Migraines, Part I: "Too Much Information"

Migraines have been an unwelcome guest in my life since I was about seven years old. Back when I was a kid, you were allowed to play outside all day with the neighborhood kids (which I hear is frowned upon in the age of helicopter parenting), which is what I was doing when the headache set in.

With all the resilience of a second grader who was on summer break, I ignored it as best as I could, until I went inside, not feeling well and needing to lie down.

I don't remember much about the rest of the night. I do remember that the horrible headache would come back time and time again. The pain has always been on one side of my head, and would radiate from behind my eye, through half of my nose, half of my forehead, and the roof of my mouth or teeth, usually with the bonus of nausea and vomiting.

As a child with parents who also suffered from migraines, the suggestions for ice packs, heating pads, dark rooms, etc., were readily available. To me, logic followed that, if the pain was coming from inside my head, and radiating through my nose and mouth, that maybe applying hot or cold inside my mouth would provide some relief directly to the pain.

Unfortunately, a seven year old trying to use an italian ice or cup of hot chocolate to solve a medical problem doesn't necessarily get taken seriously, and so my migraine journey continued, until I was a teen and asked my doctor for a prescription.

I did get the prescription, which was taken as needed (and provided in minute amounts, might I add, thanks to insurance), and seemed to help for a while.

I would go through stretches of time where I would honestly think that the migraine phase of my life had ended, only to have them resurface a few months later. Desperate to determine which triggers to avoid, I went through the common dietary choices, but I what I really found out was that I have no idea what triggers my migraines, and that the things considered to be a trigger for some people are the cure that others swear by. Further, some of the things that I would attempt to label as triggers- and then remove from my life- were just coincidental. It wasn't a glass of wine that triggered my migraine, it was just that I happened to get one anyway. It wasn't chocolate or fast food or too much coffee, it was just the designated day of the week that my body would decide to revolt against me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

This year has been different. After a migraine that came back day after day for over a week this spring, I went to the doctor and it was determined that a particularly bad allergy season was to blame. As someone who had never been diagnosed with any kind of allergy, I was in denial, but agreed to a regimen of daily allergy medications.

To my surprise (and delight) the daily migraine dissipated, and I thought I was cured.

Of course, that wasn't the case, which brings me to this weekend. A few days of waking up with an achy feeling in my head prompted me to step it up with the Mucinex. I was relieved when this seemed to help, but was then graced with two days of nausea. Fantastic.

It's important to note that a migraine is more than just a headache. It's a full-body encompassing jacket of feeling like crap that can erupt into the headache from hell at any time.

This morning, I had the same achy feeling, so I took the Mucinex, and started to feel better. We had planned to run a few errands, so we went to breakfast and did a little shopping. Walking through the store, I started to get the sense of "information overload" which not a technical term that I'm aware of, but describes exactly what a migraine has become for me.

Imagine that all of the normal sights or sounds around you become so annoying that you physically feel nauseous. Walking through the store, I suddenly saw a drifting fog out of one eye that quickly dissipated. Walking a little further, everything was just irritating to look at. The signs, the televisions, the displays were so inexplicably overwhelming, that I was unable to read anything or look at what I needed. I could physically read them, but it was extremely uncomfortable to force my eyes to focus and actually do it.

On the ride home, the headache set in. Prescription. The clock. Timer. Not working. Tears from pain, frustration, and simply letting some goddamn pressure out of my face. Back up prescription. Timer. Waking up 2 hours later. And the headache was still there. It didn't go away for another hour, and I can still feel it threatening to come back.


So basically, Sunday was a complete waste for me, and I feel a mix of guilty, frustrated, and annoyed that I still have no idea why this happens. I downloaded an app when I could look at the screen for a few minutes earlier to track the duration of my migraine, so we will see if this helps when I finally schedule time to see a specialist, and I was awestruck to see that while, according to the Migraine Research Foundation, migraines are the 3rd most common illness worldwide and the 6th most debilitating, in 2015 the amount of funding that went toward migraine research was 50 cents per migraine sufferer. That is crazy!

So, we will see where my migraine journey takes me. Now that I have been able to treat my apparently-not-so-normal daily stomach pain by maintaining a gluten free diet, maybe I can move on to step two of living a better life and confronting migraine pain head on (haha... but pun not intended).

Writing about pain was just a little bit inspired by a little bit awesome friend of mine who is chronicling her health journey. You can and should read her story, here.