Migraines

December 24, 2004 · Comments

I’ve been getting migraines since I was 9 years old. The pain of the headache is managable with Excedrin and caffeine. I’m lucky in that respect. I know a lot of people get migraines where the pain is unbearable. The worst for me is the aura. Hard to describe, but I call it my own electric light show. It starts in one eye with a small blank spot which turns into a growing, blinking semi-circle. the circle enlarges slowly until it moves out of my field of vision. It takes about 30-40 minutes from blank spot until the light show fades. During that time, my sense of hearing and smell are acute and it’s not pleasant. A dripping faucet in the bathroom sounds like a drum. The laundry in the closet smells like I’m sitting in the middle of a dumpster. I’m nauseous, disoriented and sensitive to light. After the aura passes, the headache hits on the opposite side of my head from where the aura was. With Excedrin Migraine (which I know is the same as regular Excedrin but a different label), the headache is more annoying than painful. If I move my eyes too fast, sneeze or bend down it hurts but otherwise it’s more of a dull ache. I’ve tried a few of the more well-known migraine medications, including Imitrex but they don’t help enough with the aura which is the worst of it. I’m told that there’s now daily medication that could keep the aura away which I should look into.

So for the past 25+ years it’s been a ticking time bomb. I know that red wine and hot dogs are trigger foods, but other than that I have no way of predicting when one will hit. Sometimes it seems to be related to my monthly cycle, but then I’ll go 3 or 4 months without one. Or then it will be like now, where I’ve had 3 within a 10 day period. No telling. Since my vision is so affected, I am completely useless when it happens. It’s the reason I got my first cell phone. Laini was an infant and I was afraid of what would happen if a migraine hit when I was alone with her. Or worse, driving.

Last night at around 6 pm, I was just starting to make dinner when the aura started. Nothing I could do but tell Eric to finish the meal and I went upstairs to put my head under the pillow. Next thing I knew, it was 2 am. My head felt fine, but after 8 hours of sleep I was wide awake. It’s now 4:15 am and I’m still up and will stay that way. Now it will take days until I can swing my body back to the right schedule. Nice to get a full 8 hours shuteye, even if it was the wrong 8 hours. And I love the silence of the house. No email coming in, no one asking for anything. Just me, my iBook and a M*A*S*H rerun on the tube. Maybe I’ll even catch up on my Gmail and blog reading.

Related posts: