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Posts Tagged ‘migraine’

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.

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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

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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

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Posted in Rant | Comments (3)

Second-Guessing Game

October 1st, 2009

Does this sound at all familiar to you? This is me, talking to me, inside my head:

So I stayed in and didn’t take the triptan – and about 10 my head was pounding and I felt nauseous. At that point I took the triptan, and some anti-nausea meds, and tried to go to sleep. I slept badly, with pain in my head nearly all night. I kept waking and checking the clock to see if 2 hours had gone by so I could take another triptan. Then I slept a bit longer and woke after 2, still in lots of pain, and took the second dose. Slept fitfully and around 5 noticed that the pain had let up a good bit. Woke with the alarm at 7.

So I called the court and told them I was ill and could not come in. I went back to sleep and woke up a few hours later, to this:

I’m not sure they ever shut up, those voices in our heads. But here I am, several hours later, head still hurting, trying to make what I can of the day. Just a Migraineur, intermittently impaired, working around it the best I can.

– Megan

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Posted in Musings | Comments (14)

Migraines & Driving & Driving Migraineurs Crazy

September 30th, 2009

I may have mentioned that lately I have been writing articles for Health Central’s My Migraine Connection on legal topics related to Migraine, as well as answering some of the questions that readers ask on the site. A reader came on recently and reported that her driving privileges had come under supervision by her state’s Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) because she had self-reported that she had frequent Migraines. The MVC was considering whether to suspend her license. She was asking what to do. This sounded like a nightmare to me; I was really distressed for her, so I did some research. In the first place I discovered, not too surprisingly, that her state’s MVC had broad powers to supervise, suspend, retest or otherwise question the driving of anyone they suspected might have any kind of medical condition that could make them an unsafe driver. Researching further, I learned that just about every state has given similar powers to its MVC.

My suggestion was that she get a statement from her doctor that she knows the signs of a Migraine and does not drive when she has one, and that she consult an attorney. She came back later and reported that her MVC had taken her medical documentation, made her retake the road test, but that they had not suspended or restricted her license.

I did some more research and wrote two articles based on it, one called Migraines and Driving Don’t Mix – reviewing cases which have found people driving under the influence of pain killers (legally prescribed for Migraines) to be DUI, and other cases which found people driving with a Migraine (not with medications) were not DUI. I did stress that Migraines themselves impair us – they slow our reflexes and reaction time, interfere with cognitive function, aura obscures our vision, the pain and nausea distract us. I even went so far as to say I wouldn’t be surprised to see a case somewhere in the future where someone had a Migraine, caused an accident, hurt someone, and was held liable or criminally responsible.

In the second article, called Migraines and Our Drivers License, I reviewed the Motor Vehicle laws which set up medical review of driving privileges, trying to make people aware that we could have our licenses reviewed or suspended if Migraines impact our driving and the MVC finds out about it!

It’s been an interesting few weeks for me on the inter-tubes – I did not make myself very popular with some Migraineurs over all this! One group of readers thought I was being condescending. On one site someone ranted about how if cell-phone talking, lane-changing speeding morons should be allowed to drive, why should Migraineurs be singled out? I was called “militant” and I’m not some people’s favorite person. Several people asked me to tell them how they are supposed to get to work, function, etc…

I think I learned a lesson about my writing style, and I’m going to do my best to be more chatty and down to earth when I’m delivering hard news. I think that’s what this was – a case of kill the messenger. I’m not the Migraines & driving police (or the anything police, for that matter). We’re all going to have to use our own judgment. I just thought it was important for people to know 1) that Migraines impair us, sometimes even when we don’t feel like they do; 2) that people have been convicted of DUI even taking legally prescribed medications; and 3) that right or wrong, our condition is being scrutinized by Motor Vehicle Commissions.

