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Archive for the ‘Managing’ Category

Managing Life with Migraine – Calls with the Experts

March 27th, 2009

If you’ve read my blog (and I know you’ve read it cover to cover, all 140+ posts, right? oh, well…) you may know something of my story. I’ve been working from home since my daughter was six months old, almost 18 years ago, when I discovered that my legal job wouldn’t allow me to return to work part time.  Three and a half years later my son was born and that’s when my odyssey with chronic illness began.  I learned a lot about managing life, with a business, with children, and with chronic illness.  Eventually I put aside my legal practice and became trained as a professional coach.

After 7 years of coaching I had one of those aha moments where I realized I had a lot to offer, to help Migraine sufferers and other chronically ill people learn to manage their lives with their illnesses, to live the best, most purposeful and rewarding lives they can, to build businesses or stay employed if possible, to minimize the impact of their disease and maximize their joy. I helped a few face-to-face clients this way, but started exploring the internet as a way to get more help to more people, more affordably.  That’s why I’m here.  That’s why this blog, this site, the relaxation teleclasses and recordings, and some more products to help you coming soon…

In the course of starting this, of creating this thing called Migraine Management Coaching, I have gotten to know all these wonderful people who are committed to making a difference for people with Migraine and chronic illness. First and foremost, my dear friend Teri Robert who has taught so many people how to be an informed medical consumer and get the care you need. And so the idea of the Managing Life with Migraine free teleconferences was born.  We’re starting in two days , on Sunday March 29th, and continuing on the last Sunday of each month, 4 PM eastern time, talking with a series of experts on topics that will help us manage our lives with Migraine!

Register now for our first call on Sunday, March 29th with Teri Robert – Writer, Author of Living Well with Migraine Disease and Headaches; Patient Advocate; Lead Expert, My Migraine Connection.

Topic: Taking Charge of Our Migraine Care – What Do We Need to Know and Do to Advocate for Ourselves and Be Informed Medical Consumers.

There is no charge for the call, but you need to register to get the call details!  You can Register Here.

– Megan Oltman


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Running on Fumes

March 14th, 2009

A while back I wrote a… um… post (rant?) about how stress is not a Migraine trigger (officially) but… why does it seem that way to us so frequently?  The International Headache Society calls stress an aggravating factor, in other words, it’s not considered a trigger, but a factor that can make us more susceptible to our triggers, perhaps lower our threshold to be triggered into a Migraine.  As far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out on this question.  Given that hormonal fluctuations are one of the biggest triggering factors, (such as the hormonal fluctuations that give women menstrual Migraines and increases or decreases in Migraines around menopause), and given that our bodies react to and cope with stress by release of stress hormones (cortisol and epinephrine, among others), I’m betting research will eventually show that changes in stress hormone levels play a role in triggering Migraine attacks.

I’ve spoken with Teri Robert, author of Living Well with Migraine Disease and Headaches, about this topic.  Teri makes several good points – the level of stress in our lives may be largely out of our control, while individual triggers may be in our control.  Therefore if we focus on stress, we may be focusing on something we can do little about, rather than on something we can change.  And, if we blame stress we may be missing other triggers that being stressed makes us forget.  Do you sleep well, or enough, when you are stressed? Do you eat well, regularly, or enough? Do you overdo it on caffeine?

As so often happens, I had a chance recently to be my own guinea pig for these speculations.  I was given a rush project to complete over a weekend, and my world became all about getting it done.  It took me back to college, law school, and my early days as a lawyer, when a project could take over everything, and sleep, food, everything else would go on the back burner. It’s not a mode of operations I have used much in the past decade, and clearly not one that is good for me, but boy was it familiar!

On the second day of the project I woke up early after not enough sleep, my head full of the research I had to do.  I whizzed through getting my son off to school, and whatever I had to do of my morning routine, and was at my desk and deeply immersed in legal research before nine in the morning.  I was alert, turned on, and my mind was moving fast.  I was drinking more coffee than I usually do, and I noticed I had little appetite, and less tolerance for taking the time to eat, or rest.  I don’t know exactly when I noticed, but I could see it coming.  I was definitely pushing myself beyond normal endurance limits, and I could actually feel the point where the stress hormones took over.  When I was 25, I could run like that for several days without triggering a Migraine.  Now I could feel the lurking heaviness around the margins of my mind, crowding right in on the heels of my adrenaline high.  I caught myself before I lost much sleep, or skipped many meals, or propped myself up on much more caffeine than usual.  I forced myself to stop and rest, and although I couldn’t nap with all that caffeine in my system, I did lay down and do relaxation exercises, and I did manage to avoid the Migraine I felt threatening.  My hat is off to Teri for good practical advice, because if I was busy blaming the stress, I could not have attended to the triggers in this way.

I realize I’m not telling you a tale of a Migraine, but of a Migraine averted, and that’s good news. That’s actually another post, for another day, and I’ve written others on the theme – you can push those triggers back at times, and stopping and relaxing can do it. That’s why I offer relaxation teleclasses and recordings!  But if I hadn’t been so aware, and hadn’t had that tool; if my Migraines weren’t managed to the degree they are, I would have had a Migraine that day. In fact, I had one at the end of the project, three days later!

So, was the stress itself a trigger, one in the stack, with the lack of sleep, insufficient food, and excess caffeine? Was the stress an exacerbating factor that made me more vulnerable to the effects of the other three triggers? Or was the stress the producer of the stupidity that made me willfully expose myself to those triggers, the very things I so carefully manage my life to avoid? What do you think?

– Megan

Dashboard image courtesy of Winstonavich/Winston.

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Creating a Migraine-Friendly Home Environment

March 6th, 2009

When I was a kid one of the games my brother and sister and I used to love to play on a Saturday was the Farm Game. It involved the Encyclopedia, and a pad and pen. We designed an imaginary farm for the three of us to live on and run, and we would draw it and plan it, and use the Encyclopedia to select our location and all our animals and plants.  I’m sure the farms we created would have been impossible to run, with animals that wouldn’t get along, and plant species that wouldn’t grow wherever it was that we were going to be. But it kept us busy for hours, and we loved it.

Creating the Migraine-friendly home enviroment is a little like that. I could spend hours, and use home design and architecture magazines, catalogs, the web, and a lot of imagination. I could spend bottomless amounts of money I don’t have, to create this environment, have a great time doing it, and I don’t know how practical it would be at the end. But what I’ll try to do here, instead, is mix fantasy and reality, pie in the sky with down to earth, and see if we can come up with some things you can actually use.

Starting outside, the Migraine-friendly home should be well-shaded, with deep covered porches and pollen-free trees.  Migraineurs need fresh air and good circulation, but have trouble with extreme heat and bright sun, and often get triggered in high-pollen season.  So let’s make it possible to get outside even with a Migraine, and to open the windows and enjoy the fresh air.

Inside, lighting is very important.  If you can choose lighting fixtures, great. I discovered the hard way that “high-hat” spot-lights are terrible for me, bright lighting coming down into the top of my eyes is about the worst from a triggering standpoint.  Torchiere type lights, which point the light upwards and spread it gently on the ceiling, illuminate the room more indirectly and can give plenty of light without glare.  Many Migraineurs find that fluorescents, even compact fluorescents, trigger them. Good old-fashioned shaded incandescent lamps can be good. We just recently got some of the brand new soft-white LED lights, which we have put in the “high-hat” sockets, and they are terrific.  Non-flickering, soft illumination, but plenty of it. For the first time, I can have light coming down from above that doesn’t trigger me! They are very good for the environment, too.

Having a quiet place to escape to is key. Lots of my Migraineur friends spend time on the couch, for me it’s my bed. I have 2 kids and a husband who like lots of music and tvs on and I need a place where I can control the light, sound and stimulation level. If you could really set it all up beforehand like the Farm Game you would choose yourself a quiet partner and quiet kids, but I wouldn’t trade the ones I have. I just have to buffer them at times.

Ideally, the Migraine-Friendly home environment would be tidy enough that the Migraineur was not tripping over stuff all the time, without the Migraineur having to be the one to tidy it up all the time. This also falls into the realm of the Farm Game – the ideal Migraine-friendly home environment comes with enough money to hire someone to do the house-keeping. Either that or choose your spouse based on their neatness and housekeeping abilities, though that may not be the best reason to choose your life companion.

Don’t forget to keep what you need for comfort on hand, whether it’s pillows, blankets, eye-shades, ice-packs, comedy DVDs, kitties, doggies, books on tape, spouses, children, best friends, rocking chairs, ginger Altoids, Ben & Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch, you name it.  What else would you add to the design for the Migraine-friendly home?

– Megan

P.S. No, that is not a picture of my house. I wish!

Wisconsin Farm image courtesy of Randen Pederson; craftsman house image courtesy of David Sawyer.

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Coping with Fatigue

March 1st, 2009

It’s my second day in a row where I feel achy and tired all over and just can’t get going.  I’ve had my 8 1/2 to 9 hours of sleep; I have been taking it slow and easy.  This kind of fatigue is a common reaction for me when I have travelled or otherwise exerted myself over several days.  I guess a 3 1/2 hour drive to Washington, an evening of training, a late night, a day of lobbying with a Migraine at the end of it, a morning meeting then another 3 1/2 hour drive, then 2 busy working days, count as exerting myself.  It feels as if the tiredness stores itself up in my muscles and doesn’t drain out for days on end.

It used to be that I felt like this every day, five or six years ago.  That was before I began taking thyroid supplements and bio-identical hormone replacement therapy.  It was also before I began practicing good sleep hygeine to manage my Migraines – getting enough sleep and the same amount, at approximately the same time, every night.

I have learned not to push myself when I feel this way.  I will recover faster if I rest and take it slow than if I try to power through and get a lot done.  It’s hard, though, to cope with the mess around me and not be able to do much about it.  It’s hard to cope with the reality that I have a lot of days like this, and I can’t get done what I once could.

My primary doctor diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome about six years ago; his treatment approach to it is mainly to seek to balance my hormones and that has helped a lot.  Coach Debra Russell of Artist’s Edge helped me too; she and I traded coaching and it was Debra that taught me that when I am fatigued, I need to rest. Period.

Now I find myself wondering what else is available.  As I work with migraine sufferers and other chronically ill folks, I have read some more of the chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia literature.  I have to admit to a certain level of denial rearing its ugly head for me once again – I don’t want to face the possibility that I might have fibromyalgia as well.  Of course we all know how silly this is (and denial always is silly, powerful and destructive though it may be) – because if I have it, I have it, whether I know it or not, and it’s knowledge that is power, not ignorance.

Well, friends, I make my promise to you – I will go read up on cfs and fibromyalgia and find out what else I should be doing to take care of myself.  Today it looks like I’ll be getting the taxes ready from my semi-recumbent position. Nice and restful, eh?

– Megan

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Migraine Consolation

February 5th, 2009

I have to thank Diana Lee for this topic, which I’m exploring for this month’s Migraine Disease and Headache Blog Carnival, I’ll excerpt the subject as: when sex can help with migraines – anything goes.  I’ll just warn you that as Danny (my dear hubs) discovered when he went off to college, girls are just as disgusting as boys, in their own way.

Hideous head pain got you down? Tired of dizziness, not being able to see straight, or losing sensation in one side of your body, or spending hours kneeling in front of the toilet? There is a consolation: sex can help with Migraine pain!  Now it’s true I’m being a bit sarcastic, and I guess that comes with the territory, because there’s a chicken and the egg problem here – it’s hard to feel sexy when you’re in a lot of pain.

When I was in my early twenties and having menstrual cramps that left me in bed moaning for hours at a time, I heard that an orgasm would help with menstrual cramps. There were times in there where I had a willing boyfriend to help out, but I found that, though I’m not generally the squeamish type, it’s hard to get into masturbation when the flow is heavy. Either it’s just a god-awful mess, or you have to spread out a towel and wear rubber gloves, and really, how sexy is that? When I managed it, I will report that yes, an orgasm helped. For a while.

Well, likewise with a Migraine. It’s a good theory. If the pain is severe, movement makes it worse. Though I will not turn up my nose at an orgasm most of the time, and would much prefer pleasure over pain, there is a level of pain I can’t seem to get past. If nauseous, that’s even worse. I defy you to show me someone who can really get in the mood when nauseous.

And there are other logistical issues. When I have a Migraine I tend to retreat to the quiet zone, my bedroom, where I can control the noise, light, and stimulation levels. I also have teenagers. I could go into a whole separate post about how difficult it is to have a sex life when you have teenagers. When your children no longer go to bed before you do, life gets complicated. Maybe it’s nature’s way of getting you ready to push them out of the nest. “Leave home already, your father and I haven’t had any nooky in…..”

But imagine, if you will, the combination of these two elements. I am away in my quiet cave upstairs, I have a Migraine but not one so severe that I can’t contemplate the deed, and I must somehow communicate to my spouse that I would like a little orgasmic intention directed my way. How do I do this without alerting the offspring, and how do we arrange the whole thing? Frankly my ingenuity level is not high during a Migraine either. I am most likely to hang the whole idea up and watch some Law & Order.

If we managed the logistics, would it help? We have managed it a few times, and I am happy to report that an orgasm, or three, is dandy for a Migraine. It may or may not make it go away, but it certainly helps for a while. Why not? Your body is flooded with feel-good chemicals and you are beyond relaxed. That’s got to help.

When I take a triptan and lie down to try to sleep off a bad Migraine, as long as I don’t have that mess situation going on, as mentioned above, I might give myself a little orgasm to help the process along. It doesn’t require much vigorous movement, and it’s not a bad tool to have in your Migraine toolkit.

– Megan

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Don’t be SAD – Winter’s Halfway Over

February 4th, 2009

First of all, I want to say that Groundhog Day makes me a little nuts. When I was a kid we lived in an old farmhouse beside a field and there was a groundhog in the middle of that field whom we called Mr. Wiggles. (Anyone my age may remember the jello commercials.) Now I am not doing groundhog research here today and I can’t tell you whether groundhogs are true hibernators or not, but I can tell you Mr. Wiggles never, ever, came out of his hole on Groundhog Day, come sun, snow, rain, or shadow, not for hell or high water.

Now you can talk all you like about Punxsatawney Phil, but first of all, no-one ever heard of him when I was a kid, and secondly, how is some groundhog in Punxsatawney, Pa, going to predict winter for the rest of us all over the place?  I mean, if there’s a cloud over Phil, early spring right there where Phil is, and it’s sunny 17 feet away, then 17 feet away there’s going to be 6 more weeks of winter? Puh-leez! Thirdly, they actually reach into a box and pull Phil out and make a prognostication as to whether he saw his shadow or not!  I mean, how bogus is that? And lastly, and here’s the kicker, February 2nd, Groundhog Day, is the exact half-way point of winter!  So no matter what the groundhog does or does not do, Phil, Mr. Wiggles, or your own local groundhog, on February 2nd you have 6.5 more weeks of winter! Yes, sometimes it gets warm earlier, and sometimes it snows in the spring, and it’s different depending on where you live and so on.

Sorry, I just had to go there. I was born on February 4th, that’s right, that would be Today, two days after Groundhog Day, and I’ve been hearing those groundhog jokes all my life! But here’s the good news about February 2nd (and the other good news about February 4th) – it’s half-way through winter!

By the beginning of February, the days (here in the Northern Hemisphere) are as long as they are in late October. I can’t say I’ve ever been specifically diagnosed with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) but I’ve read about it and it sounds like what I experience when the days are shorter. I am more fatigued, depressed, get sick more easily, get more Migraines. Of course, being indoors in a heated house also has its part – dealing with dry, recirculated air.

Who else deals with this? I use a number of strategies to make it a better winter for myself. I’ll share the ones that have helped me but I’d love to hear from any of you who have others.

Has anyone used one of those light boxes they prescribe to give you exposure to more daylight-type light in the house? I haven’t, but I’ve used full-spectrum light-bulbs (not fluorescent!) and I find they help me. Here are some of my tricks:

There are reasons why our ancestors held celebrations in the winter to remind them that light, warmth and life would return to the earth. Groundhog Day actually falls on the date of one such ancient celebration –  Candlemas. I too rejoice in the returning of the sun! But I’m keeping the warm stuff out for 6 more weeks of winter.

– Megan

Groundhog image courtesy of Matt MacGillivray; paper whites image courtesy of Bethany L. King.

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A Woman’s work is Never Done – So Stop Doing It – Take Care of You

January 26th, 2009

We talked recently about telling the truth about our disease. When we do that, we need to come face to face with others’ expectations of us, and whether we’re going to try to meet them or not. In the face of our diseases, one of the things we must deal with is that we cannot be all things to all people. We must balance caring for others, appropriately, with caring for ourselves. Finding balance is never about reaching perfection and staying there, it’s always a process of adjustment and change.

This is a women’s issue because most of us women expect ourselves to keep a certain standard of order around us, despite years of feminism. We see ourselves as having to care for everyone. Research shows our brains are organized to multi-task and manage our immediate surroundings, much more than men’s.  I have always lived at war with myself with my perfectionism coupled with an ability to be pretty organized but only if things go a particular way – I have trouble being flexible and still staying orderly. In the brief periods in my life when I lived alone I was pretty organized.

Living with 3 people with ADHD, while being chronically ill myself, has challenged my organizational abilities way beyond their limits and most of the time I am overwhelmed and just give up, but then the perfectionism pops in and I struggle up again and try to organize everything. And so it goes. Living with Migraine disease and the other chronic ills I struggle with has taught me something about when to give it up and say it’s not that important. I have also had to accept that my dear wonderful husband will work his tail off to feed us and run the errands and make sure the homework is done and the kids are well and happy and in bed, and he’ll try to keep up with the dishes and keep the mess down, but if I’m out of the action chances are I will get up to a mess because he can’t keep up with it on his own. I care how my home looks, and my pride has had to take some pretty hard hits, many times. Because no matter how bad I feel about the mess, my health is more important than how my home looks.

Lots of chronically ill women I know rely on their loved ones to shoulder a hefty share of work around the house, but lots more try to get it all done themselves, and run themselves into the ground. Letting go is an art. We need to let our loved ones know what we need, we need to communicate about what needs to be done and how best to split the work, and we need to accept that it won’t all get done. We will all, every one of us, die with things on our to-do lists. If we’re perfectionists, and we need to rely on others, we need to accept that things won’t be done to our standards. And live with it.

Chronically ill folk often report that their extended family members don’t understand – they don’t want to visit because our homes aren’t the way they expect. They come to visit and we are doing our best to make them comfortable, but there’s this sense that it’s all on top of something wrong – like icing on a mud-pie. Chances are they have no idea about what we struggle with on a daily basis, what it takes to be chronically ill and just manage the basics of life. Chances are we try to put on our game face and look like everything is okay, because really, who wants to complain all the time, or talk about all this negative stuff?

There’s no substitute for communication. We need to tell people that we’d love to have them visit (if that’s the case) but that they must take us as they find us, and we must lay down some ground rules. They need to understand we are ill, and we are doing the best we can. If coming to visit means pitching in, we need to let them know that. If they can’t accept that, maybe they shouldn’t be visiting.

We can’t expect to change people. Most people respond well to open, honest, uncritical communication. Some people don’t. Some people are toxic to us. A friend recently shared about cleaning her house for the visit of a very exacting and critical relative – one who would apparently not be satisfied no matter what. A key ground rule might be to establish your home as a no criticism zone. A really key part is knowing that you don’t owe anything to toxic people. You need an atmosphere that supports your health and probably the biggest piece of that is having the people in your life support your health. If you had a pet you were terribly allergic to you would be very sad and you would not blame the pet but I hope you would find another home for that pet! Toxic people are like that – you don’t even have to blame them. You just have to stay away from them – to stay alive!

Don’t let yourself be defined by those who criticize you, and don’t let being a woman mean you can’t sit down and rest. You need to take care of you, because without you, nothing else matters.

– Megan

Snake handler image courtesy of Robbie Jim.

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Here we Go Again

January 25th, 2009

Another wasted day. Sound familiar? I had a Migraine Friday night, treated it promptly and lay low, did everything I should do. Yesterday I woke up better, though not 100%. A state of slight soreness in the left temple that is usually a characteristic of post-drome for me, but can be an incompletely aborted Migraine. It is sometimes hard to tell. Unfortunately these monsters do not follow a consistent pattern. I took it fairly easy yesterday. I slept enough, did some light activity, I did not do anything to overtax my brain or trigger another Migraine. Or so I thought.

The only thing I did “wrong” was to stay up later than I had planned – I was in bed asleep at 12:15, about an hour later than I should have. I wanted to watch a DVD with Danny and waited for him a little. He’s trying to get a project finished and I didn’t want to rush him. The movie was also a bit longer than I expected. Add it all up and it equals not good sleep hygiene. And I woke up this morning with another Migraine. Two in three days is far too many.

I always hesitate to complain. I know there are many of you out there with daily head pain and I am so blessed not to have to deal with that. I was talking to someone just yesterday about keeping perspective, and how when our seratonin is depleted by Migraine or depression we need to try to remind ourselves that we will not always feel this way, that this is not the only true reality. Could someone please come remind me of that today? Remind me that this, what I feel today, is not the only true reality! Remind me that a Sunday spent mainly in the confines of my bedroom, doing very little other than trying to keep this monster at bay, trying to treat it and limit it to today, is not the end of the world or of the progress I’ve been making. Remind me that although the sun is sinking on a painful day, that didn’t go according to my plans, that sun is coming up again tomorrow and I get another chance? Thanks!

