Migraines

I'm taking a short break from ranting about reality TV to rant about migraines, specifically, my migraines.  Like anyone else who has them, I hate them with every breath in my body.  It isn't the pain, heck sometimes these days, my head doesn't even hurt that much, it is the lack of control that gets me.   I feel angry that I have no control over myself,  over my body, my head, my mind, my life.

My eyes are the way I can tell that that strange feeling coming upon me is a migraine.  I don't get auras or that kind of thing, I just feel incredibly tired, like my eyes won't stay open, and when they are open, I have to concentrate to focus.  Focusing is supposed to be automatic, and when it becomes a chore, and almost hurts to keep my eyes open and focus, well, I know what is coming next.  More severe and annoying symtoms are on the way.  Soon there will be some dizziness, hot and cold flashes, tingling numbness in my hands and fingers, and if things get really bad, dry heaves.  

Luckily, things rarely go so far these days, because of some wonderful genius drug researcher who discovered sumatriptan succinate.  This person should win the Nobel Peace Prize, because of what it has done for the lives of migrainers like me.  I get the symtoms, and I take my pill.  Sometimes my knees get a little shakey, and I don't feel exactly like me, but I can maintain a normal life, and that is a lot different than the way it was before Imitrex.  

I remember being at school, trying to teach with my head slanted to the side, as that was the only way to maintain balance.  I remember trying to drive from Euclid to Shaker Heights my head still slanted sideways, my hands and feet going numb, gagging along the way, with a trash bag on the seat next to me just in case.  I even moved closer to school after many years, so my drive was ten minutes instead of thirty-five, because those rides from Euclid to Shaker with the difficulties I was experiencing, were dangerous, and I thanked God every time I made it home safely. 

 I would get out of the car, stagger into the house, stripping along the way, because when things reached the extreme, I needed to be down to the basic essentials, tee shirt and underwear.  I remember struggling to get off the necklaces I always wore, practically tearing them off, because anything around my neck made things so much worse.  I would throw myself onto my bed, and lie there knowing that now, I was going to have some measure of control.  I was lying down in a dark room with an attached bathroom.  I no longer had anyone else to consider, at least right away.  Later, I might have to make dinner for a child, or tuck him into bed.

My kids knew all about mom's headaches, years before I was diagnosed with migraines.  I had headaches, sometimes what I called sick headaches, from childhood on, and they grew more debilitating as the years went on.  My kids knew that a closed door and a dark room meant I was not myself, but I was still available even if a headache lasted for days.  I still made meals, until one of the boys was old enough to pick something up or order pizza, packed lunches, and sometimes, dragged myself out of bed to drive a child somewhere.   When I couldn't get up easily, the boys could do their homework or watch TV or a video on the floor in my room, with the lights on but turned down to protect me.  As they got older, someone would bring me a bagel to pick at and an apple juice to drink.

When a migraine got as bad as it could, (see paragraphs two and three for details), I found that it was self-limiting, and from the minute I laid down in my own bed,  it would last for four hours, with the hot flashes, which were when I felt the worse, becoming shorter and shorter.  Once I realized this, I felt some measure of control, get home, get to bed, be better, though exhausted, in four hours.  

This still happens today on those rare occasions that the pill doesn't work, although the time limit seems to be getting shorter, moving toward three hours.

I went through a time where the migraines never got to the worse stage.  This was after I went off caffeine, and discovered that it was my main migraine trigger, along with peanut products.  I gave up chocolate and peanut butter, two of my favorite things, and got less migraines, but when they came, they lasted for days on end, and nothing really helped.  After I missed my youngest son's eighteenth birthday celebration, (I was there, but lying in the shade, unable to take part, eat anything or go to the fireworks with him), I made the call for help.

I started at the Cleveland Clinic Headache Center, and they put me on Imitrex which had just come out in pill form.  It was an instant success as a way to be in control of my migraines, at least most of the time.  And control is what it is all about for me.  I want to control my headaches, not have them control me.  I see it as a contest, me against the migraine.  For years they were winning.  The score wasn't even worth considering, but in the last decade, I've pulled ahead.  I've learned that in the rare instances when the pill doesn't work there are still options.  If I can come up with a plan, get myself to a bed, find an icepack and a trashcan with an empty plastic bag, I can take control, and fight to win.  RK the Conquerer, that's who I want to be.  I want to be able to say that I'm a migrainer, but my headaches no longer define me or control my life, because I am in control of them.