Last night I dropped my son at his music lesson and went to the supermarket. Near the end of my time in the market I was very hungry and jittery, and I started to get sensitive to light, an early warning sign for me of a Migraine coming. My son was across a divided highway from me, needing to be picked up, and I had a week’s worth of groceries in a cart. So I had choices to make. I could have called my husband, and he could have come and got our son, me and the groceries. I decided to eat something and see if raising my blood sugar would hold the Migraine off. So I went through the checkout line and sat in the car eating for a while. I felt less jittery and better right away, and I made the judgment call that the Migraine was not going to hit full force in the 15 minutes it would take to get home. I picked up my son, drove home, and all was well.

Was that the right thing to do? Was I putting convenience ahead of safety? Was I being a hypocrite in light of the articles I just wrote and the position I’ve been taking? We have to make judgment calls every day with this disease. If my head had been hurting, if I was getting dizzy or confused, I would not have driven. I have called for rides, or pulled over to the side of the road in those situations before. I always try to err on the side of caution. Several people have left comments since I wrote the articles, about family members who were badly hurt driving with a Migraine.

All I’m asking is that we take this seriously, that we plan ahead, have a back-up plan, and take ourselves off the roads before we endanger ourselves and others. And I know it’s not fair, that there are lots of morons on the road who shouldn’t be driving, and all of that. It’s a very uncomfortable subject – it challenges our independence. I know. Sorry. I’m not trying to drive you crazy. Please don’t kill the messenger!

– Megan

Rearview mirror image courtesy of Dean Shareski; Steering wheel image courtesy of Tomas Fano.

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Posted in Communicating, Current Affairs, Managing, Travel | Comments (16)

Fatigue, Fibromyalgia & Denial

September 21st, 2009

Hello friends. I’ve been quiet lately. Had a marathon summer with a lot of work and a daughter to get off to college. She is off, settled in, working hard, and having the time of her life. I flew back from three days away, moving her into her dorm, and then I attended the International Headache Congress in Philadelphia for two days, then I spent a lovely day in Manhattan with cousins from the west coast, then I spent a day working, then I went back to Philly for a first appointment at the Jefferson Headache Center, then I collapsed.

I will post about the IHC, and about my appointment at Jefferson, (both of which were great) later. What I want to talk about today is “then I collapsed” part. Well I do have to touch on the appointment at Jefferson… mostly what was discussed was my Migraines and my anxiety level. I was very happy with the care I got, the thoroughness of the history taken, the look at Migraines in the context of a whole life. I have new treatment options and new hope.

It felt like almost a side note to the exam, when the doctor pressed certain points on my body which hurt tremendously.  Once he had pressed a half dozen, I realized what he was doing – pressing the fibromyalgia tender points.  One of the diagnostic criteria for fibro is pain in at least 11 of the 18 points – well, I had a great deal of pain in 14! He asked me if I feel pain in my body on a daily basis and I said there were days when I’m achy all over, but I’m not aware of much pain in my body much of the time.

But over the next few days I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My 10 day marathon of travel, launching a daughter, conference, appointments, left me bone weary and aching. You know when you first notice something you haven’t seen before, and all of a sudden you see it all around? I had this sense of a puzzle piece clicking into place. Why do I fatigue so easily? For the last few years when I exert myself in any way, whether it’s physical exercise, mental or emotional stress, or just being on the go for a number of days in a row, afterwards my entire body aches. For days. I have become terribly sensitive to touch, where someone bumping into me actually hurts, instead of just being jarring.  My husband and I were lying on the bed talking the other day and he had his hand on my calf. His thumb was resting on my shin, and after a few minutes just the weight of that thumb began to actually hurt.

I know people with fibromyalgia, and there are plenty of Migraineurs who also have fibro. I’ve read about it, and I have wondered for some time if I might have fibro too. You’ll see in my profile that I say I have chronic fatigue, but I’ve always had some question about that diagnosis, which was more of a suspicion by my family doctor than a real confirmed diagnosis. Up to this point, though, I have avoided looking into it for myself. I don’t want to face having another chronic illness. I want to live in the illusion that my limitations will go away someday. Ha! Oh well, a girl can dream.

I will investigate this further; I will talk about it at my next headache appointment. I know there are treatment options and support available. It’s kind of silly, really, to prefer denial. Having all the symptoms I have and no name for it really isn’t better than having the symptoms with a name. Knowledge really is power. I hear that the drugs used to treat fibro are really good for treating Migraine too, and many people’s Migraines improve when their fibro is treated. We’ll see. I still kind of want to stick my head back in the sand. Except I know my neck would hurt for days afterwards.

– Megan Oltman

Logan Square fountain image courtesy of Conspiracy of Happiness; shoulder image courtesy of Barbarellaa.

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Posted in Communicating, Managing, Medicine | Comments (2)

Calling all Redheaded Migraineurs

August 9th, 2009

Now I know Migraine occurs in all human cultures, and people of all hair colors as well as all sorts of other characteristics, but I am interested in conducting a very unscientific study here… and certainly interested in knowing if any real studies have been done of this (I don’t know of any).

An article in the New York Times yesterday entitled The Pain of Being a Redhead discussed several studies which indicate that redheads are resistant to anesthesia, take on average 20% more medication to anesthetize (which has been known anecdotally by anesthesiologists for years), and may have a higher sensitivity to pain than the general population.

I shared this link on Facebook and very shortly got comments from 4 redheaded Migraineur friends! Now the comments were all over the place. Most of us agreed that as Migraineurs we deal with so much pain on a regular basis that we think our pain threshhold is higher rather than lower, though several of us have had the experience of being resistant to anesthetic or pain-relieving drugs. But here’s what I’m curious about – is there a high correlation between red hair and Migraine, or was my little flurry of redheaded Migraine buddies just a fluke?

Tara Parker-Pope, the article’s author, states that

a mutation in the MC1R gene results in the production of a substance called pheomelanin that results in red hair and fair skin. The MC1R gene belongs to a family of receptors that include pain receptors in the brain, and as a result, a mutation in the gene appears to influence the body’s sensitivity to pain.

If we redheads have a genetically altered sensitivity to pain, are we more prone to chronic pain conditions? I have no idea – but I do wonder!

– Megan Oltman


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Posted in Medicine, Musings, Science | Comments (10)

Staying out of the Spotlight

July 22nd, 2009

It’s very uncomfortable to suddenly have one’s vulnerabilities become center stage. I had an odd experience this week. I haven’t met many Migraineurs yet who actually want their illness to be center stage. We want to be understood, we want support and empathy and help where we need it, but not generally to be fussed over and be the center of attention because of our disease. At least, that’s my impression of the many many Migraineurs I have met! Do you agree?

A few nights ago I had a parents’ meeting to attend for a program my kids are involved in.  I’m currently on vacation in a conference center, and the space found for the parents’ meeting was the stage of the auditorium, where they had set up a circle of chairs and turned on all the stage lights.  I stepped onto the stage and in every direction there was a spotlight pointed straight into my eyes. I edged my way around for a bit, trying to find some safe angle, but the lights were just everywhere. As often happens in the face of a trigger like that, I got disoriented. I couldn’t figure out whether to stay or go. I can’t imagine what I must have looked like, staggering around the stage. My husband was there and he kind of guided me to a chair, and sat on the floor in front of me.  I bent my head down onto his back, threw the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and eyes and asked if they could turn the lights down. Someone said they were trying to dim the lights.

Now at this point my face was hidden in my husband’s back, I felt dizzy and disoriented, and I didn’t know if my voice was loud or muffled.  I was worrying about how strange I looked. The woman next to me said something sympathetic and handed me a booklet to further shade my eyes. I thanked her and said, “I’m sorry to seem so dramatic, but those lights will trigger me into a Migraine in no time flat.”

Apparently it wasn’t easy to dim the lights because the meeting started with them still on. My kind neighbor called out, “turn out those lights, we have someone with Migraine problems here!” Several people made suggestions about where else I should sit, and I answered, without picking up my head, “No, then the lights from over there are in my eyes.” My voice sounded whiny and desperate to me.  So, they turned out the lights.

This story is not about other people not understanding. I don’t know whether the people in that meeting understood or not. Whether they understoood or not, they were very caring and responsive. The whole meeting sat in the dusk so that I would not have lights in my eyes. This story is about how mortified I felt to have my vulnerability, my weakness, my Achilles heel, my Kryptonite, right up there, center stage, under the spotlights, for everyone to see.

I worried what everyone thought. Did they think I was being dramatic? Were some of the other people there sitting in judgment, annoyed at sitting in the dark, wishing I would just go away? Did I sound as whiny to others as I felt to myself?

Interestingly, I had a chance to talk about the meeting with one of the other parents the next day (it was a very good meeting, by the way), and I made some comment about having made everyone sit in the dark. She looked confused, and then said, “Oh, was it you with the hood over your head?” So obviously, I was not remembered for that! I guess I won’t go down in history here as the drama queen who made them sit in the dark because I SAID the lights would give me a Migraine!

But tell me, why is it so hard to let people see I am less than perfect?

– Megan

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Posted in Communicating, Musings | Comments (8)

Trying to Catch Up when Migraines Interrupt

July 11th, 2009

By the way, it will never happen. The catching up, I mean. We will all die with things on our to-do lists. I am included in this.

I had a mild Migraine yesterday. The good news is that it was mild. I wasted an hour or so at my desk with mild head pain and major brain fog trying to force myself to function. I wasn’t getting anything done, so I went and took my triptan and lay down for awhile. After a couple of hours I was able to think again and the pain was mostly gone, so I went back to work. I had a productive couple of hours, but altogether was only through half of my list for the day. So when the day was really done and I needed to go to bed, I found myself staying on line, tweeting a few more tweets, reading a few more blogs, messing around doing anything but turning out the lights and going to sleep.

Why do I do that? I have such trouble letting go of the day when it doesn’t go the way I want it to. I am aware of the impulse, but yet it’s completely irrational because the hanging round tweeting, keeping myself up, isn’t catching me up or making up for what I lost. Sometimes I wish my Mom was here to tell me to go to bed!

I have a visualization that I do to complete the day when I lie down to sleep. I picture a room, it’s a pleasant sort of office, with a beautiful view (that’s the view from my office, picture that if you want!), and a big desk, lots of drawers and closets. I visualize all the things I was working on in the day, all the things that happened, one by one, as objects or pieces of paper.  A writing project might show up as a piece of paper, a fun conversation I had might be a toy, one by one I review the happenings, projects, and even emotions of the day and picture them in some physical form. And with each one, I find a place to put it away. If there is something I need to remember to do with it tomorrow, I write a note to myself and put it on the desk. I run through this with each and every part of the day until everything is put away, and then I sweep the room and leave. If I’m still awake!

Please visit my new products page for recordings of other visualizations that are specifically for relaxation, pain reduction and reducing Migraine triggerability.

As for me, I have to remember sometimes that I have the tools and pick them up sooner. Completing the day to go to sleep makes a lot of sense. Being complete with the fact that I have been interrupted in the course of the day, and that I won’t get it all done – that’s harder for me. How about you?

– Megan Oltman

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Posted in Managing, Tips & Techniques | Comments (0)

Counting Down to Thunder

May 25th, 2009

In this season of thunderstorms, I am finding my head more and more like a barometer, predicting the electric activity in the atmosphere.  I hope you are enjoying your Memorial Day weekend – mine has had its ups and downs with the weather! I did want to share a poem of mine with you – it won an honorable mention in the Putting our Heads Together Migraine and Headache Poetry Contest this year.

Counting Down to Thunder

Counting down to thunder,
how many miles the storm lurks in the night?
Lightning pierces slumber,
grasp the shattered shards of sleep.

Where the welcome rain?
Where the soothing break in summer’s pain?

Storms without at last pile high upon the storms within –
thunder’s crash inside my skull tore life from many days.
Come tempest wash it clean again.

– Megan

Lightning image courtesy of Ian Boggs.

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Posted in Communicating, Musings | Comments (0)

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