– Megan

What am I doing today? I’m healing my brain.

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My Brain Hurts!

January 23rd, 2009

Do you remember the Gumbies from Monty Python?  “My Brain Hurts!” “Oh, no, Mr. Gumby…” “I’ve got a piece of brain stuck in my head and it hurts…” My cousin and I used to quote this at each other in our teens, and laugh hysterically (Mike can do a mean Mr. Gumby impression). Little did I know that a few decades later “my brain hurts” would become such a refrain for me!

I have never seen “thinking too hard” on any list of Migraine triggers, and I’m dubious about stress. As I’ve discussed here before, stress is officially considered an exacerbating factor in Migraine, not a trigger. So I don’t know whether the experience of “sparks are about to come out of my ears” has any physiological basis or not.  Someday I may do some research and see what kind of scientific explanations there are for this phenomenon, but not today.

Today is a Friday. Fridays my brain has been working hard all week and I either give it the final push that sends it straight to Frigraine-land, or I get into an extended case of the sillies. I realize this is a tautology. I can’t tell you whether thinking too hard is a Migraine trigger because I can’t think that hard because that might trigger a Migraine. Does that make any sense? Probably not, but we’re going to have to live with it! Look I’ve been drafting an estate plan, researching corporate formation, reading up on the relaxation response, attending a mediation discussion meeting, giving a marketing talk, writing a migraine management newsletter, and trying to remember algebra. Among other things. If I think much harder my head will explode. I’m pretty sure of that.

A friend copied me on an email this week, introducing me to her disability lawyer, so that I can speak to the lawyer about her case. One of the things I am interested in is helping Migraineurs and others with invisible chronic illness to get disability income if they need it. Anyway, the friend closed the email by saying she was impressed at what a professional sounding letter she can still write, though it had given her a Migraine to do it! So I’m not the only one who finds that mental effort makes my brain hurt.

As I have gotten back into legal work lately, I have been using synapses in the ole brain-bucket that have been in disuse for a number of years. I don’t know if the Migraines I’ve had over the past decades have any effect on my cognitive functioning, or if it’s just those darned decades themselves doing the job. I’ve been encouraged to discover that even though I can’t always think on my feet and recall immediately how to solve a problem, if I leave it alone and come back to it everything seems to fall back into place. I’ve done things I haven’t done in 10 years, things I haven’t done in 20 years, and this week had to dust off some math skills I haven’t used since high school!

This is the good news, but there have been many panicked moments in between when I felt like my brain was short-circuiting, when I actually physically felt pressure mounting in my head, when I thought sparks were going to come out my ears. What is that? An over-active imagination? I don’t think so. I don’t have any studies to cite for you, but when I think my head is going to explode, I think it’s time to give the brain a break.

Right now my brain hurts. Just a little bit. I’m going to take a break after I write this, and do my relaxation breathing, then put on my boots and take a little walk in the melting snow.  I may manage to avoid a Migraine tonight. I have to say I’m encouraged by the resiliency of this organ, this thinking organ that has been ailing, and aging, and working hard, that I need to earn my living and to see me through all the years of my life to come. I also need to remember that like any other part of me, I can exercise this brain, but it also needs its rest and relaxation, it needs both to stretch and to recover.

– Megan

There’s a piece of brain stuck in my head. Thank God!

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It’s Blog Carnival Time Again – What Keeps You Going When You’re Suffering.

January 14th, 2009

Kudos to Diana Lee who got her act together in the New Year to get the Blog Carnival out right on time – yours truly is still adjusting to a new schedule and not even getting over here to post very often, so you won’t see an entry from me in this month’s carnival! But it’s a great topic – What Keeps You Going When You’re Suffering. So pleaase head on over to Somebody Heal Me for the January edition of the Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival for some great reading to keep you going. I will be heading over myself for some reads on such topics as yawning, sleeping it off, revenge, and new Migraine drugs, as well as other coping strategies! See you there!

Generally speaking, a blog carnival is a collection of links to a variety of a blogs on a central topic. The Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival has been created to provide both headache and migraine disease patients and people who blog about headache disorders with unique opportunities to share ideas on topics of particular interest and importance to us. Visit the link to this month’s carnival for a collection of informative entries on the theme of What Keeps You Going When You’re Suffering.

– Megan

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