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Posts Tagged ‘migraine’

Life and Migraines go on…

June 7th, 2011

It’s ten o’clock on a Tuesday night and I have a little bit of a Migraine - one of those left-over ones. Left-over Migraine is not a clinical diagnosis, mind you. Just the way I describe it - had a nasty one Saturday and all day Sunday and then a bit of a sore-headed post-drome yesterday, which morphed back into a full-blown head-banger by bedtime. And here we are the next day still sore.

A few years ago this was par for the course, and I would have strings of days like this most weeks. Now I am very happy to say that most Migraines I get are mild and abort easily and resolve completely inside of a 24 hour period. Of course whenever there’s an exception, like this week, I get afraid that this will be the new normal - that my chronic days will return. That’s one of those moments when I have to thank my fears for sharing and move on. Get grateful, recognize how far I’ve come, and let go.

So the good news - it doesn’t happen to me often these days. The bad news - I have a harder time taking it seriously and really stopping the action and taking care of myself than I did when it happened more often. Of course, other things have changed, too. Instead of being not very gainfully self-employed I now have a 3/4 time job and work on building a private mediation practice in the other theoretical 1/4 of my time. (It’s theoretical because… with fibromyalgia, episodic Migraines, extremely strained finances, a job-seeking husband and a teenager with ADHD, a dirty house to try to keep somewhat on top of… I ain’t got much time!)

I’m still not all that gainfully employed, but I’m glad to have a job. I went in a pretty short time span from being semi-disabled to being almost the sole support of my family. Times are tough. I can relate to the many Migraine sufferers I have interacted with through the years who say “I don’t have time to be sick.” I can dig it. I’m there. I can only work as much as I do because I have gone from chronic Migraine back to episodic Migraine, but I do worry that the level of stress in my life is such that I could get kicked over into chronicity again. (I don’t care if that’s not a word - I like it anyway.) So… I meditate. I take walks. I pray. I put everything aside and just relax. I practice my affirmations. I get up in the morning and get on my happy face and face another day. Keep putting one foot in front of another and doing the next right thing.

I actually came on here tonight just to say, I wish I had more time to blog. To read and comment on all my beloved chronic pals blogs, and post on My Migraine Connection, share on line, and all that. I had over 200 comments waiting for me here, over 180 of them spam. I haven’t found the time to install the stronger spam filter that the fabulous Diana Lee recommended to me. I haven’t found time to reply to the many people who went on the contact page and asked me if I’d like to do a link exchange (yes, yes, no, yes, maybe, let’s talk…), or asked me if I want to hire them to do SEO for me (no, no, no, leave me alone, don’t you think I have my own people to work on that?), or asked me for advice (oy vey).

The good news is life does go on. I am so glad to be down to an average of 2 - 3 Migraines per month. This is huge. There’s a whole lot of living that can fit around 2 - 3 Migraines a month. I wish that living didn’t happen in the midst of a whole lot of economic hardship, but how much worse it would be to be sick like I used to be and going through this. So I guess I can put up with a left-over Migraine, for now.

Hang in, maties, it gets better. That’s what I’ve gotta keep on believing, anyway.

Love,

Megan

Tags: chronic migraine, episodic migraine, fibromyalgia, migraine
Posted in Communicating, Managing | Comments (61)

Having a wonky nervous system.

October 23rd, 2010

My CPU is messing up its P. My wires are crossed, frayed and fragmented. The volume knob on my pain processors is broken and they don’t make the replacement part. There’s a bug in my programming that no one knows how to debug. I am exquisitely sensitive. I want to know what’s so freakin exquisite about it?

I spent the afternoon in the courthouse on Thursday. That’s always been a stressful event for me, and in years past it used to steal my sleep the night before, have me so riled up I could barely think clearly, and inevitably led to a Migraine after. This time was not so bad. I really knew my stuff, I slept well, though not quite enough, I was only a little nervous. I spent the entire afternoon negotiating and wound up with a better than expected settlement for my client. It was still rather stressful and quite strenuous for me, though. I was too busy at work to get a break before I had to leave for court. The street I usually turn down was blocked off for construction. I parked 4 blocks from the courthouse and then got a little lost on foot, hauling my heavy file in a stiff wind. I was worried that my plenty-of-extra-time was turning into actually being late. I had to deal with heavy opposition and guilt-tripping at times from my adversary, and a major upset at unexpected details from my client. We were racing to get our agreement done before the courthouse closed. When I left I practically ran to my parking garage to avoid a ticket. All in all a very tiring day.

