites describe the zig-zag as being colorful, mine are always white. As the line starts moving, I get nauseous and it feels like my brain and body disconnect. I’m hyper-sensitive to smell, light and sound and I have trouble feeling the tips of my fingers (so I drop things easily). It takes about 20-25 minutes for the line to move off and then I have no peripheral vision for a while. Then the headache hits on the opposite side from the aura. I’m lucky. The headache is usually annoying but not agonizing. On a scale from 1-10, my pain is around 4-6 so Excedrin usually helps. Over the years I’ve tried every prescription medication on the market and none have helped the aura or nausea which are worse for me than the headache.

I’ll be fine tomorrow, except it will hurt to bend over or sneeze. That usually takes another day to clear up.

I’m now averaging 1-2 migraines per month. Sometimes I don’t get one at all, sometimes I’ll get 4 or 5. It was the worst when I was pregnant. During the first trimester I would get 5-7 migraines *per week* sometimes 2-3 auras per day.

My mom has them too, but not as frequently as I get them. I hope my girls escape this but chances are they’re in for it too. :-(

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