Making a Life in Spite of Migraines

 As the emergency room nurse put the Demerol into the IV, I wondered how long the drug would take to work. I was tired and just wanted relief from the pain, even though it would be back. It always came back, sooner or later. But I wanted some relief from a battle that had raged inside my head for 48 hours. The battle was just a portion of a war I began fighting at the age of 14.

As the emergency room walls started to roll the way a screen on an old TV would roll, the pain in my head disappeared. I fell asleep for the first time in over two days. That trip to the emergency room was the last of three that I took in a six-month time period in 2003.

Prior to that emergency room visit, migraines controlled my life. At 14 they made their first appearance, but were sporadic. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I discovered that they were becoming a regular feature of my hormone cycle, and that they would come back every month. The severity and length steadily increased.

Ten years ago, my vision started to be affected. I began to see flashes of light and sometimes spots. I visited a few doctors. I had an MRI. The diagnosis was migraine both regular and ocular. I tried some medications. At first, they were helpful. But, then their effectiveness would slowly decline and then fail to help altogether. I decided to just deal with my unfortunate genetic situation. I knew I wasn’t alone. Millions of people deal with migraines. I was just of many.

I lived my life around migraines for the next five years. I didn’t tell everyone that I suffered from migraines, because I found that there is a stigma attached. Some people thought I was exaggerating the pain. Others thought that I was under too much stress and could combat the disease by not worrying so much. Others thought that if they suffered from migraines, they would find a treatment. It was as if I was responsible for the disease. 

During those years when my migraines were at their peak, I had friends get upset with me for breaking plans. I told college professors and employers that I had the flu. I didn’t think they would have any sympathy for me if they knew the real reason my paper was late or why I was not coming to work that day.

Most people don’t know that migraine sufferers are just unlucky recipients in the game of genetics. Migraines are a chronic medical disease with no known cure. The only option available is to find away to manage the disease. 

For me managing my migraines came with that last emergency room visit. The emergency room physician told me about new migraine treatments that I might want to investigate. At first I was hesitant given my previous experience, but I decided to call my doctor. With some experimenting I have found a drug that alleviates about 90% of my migraines. The drug, taken at the onset of the migraine, works almost all of the time. About once a year, I get a migraine that is stubborn and requires bed rest. But, I will take it. I feel like I have been given my life back. And, I try not to be bitter about all of the time I spent suffering prior to finding the drug that worked for me.