The good news is that my Migraines are well enough controlled that all that did not trigger one. I was close this morning but my cup of tea and morning supplements seemed to head it off. But by the time I got to my car on Thursday my arms were so sore and heavy I could barely hold them up on the steering wheel. I went home, had dinner, and my gut immediately began to cramp, leading into a two day irritable bowel attack. And throughout the day on Thursday and Friday, my hands were trembling constantly. When I got up on Friday my whole body felt like very sore and achy concrete. I told my husband I had great sympathy with concrete; I know how sore it must feel. He told me, “Yes but concrete doesn’t try to move around!”

I am one of those Migraineurs with a lot of related “co-morbid” neurological conditions. Migraine is a condition of an over-sensitized nervous system, with mis-firing of certain neurons in response to certain stimuli.  Fibromyalgia is like the sound has been turned up on pain receptors so that pain and tiredness amplify and continue in the muscles with long-lasting pain, it is also a condition of over-sensitive, over-active nervous system. Irritable bowel syndrome is thought to be the result of overactive nerves in the intestinal tract, and causes me days and even weeks of cramps, stomachache, heartburn and constipation. I also have a benign familial tremor - benign because it’s not Parkinsonian, familial because it’s hereditary. (my Dad has it but his didn’t appear until his 60’s - lucky precocious little me!)  I don’t know much about the science of the tremor but I notice it is strongest when I am tired and stressed. Oh and for years I have had anxiety, severe at times, though that is being well controlled now by one of the Migraine preventives.

I want to be de-bugged, that’s all I can tell you. The past few days have felt like one of those cartoons where the robot starts to explode, spinning wildly, blowing sparks out of its top and sending bolts flying. The things that are wrong with me - they are not just painful, debilitating, annoying, disruptive, and gross, they are also just plain weird. I never know what’s going to blow next. Well, actually I do have some idea, but it’s awfully hard to manage it all. I am sick and tired of being exquisitely sensitive. I can tell you, there’s nothing exquisite about it.

- Megan

Tags: benign familial tremor, central nervous system sensitivity, comorbid conditions, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine
Posted in Rant | Comments (104)

Becoming Trigger-Resistant

October 18th, 2010

I am very fortunate to have my Migraine days down to 3-5 a month now, and most of the Migraines are relatively mild and abort quickly. One thing I notice is that individual Migraine triggers are not so much of an issue, but a whole stack of them will still prompt a Migraine. For instance I can get by for a couple of days with not quite enough sleep, smell some perfume (or more often the bane of my existence, the heavy sweet Axe many of my son’s friends like to wear - Uggh!), be around some smoke, be in a crowded room, and I may get some little twinges that tell me to back down and do some breathing exercises, but they don’t develop into a Migraine. Then say all those things are present and a meal is delayed and my blood sugar gets low, and whammo!

I’m up to 30 hours a week of work at the law firm now, so there’s less flexibility for missing time. My boss is very understanding and lets me build my schedule the way I want, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the flow of work. But if I miss a day or half a day because of a Migraine, I can only make up the time by working longer hours another day, and a day longer than 7 hours (6 working and 1 for lunch) takes a lot out of me. Not that a long day will necessarily trigger a Migraine, but sometimes it does if it’s a rushed or stressful one. Usually the effects are less direct - a long day sitting up at my desk typing will trigger a fibromyalgia flare, and if I don’t manage some rest time to help the flare pass, it’s common to get a Migraine on the tail of the fibro flare.

I know I’ve been talking to you all for quite a while about relaxation exercises and breathing, and I use them nearly every day. They have certainly helped my transition back to near-full-time work. As valuable as they are though, I wouldn’t be where I am now without a good combination of Migraine preventives. Nortriptyline not only reduced my Migraines it greatly reduced my anxiety level and helped me sleep like a log most nights. Then lisinopril lowered my blood pressure and continued the job of reducing the Migraines.

