30 Things About My Life with Migraines

My post today is part of Migraine and Headache Awareness Month. You can learn more about this 30 Things About My Life with Migraines meme at dailyheadache.com. If you blog and live with migraines or headaches of any kind be sure to share your own 30 Things answers on your blog. If you don’t blog and want to share you can do so here or over at dailyheadache.com

There are different sets of questions depending on which type of migraine/ headaches you live with. I live with both Cluster Headaches and Migraines, but I’m going to focus on the Migraine questions here.

1. My diagnosis is: Chronic Migraines and Cluster Headaches
2. My migraine attack frequency is: currently every 7-10 days. When CH hits it’s every day and sometimes multiple times per day. The longest I’ve gone between in the last couple of years is about a month.
3. I was diagnosed in: 2003 for Migraines (I think) and 2010 for Cluster Headaches
4. My comorbid conditions include: Fibromyalgia, IBS, Hypothyroid, TMJ, Endometriosis and probably a few others. I can never seem to remember all of my diagnoses at one time.
5. I take 2 medications/supplements each day for prevention and 2 medications/supplements to treat an acute attack
6. My first migraine attack was: I can’t even remember life without Migraines.
7. My most disabling migraine symptoms are: pain and sensitivity to light
8. My strangest migraine symptoms are: general weakness
9. My biggest migraine triggers are: light (I wear my sunglasses at night… sunglasses at night…). Smells are also bad for me. Processed foods.
10. I know a migraine attack is coming on when: I can’t tell I’m wearing my sunglasses inside. My neck starts getting tight from my shoulders up.
11. The most frustrating part about having a migraine attack is that it gets in the way of things I want to do.
12. During a migraine attack, I worry most about when it will end. Every time the migraines or headaches come back I worry that it’s another cluster and I’ll be stuck with them for months on end.
13. When I think about migraine between attacks, I think that I’m really thankful I don’t have one.
14. When I tell someone I have migraine, the response is usually “if I had a migraine I couldn’t stand up.”
15. When someone tells me they have migraine, I think I’m sorry that’s really got to suck. I hope it goes away soon for you.
16. When I see commercials about migraine treatments, I think “if only it were that easy.”
17. My best coping tools are my sunglasses and a Coke.
18. I find comfort in my husband.
19. I get angry when people say: I can’t really think of anything anyone has said to me that made me angry. I get frustrated when people start pulling out the laundry list of things that work for them.
20. I like it when people say: “Is there anything I can do?”
21. Something kind someone can do for me during a migraine attack is bring me a Coke. It doesn’t always work but it’s more likely to than anything other than my prescription meds.
22. The best thing(s) a doctor has ever said to me about migraine is “here’s something we can try…..”
23. The hardest thing to accept about having migraine is that they will always be there.
24. Migraine has taught me that I can push through. When you live with chronic pain of any kind eventually you learn to push through. I can’t always but most of the time I can keep going.
25. The quotation, motto, mantra, or scripture that gets me through an attack is: “this too shall pass.”
26. If I could go back to the early days of my diagnosis, I would tell myself it’s going to get worse. Then again it’s probably best that I didn’t know that.
27. The people who support me most are my husband and my mom.
28. The thing I most wish people understood about migraine is that it’s not one-size fits all, or even most. We are all different and our symptoms, triggers, and treatments vary.
29. Migraine and Headache Awareness Month is important to me because too often those of us with migraines fly under the radar. We can either hide it or we don’t show up when we have one so no one sees it.
30. One more thing I’d like to say about life with migraine is that it is survivable. It’s not fun, it sucks, but we can get through it.