My New Year's Resolution: Making Peace With Migraine

I saw the movie Atonement last night, and while my companions were discussing the merits of the book versus the movie - a discussion I would have liked to jump into with enthusiasm -- all I could think about was that poor mother in bed with her migraine. There are broken hearts and broken promises and broken bodies all over that devastating story, but the mother with the migraine did me in long before any of those miseries showed up.

I've been that mother, more times than I could possibly count - the person who has to leave the party and go lay alone in her room, with no light, no sound and no motion, because any further disturbance will push the whole system over the edge. I've lived with migraines for fourteen years - fourteen years of days lost to exhaustion and nights spent in pain, of hunger and thirst and vomit and hours spent lying on cold floors of bathrooms and hospital emergency rooms that were too busy to see a patient who was, after all, still breathing. And after fourteen years of desperately trying every remedy under the sun - every drug, every herb, every abstinence, every kind of healer from traditions all over the world, I finally found something, last year, that helped ease the pain: words.

They were written by Joan Didion in 1964 in an essay from The White Album entitled, "To Bed." They'd been there all my life, these words, had I just gone to the library or to a really good bookstore, and plucked The White Album from the shelves. But I happened upon them by chance, while trolling the internet for yet a new magic cure. I started to read, and then I started to devour and when I got to the end of the piece, I thought, "That's it. That's exactly it."

The words about migraine were these:

I have learned now to live with it, learned when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it, when it does come, as more friend than lodger. We have reached a certain understanding, my migraine and I... And now that I am wise in its ways, I no longer fight it. I lie down and let it happen...[and] when the pain recedes...I count my blessings.

Didion's essay, though powerful beyond measure, is only a few hundred words. It's not a guidebook for making peace with migraine. I had to figure out that path for myself - but here's the amazing thing: I did. The process took the entire year, but here I am, on the brink of a new year, and I can chant Didion's words like a mantra because they are now mine, too. I still have migraines, but I have significantly fewer and they are far less dramatic or disruptive. It's a beautiful thing.

So on New Year's Eve, I resolve the exact same thing I did last year. I resolve to continue living in détente with my headaches. I resolve to keep the peace. And for anyone who saw Atonement and felt as much empathy for the two-second shot of the mom with the migraine as you did for the devastated lovers, here's a truncated version of how you might make peace with your migraines, as well:

1. Learn when to expect it. Keep a journal and don't cheat. Every single time you get a migraine, list the time of day, the quality of the weather, how you slept the night before and the night before that, what you ate, whether or not you drove on a road with glare. It's not enough to say "red wine gives me a headache," because the truth of the matter is that red wine might only give you a headache on days when it has rained, or on days when you have slept less than six hours or on days when you also ate a bit of cheese. Know exactly what triggers a migraine. See if you can learn so much about your migraine that you can predict it.

2. Learn how to outwit it. Keep using that journal and add information about what works once a migraine has come. Does ice help? Does ice only help in the first 30 minutes or does ice help throughout the entire migraine episode? Does ice on your neck do anything? What about on your feet? Think this comprehensively about all your behaviors and all your remedies - your sleep patterns, your exercise habits, when you take your meals, and every over-the-counter pain killer, strange-sounding Chinese herb, vitamin, tea, and narcotic. You can't be smarter than your migraine if you're not smart about what helps.

3. Become wise in its ways. Record where, exactly, the pain starts and what the quality of the pain is like. For many years when doctors would ask me to rate my pain on that 1-10 scale, I would tearfully say, "Ten," and think that I had conveyed something important. Not so. All I had conveyed was how much it hurt. I hadn't said where the pain had started, how it had spread, where it had concentrated its power. Once I started to pay attention, I found that sometimes the pain starts high on the right side of my neck and other times it starts low. Sometimes the sensation builds from my jaw line, other times from my temples or my sinuses or higher in my forehead. By pinpointing the way my migraine was actually working, it became less sinister.

4. Learn how to regard it as more friend than lodger. I don't think Didion was suggesting that you adore your migraine and invite it to afternoon tea. I think she was suggesting that there is room to consider it in a slightly different light. Anything that has become less sinister and mysterious has moved down the continuum from alien to friend, and any movement in that direction should be welcome indeed.

5. No longer fight it. This sounds similar to the ridiculously simple "Just say no" directive -and dangerously close to the rage-inducing suggestions people without migraines often make to those of us who have them: maybe you should try yoga, you'd be better if you weren't so stressed, what about Excedrin? But the fact is that sometimes ridiculously simple is brilliantly wise. Constantly fighting against your own body is exhausting, unproductive, counterintuitive, and a good way to cause depression and despair. You could just....stop. You could embrace the fact that you are a person with migraine. When a migraine hits, you could just say to yourself, "Here's a migraine," and let it happen. Accept that your day or your night is shot. Accept that you may have to take a bunch of medicine and that the next day may pass in a drug-induced haze. It's not about giving in; it's about giving up the desperation.