I feel like I’m coming back to life! We have been out socializing nearly every weekend, and I’ve been getting walks in nearly every day again. Right now fibro is more of a problem than the Migraines. I’m finding it tricky to learn how to manage.

- Megan Oltman

Tags: fibromyalgia, migraine, Migraine preventives, Migraine triggers, relaxation techniques
Posted in Communicating, Managing, Musings | Comments (54)

Speaking to Pharma Marketers

October 16th, 2010

On Thursday of this week I had a great opportunity. I was invited by Jack Barrette of WEGO Health to be on a panel presenting Health Activists’ perspectives to pharmaceutical marketers. The conference was called the Multi-Channel Pharma Marketing Event, and participants were hearing about how to market in a new world of informed medical consumers, health activists, and social media. My fellow panelist was Allison Blass, of Lemonade Life, a diabetes blogger and activist.

So here’s what I think about Migraine and pharmaceutical companies, what I went into this conference with. First of all, pharma companies want to sell their drugs, because that’s what they do, and how they make their profits. So marketers are looking for new and better ways to… that’s right, market their products. Do their companies make too much profit? Are drugs too expensive? Well it is very expensive to develop new products, and takes years and years. I understand this. The fact that insurance companies are run on a profit motive is a harder one for me to take - their motive will never make them want to give us all we need to treat our disease, and the fact that we have uninsured people, and no universal, single-payer system, so some people can’t afford meds at all, and others are at the mercy of insurance companies that ration meds, those are the real crimes. Don’t even get me started!

So how much should pharma companies profit? I don’t know. I don’t know whether they make more profit than say, banks and financial companies. I do know they make something we need, and our system runs on profit. And here’s where the Migraine angle comes in - they don’t make enough of what we need, the basic research hasn’t been done yet, they haven’t developed the drugs, we haven’t had a real new innovation since the triptans, and we need better products to prevent and treat Migraines. Desperately! You with me so far?  What we really need is a cure, as Allison said, so ultimately the pharma companies should be in the business of putting themselves out of business. Because it’s the right thing to do.

In the meantime pharma companies want to get involved in social media, because that’s where not only consumers but opinion leaders are. I asked a number of you on Facebook to tell me what I should say to them, and there was a fair degree of skepticism about their motives. It seemed to me the people I met were decent, committed people, who are selling things they believe in.  As one told me, he’d rather be selling drugs that help people then a lot of other things.

Anyway, Jack asked us to speak on what the rules of the road are, and what we would do if we had 10 million dollars to spend in our health communities. Allison and I expressed things in different ways but came up with a number of very similar ideas. I said, Rules of the Road: you have the power to educate, use it wisely and well.  Don’t try to sell something like Excedrin Migraine as if it were a one-size fits all solution, a cure, and fail to disclose that 1. it doesn’t abort your Migraine, only covers up the pain; 2. it won’t kill the pain for many of us; and 3. it carries a substantial risk of Medication Overuse (rebound) Headache if used more than a couple of days in a row, or a couple of days a week. It was easy to pick on Excedrin Migraine because so many of us Migraineurs love to hate their ads!

As for the Imaginary 10 million, how about spending most of it to get the basic research about this disease done? Support Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy and Migraine Research Foundation. Then if they want to spend some money on line supporting our community, sponsor patient education, Migraine diaries, information about a whole life approach to managing Migraine (an approach that pharmaceuticals are only one part of).  Let some more of us who are committed to helping people with this disease become professionals at it by supporting our efforts with paid positions. Life costs money (as Allison said) and people with the passion to help should be able to make a living at it. And if you support and sponsor what our community needs, and are known as good guys, we will be more eager for your products when they are finally developed, and more likely to continue using your products over time, if they do their job.

The audience was great, asked terrific questions, and it was a great experience. Kudos to Jack who had me really get present again to what I am doing and why. As you may know if you read my sparse postings lately, I have been working a demanding day job as an attorney and mediator, and haven’t found much time to be on line lately. Well, I’m lit up and raring to go, so expect to hear some more from me.

- Megan

Tags: Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy, migraine, Migraine research, Migraine Research Foundation, Multi-Channel Pharma Marketing Event, pharmaceuticals, WEGO Health
Posted in Advocacy, Medicine | Comments (146)

A Certain Level of Brain Freedom

August 22nd, 2010

I am enjoying a long stretch of freedom from pain in the brain. Hooray! I have had only six Migraines since late June. Less than one a week! A better rate than I’ve achieved in the past three years, at least. I began taking the blood pressure medication Lisinopril in late June, and this seems like a winning combination for me. My current regimen includes:

• Nortriptyline 50 mg at bedtime (a tri-cyclic antidepressant, taken at a very low dose for Migraine prevention, it has also helped my sleep and lowered my anxiety level);
• Lisinopril 20 mg (10 at bedtime and 10 at breakfast);
• High potency multi-vitamin;
• Magnesium 400 mg;
• B-Complex 100 mg;
• B-2 300 mg;
• CoQ10 300 mg;
• Armour Thyroid 60 mg;
• Iodoral iodine supplement;
• DHEA 10 mg at bedtime;
• Melatonin 3 mg at bedtime;
• Omega-3 fish oil supplement;
• Pro-greens pro-biotic supplement;
• At least 84 ounces of water per day;
• daily walks;
• daily relaxation practice.

That’s about 15 pills in the morning and 6 at bedtime. If that’s the price of freedom, I can live with it. As always, an unintentional experiment proved how well this regimen is working for me. A few weeks ago I had a Migraine on a Thursday evening and, as I sometimes do, forgot to take my bedtime pills as I was treating the Migraine and everything else went out of my head. The next day we were leaving just after work for our cousins’ beach house and I got up early in foggy post-drome and packed for the weekend before work. I forgot to pack my pills! So just as Danny was leaving the house to come meet me at my office, I called him and asked him to pack them for me. He did that, but when we met up and transferred the bags from the car he was driving to the other, the bag of pills got left behind. We discovered this at about 10 pm at the beach house. So I went without pills for a second night in a row, and missed my morning doses Saturday morning. Danny was a hero and drove over 6 hours round-trip to go get my pills so I could stay through Monday. Two nights and a morning without had a cumulative effect, though, and I had a pretty severe Migraine Sunday night.  It is now two weeks later, took my pills every day and no Migraines in that two weeks!

My Migraine specialist, Dr. Bill Young of Jefferson Headache Center, had said to me , “Six to seven Migraines a month isn’t good enough. We can do better!” (Love this guy! Compare with the last guy who thought I should be satisfied with reducing from 10 a month to 7.) So when I went to my last appointment in late June with the news that my blood pressure had been running high, for the first time in my life, he was excited! I had to tease him about that, how many physicians would say, “Oh good!” on learning that their patient had developed high blood pressure! But he explained that anti-hypertensives can be excellent Migraine preventives, but can’t be prescribed if the patient’s blood pressure is too low. He was confident that the two medications together, along with all my other supplements, would produce better Migraine prevention results for me. And so far, so good! I try not to really measure a trend until it’s been going on for several months, but early results look promising. I am loving the extra time and energy I have for hanging out with family and friends, and getting some chores and projects done around the house. Now if I could just manage the fibromyalgia…

For any of you who see doctors who only know a limited number of Migraine preventive options, or who aren’t comfortable with combining several medications, or who aren’t knowledgeable about supplements, find another doctor! If you aren’t doing daily relaxation, meditation, yoga or another practice to calm your nervous system, get on it! It can take time, but most of us achieve a significant level of brain freedom.

Hope you’re doing well. Leave me comment and let me know how you’re getting on, okay?

- Megan

Smoo cave waterfall photo courtesy of Subflux.

Tags: fibromyalgia, Jefferson Headache Center, managing life with migraine, migraine, Migraine preventive medication, William Young M.D.
Posted in Managing, Medicine, Uncategorized | Comments (122)

Painflower Blossoms

March 20th, 2010

A malevolent bloom, knife-edged petals in my brain,
an unwanted blossom, unfurling, sculpting pain.
How long beneath the surface were you creeping, unseen?
Tension nurtures, hunger feeds you, worry grows you evergreen.
Each day ill-rested that I drag me from my bed,
pull on clothing, pour down coffee, wear my cares upon my head,
each day pushing, each day working at the work to stay alive,
is another day you’re growing, so to cut me as I strive.
Flower of blood, flower of evil, ugly flower of dawning pain,
Growing stronger, cutting deeper, sculpting patterns in my brain.

- Megan Oltman

Tags: migraine, poetry
Posted in Musings | Comments (0)

Botox for Head Implosion, not Explosion?

February 17th, 2010

A new study of 18 Migraine sufferers reported in the Archives of Dermatology Monday indicates that Botox may be helpful for those who describe their pain as “crushing” or “eye-popping.” That’s an interesting new distinction. So, not so good for those of us, like me, who walk around saying “My head explode!”

It’s hard to say how significant a study of 18 patients is, and previous reports on Botox for Migraines have been mixed at best. This study reports an average reduction from 7 Migraines per month to 1 Migraine per month, among those who responded to the Botox. You can read a bit more about the study here: Does Botox Stop Some Migraines? in the Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune. What really interests me, though, is the fact that the description of the pain itself is indicative of whether the Botox will help or not. Pain is so subjective, and so difficult to measure, it’s fascinating that there could be a correlation between how we experience the pain and the mechanics of our Migraines.

I’m imagining a time when you can describe your pain, and get a specific treatment for it. Head imploding? Try this. Head exploding? Try that. What about that one where little people with grapefruit spoons are trying to scrape your brain off the inside of your skull? I hate that one.

- Megan

Tags: Botox, migraine, Migraine treatment, pain
Posted in Current Affairs, Medicine, Musings | Comments (3)

Hormones, Migraines and Menopause

February 14th, 2010

Migraines happen when those of us with excitable nervous systems - nervous systems prone to Migraine - experience a change in our external or internal environment that triggers the Migraine process. This doesn’t explain what causes Migraine, or why some of us have nervous systems that react like this. It just describes the process. Hormonal fluctuations are one of the internal changes that can trigger a Migraine. Migraines are not “caused” by hormonal fluctuations, but hormones can be a big factor for many Migraine sufferers. One theory about why more Migraine sufferers are female, by a proportion of 3 to 1, is that the fluctuations of our hormonal cycles make us more susceptible. Interestingly, up to puberty the numbers of male and female Migraine sufferers are more even; many more girls join the ranks with the onset of puberty.

It’s hard to generalize with this disease; people are triggered by so many different things. Some women don’t notice any particular effect of hormones on their Migraines, others seem to be only triggered by hormones, and for some hormones are one of a host of possible triggers.  That said, it is common for women to experience an increase in Migraines during peri-menopause, the period of years leading up to menopause when their hormonal levels are changing, and often beginning to drop off.

I had a sharp increase in Migraines, as well as onset of fibromyalgia, and increase in IBS as I moved into peri-menopause. I have found a bio-identical, bio-mimetic hormone replacement therapy which I believe has helped my overall health quite a bit. I started the program about 4 years ago. It has not had a noticeable effect on the number of my Migraines but has definitely decreased their severity. It has given me more energy and stamina overall, which has helped keep the fibromyalgia fairly mild, I believe. It also did away completely with many symptoms of menopause that were troubling me – hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, insomnia, vaginal dryness. The program I use is known as The Wiley Protocol.

T.S. Wiley is a cancer researcher who hit on this method of replacing hormones in a pattern that mimics the hormonal patterns of a normal menstrual cycle. Her book, Sex, Lies and Menopause explains in great detail the effects of hormones on our bodies, on aging, and how she developed her protocol.

As I understand it, pharmaceutical HRT (hormone replacement therapy) chemically creates molecules which are similar to, but not identical to, the hormones our bodies produce. If the pharma companies are not inventing a new substance, they can’t patent it or make much money from it, so you don’t find these hormones advertised widely. Bio-identical HRT chemically synthesizes the exact same molecule our bodies produce, so that when we use it our bodies treat it as if we had produced it ourselves. Bio-identical HRT is made by compounding pharmacists. There are many producers of bio-identical HRT, some of them prescribe a constant level of the hormones to be used all the time. The drastic side-effects and health complications that come with pharmaceutical HRT are caused, Wiley says, by the fact that these are not molecules our bodies recognize, as well as by the fact that the hormones are dosed at a constant level which is not normal for our bodies. Bio-identical HRT can also cause problems when dosed at a constant level.

What is different about Wiley’s program is that the hormones are not just bio-identical, they are “bio-mimetic.” Wiley invented a method of dosing the hormones so they mimic the menstrual cycle of a healthy 20 year-old woman. The theory is to recreate a time when we are biologically at our healthiest, and giving our bodies the ebb and flow that is normal for them. Some women have bad Migraines when they are younger, and bad menstrual Migraines throughout their lives. I don’t know if the Wiley protocol would help them with their Migraines. But if the Migraines began or drastically increased in menopause or peri-menopause, it makes sense to me to replace the hormone levels of a time when you didn’t have the Migraines! The drawback, I suppose, is that as long as you are on the protocol you will menstruate. There are women in their 80’s on it, getting periods. But I have found that my periods on the protocol are very regular and fairly painless. The horrid PMS and menstrual Migraines I got in my peri-menopause years are gone, as are the terrible cramps I had, both when I was young and again in recent years.

Wiley does suggest that Migraines can be treated by spreading the hormones more evenly throughout the day, instead of just in the usual morning and evening doses. I have not tried this - it makes a certain degree of sense, in evening out any hormonal fluctuations during the day. Hormones do not seem to be the only thing that triggers my Migraines, though.  If you read Wiley’s book or visit the site you might get the impression that the protocol is a panacea for all problems of aging. I don’t know if I buy into it that far, and as I said it has not been a complete solution for my Migraines. It has definitely made a big difference for me, though, and you may want to investigate it as a useful component of your toolkit.

- Megan

Neither T.S. Wiley nor the Wiley Protocol has given me any payment for reviewing these products. If you click on the link to the book and buy it from Amazon, however, I will receive a small referral fee.

Tags: bio-identical hormone replacement, Hormones, Menopause, migraine, Migraine triggers, T.S. Wiley
Posted in Books, Managing, Medicine | Comments (1)

Fibromyalgia - a New Context

January 7th, 2010

The context in which we look at an issue can make a huge difference in our way of perceiving and interacting with the issue. When I began exploring the on-line world of support for Migraineurs and chronically ill folks, I came very early upon Teri Robert’s site, Help for Headaches, and there on the site, she had this badge:

I wondered at the time, was this really empowering, to emphasize having a disease? It is a disease, but we can have an impact on our own health by developing an awareness of our own systems, and learning to relax and calm their reactivity. I had spent some years learning that myself and that’s what I wanted to share with others.

The more I looked at it, though, the more I got Teri’s point. I realized that for the many of us who have had our condition minimized and scoffed at, the recognition that we have a disease is empowering. Our problems are real, and biologically based; our pain is real. We live with the consequences of having a hyper-reactive nervous system. For those of us who have wondered what was wrong with us, if we were crazy, if we were somehow bringing the pain upon ourselves, it is empowering to recognize that we have a disease, not just a headache! Starting from the context of a disease, we can learn about it, learn what impacts our disease for better or worse, learn to manage the disease, and to manage our life with the disease. Acceptance is the first step, and gives us a foundation to build on. It makes it possible to move forward. We can say, “Okay, I have this disease. Now what? What am I going to do about it?”

For over 15 years, since I was pregnant with my son in the fall of 1994, I have been living with fatigue, lassitude, body aches, on and off difficulty concentrating, frequent sinus infections, difficulty fighting off disease, and, in the last 10 years, ever increasing Migraines. I have gone down many paths to address these issues. With regard to the Migraines, I learned a great deal about the disease, worked with doctors to find medication and supplement combinations that helped me, and learned to practice relaxation to calm my system. My Migraine frequency is down considerably. Not so the fatigue and general pain issues, however. I have tried many different nutritional regimens, and learned a lot about what foods are most helpful to my body. I have gone great lengths to balance my hormones, and have definitely seen an improvement in my overall health and stamina through doing that. No matter what I did, however, the fatigue and pain issues did not change much.

Many people with Migraine also have Fibromyalgia, and as I got to know more people with Migraine I heard a lot about the other disease as well. My reaction for quite a while was, “Oh, I probably have that one too, but I don’t want to know about it.” It felt overwhelming to me to have to deal with another diagnosis. I practiced active avoidance. Then I saw Dr. Young at Jefferson Headache Center and he listened to me talking about my fatigue, and he pressed the Fibromyalgia tender points, and I gained a new context. Thanks, Dr. Young!

I’m not kidding with the thanks. It was just like Teri’s badge above, the pieces of a puzzle came together. I already knew that my central nervous system had some serious processing issues, well this was just another manifestation of that. In addition to having my neurons fire off and produce Migraines in reaction to certain stimuli, I have an increased reaction to pain and exertion. If I bang my elbow, the pain moves out in ripples from the point, increasing for a time like an echo in an echo chamber. If I expend more muscular energy than usual, my muscles ache for days as if I had the flu. If I am active and push myself either physically or mentally, I have a kind of fatigue that is beyond tired; it is the bone-weary exhaustion of someone who has been pushed beyond the limits of their endurance.

I have gained a lot from the context of having another disease - Fibromyalgia. I have gained a community of fellow sufferers, who care, who understand, whose wisdom and experience are available to me. I have gained the relief of knowing that I am not lazy, or losing my mind, or fundamentally bad, I am a person with a(nother) disease. And this context helps me to find solutions. I know now that stretching helps, and I can push myself to stretch when my muscles hurt and I really don’t want to. I know that my fatigue is not something to fight or to cover over with caffeine, but that it is a signal to rest. I know that getting some gentle exercise each day, and gradually increasing my exertion, will help me. I know that there will be better and worse days, but that each day can be handled, one at a time.

I haven’t posted for a while, and I’m glad to say that my new Migraine preventive is helping a great deal. My Migraine frequency is down by about 60% over the past few months. The medication also helps to damp down my anxiety and makes me very sleepy. It seems to increase my REM sleep, which is a sleep stage that Fibromyalgia often steals away. Sleeping better definitely impacts the Migraines; it also makes me less fatigued and less anxious. So at the same time that I have taken on this new diagnosis, Fibromyalgia, I have seen some of its symptoms decrease.

I’m learning this one. It’s a listening to my body, to my inner sense of myself, in a new way. Similar to the way I already listened, a familiar tune but in a different key, perhaps. The biggest gain from the new context is another level of self-acceptance. I am not a bad person trying to be good; I’m just a sick person learning to be as well as possible.

- Megan Oltman

Tags: disease management, fatigue, fibromyalgia, migraine
Posted in Communicating, Managing, Musings | Comments (0)

Another Day, another Migraine

November 8th, 2009

Waking with head pain. Hoping it will go away. Have a work obligation - know if I take my triptan I won’t be able to drive. Weighing how much trouble it will cause to miss the meeting. Cup of coffee damping down head pain. Driving off to meeting. Sitting through it with hand pressed to right eye, shifting to shield both eyes from bright overhead lights. Meeting ending. Weighing whether I should drive. Getting home with help. Pain increasing all the way. Nausea beginning. In the door, family brings me food. Take sumatriptan injection. Incredible pain from injection. Unbelievable that I can do that to myself. Counting twenty seconds while holding burning needle in arm. Arm hideously sore to the touch. Initial increase in head pain from injection. Lying down. Breathing. Breathing. 3 in 5 out. Directing breath to head pain. Funny sensation in chest & stomach from sumtriptan. It passes. Pain eases. Lying very still for fear of reawakening it. Exhausted. Day on the bed. Second one in a week. Another day, another Migraine.

- Megan

Tags: migraine
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