6. Know that the pain will recede. Because it always does.

7. Count your blessings. If you don't have a migraine on a day when you have a big presentation, count that as a blessing. If you have a migraine on a day when your child is starring in the school play, but your drugs work and you get to go, even though you're shaky and a little nauseous and tight, count that as a blessing, too. It seems cheesy, but it works to shift your perception away from the negative and toward the positive, which is a straight path to peace.

Comments

[dreamcatcher]

I have suffered from Migraines since I was 10 and I’m now 25. Over the years I never made a concrete conclusion of what triggered them. I thought I had eaten enough that day, or I was stressed. The only thing I knew for sure was that thunderstorms were one cause.
Finally, with the help form my gyno that the majority of my migraines occurred on the week of my period, a “menstrual migraine “. I was on birth control and that hormonal change of a week of sugar pills sent my head into a tailspin. I am now on Kariva it’s a generic brand of Mircette. It’s still a 28 regimen, but the last week on the pills there are still hormones in them so it’s a sudden drop in levels. While it has not ended them, it dose make them weaker and more manageable. I am looking into other options besides “the pill” that might help me deal with the migraines.
I’m also on prescription called Imitrex. It’s in a pill and nasal spray form to take at the first sign. It’s a wonder drug! It truly takes it away, I mean gone, forgotten. For the first 15 minutes after taking it I recommend to still find a quite place and relax and drink tons of water because it’s very drying. After that you are good to go.
Dose anyone know if it is hereditary? My mom also suffers form them. I wish all suffers more free days and less tucked in bed. Please no you are not alone and that others understand how horrible they can be.
By the way, I still get them from thunderstorms, anyone else?

[CrankyGal]

Happy New Year to all.

To my fellow migraine sufferers, try this:

1. 400 mg vitamin B2 daily, divided into 200mg in the morning and 200mg in the evening.

2. 300 mg CoQ10 daily, also divided, 150 mg in the morning and 150 mg in the evening.

3. 500 mg Magnesium daily. This does not have to be divided, but it MUST be chelated, or attached to something else, like magnesium oxide or mesylate. Free magnesium will send you running to the bathroom for hours.

4. No caffeine. Or very low caffeine. I limit myself to one or two cups of tea daily, or decaf coffee.

These instructions were given to me by my neurologist and have worked very well for me. Most of us would prefer vitamins over drugs. It isn't that I never get any headaches, but the ones I get are much milder. I'm not losing days holed up in a dark room the way I used to.

Try it. There are no side effects and you have nothing to lose but your headaches.

[Boomerwoman]

At 57, after years of migraines, my physician suggested I give up HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and see what happened. Within a few days, my migraines went from 3/week to 3/month. Now, three years later they are even less frequent.

[Vajara]

Both my mother-in-law and my wife suffered early on from migraines; however, I introduced them to foot and hand massages and low and behold, no more migraines.

Perhaps, you and others who wish to prevent these from coming in the first place, do consider getting a foot and hand massage from a massage therapist or someone who knows how to do some deep tissue and acupressure treatments.

I would also like to recommend our 15-Minute StressOuts as they are based on the same principles, without the feet being attended to. Makes no difference if you are willing to receive this chair type massage program that prevents these painful ordeals from occuring. Please visit our website as we have given thousands of free "stressouts" with elders and others wishing to reduce their stress, anxiety, lonliness and depression. Our comments show how remarkable this program works for all populations.

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Best wishes and may you live with enduring health and wellbeing.

[Nezua]

raised by a nurse, i learned over time to note my symptoms much as you describe, and it is helpful in many instances. i do not suffer migraines. but i note my body the same way you do. the second any change happens with my body, i mentally note what is going on, when, what preceded it, how it progresses...exactly as you say. doctors love it, and can help you better when you finally see one. i've self-diagnosed (and still seen a doctor and been right) more than once simply because i had such a good collection of symptoms in my mind, and their behaviors and correlations.

so i just mean to say its good habits for anyone. to know yourself, to be aware. in fact, i think you also describe a good approach to life. simply to be more aware, to have a more holistic awareness of the way things intertwine and relate and lessen or exacerbate the conditions of their relationships. if we applied this in many ways, even politically, it could do us much good.

as well as the understanding you have gained that fighting something produces tension. and depending on what you are fighting, you can actually worsen your problem with a fight at the wrong time. or add to negative energy, rather than going with the flux and flow and on/off nature of all life, to inevitably rise with the positive once more.

i'm glad, in your case, that you have found some relief from what must have proven quite a challenge to you for so long. and i hope it lessens even more so, its hold on you.