Migraineur

In case you haven't yet guessed, a migraineur is someone who gets migraine headaches. I am such a person and have been one since I was around 24. I may have started getting them even sooner than that, though they were disguised as hangover headaches.

I have migraines in my family lore - my grandma, Zora had them until menopause (so I've got that hope going for me). And, lucky for me, the past 20 years have brought huge leaps in meds that can help with my symptoms.

Back in the day - when Zora - or as we called her, Momo go them, she had to take to bed for days, curtains drawn. Sometimes they'd call the doc to come give her a hypo and knock her out for a couple days. I've got several of her journals, and they mention frequent headaches. (and today - alas daughter Amy also gets the damn things).

My migraines weren't officially diagnosed until I was in my 30's. My doctors through the years before that made a stab at prescribing something to help the pain - cafergot was one that helped a bit - alas it was from some plant grown in Somalia that was taken over by rebels or some such, and they couldn't get it any more. Some of the pills were huge, so when I was nauseous I couldn't choke them down or they'd come right back up.

When I was a young mother, poor Pablo the Pool Boy got stuck taking care of the kids when I was stricken with one - and it could last hours. Finally one time, when the kids were quite young - perhaps 4 and 7, I was supposed to be hosting people for Thanksgiving, but I was hit with a massive brain squeeze. (that's what they feel like - a drill pressing into my brain). Cold compresses didn't help, nor did not baths with washcloths on my face.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore - I had Paul take me to the Emergency Room. The constant pain was quite maddening and I was starting to lose it. The doc there gave me a new drug in the form of a shot called Imitrex. Ahhh it did the trick! I had a Ct scan to make sure I didn't have a tumor, and was referred to a neurologist in DM.

After that my doc prescribed the self injectors for me - they were $10 each, and that was a lot of $$. So I'd torture myself - is this a $10 headache? Even when I decided it was, I needed Paul to push the button to inject. The only time I injected myself was when he was out of town - and then it took a half hour or so to get the courage. I'm a wimp!

My Neuro guy wanted to help prevent the attacks so we tried various meds including beta blockers and even anti-depressants, which only served to give me a metallic taste in my mouth and wacked out dreams. I still take a beta blocker but am not sure it helps with prevention. I ended up giving up on prevention and lucky for me Imitrex came out in a pill form. All was well and good until a few years later (by now it was around the year 2000) I began to get rebound headaches from the Imitrex, so I would end up with returning pain after 12 hours.

I decided I needed a new neuro and Dr. Hoyt referred me this time to a woman doc in Iowa City. I'm blanking out on her name - she's retired now, but I loved her! She hit the nail on the head, explaining to me the hormonal reasons for my problems, and my fair skin she said is another indicator that makes me vulnerable. I have triggers besides hormones - alcohol, sun, and sinus pain to name a few. The doc gave me various new meds to try and I ended up with what I take now - Frova. It's very similar to Imitrex with a longer half life.

The stuff costs something like $13/pill, and insurance companies cringe and make me jump through hoops to get the stuff. But it usually helps. Today I live much differently than I did back when I was hostage to the pain. I rarely have bad headaches, though I get dull ones and the meds take up to an hour or two to work. I thank the scientists out there who have helped make life without fear of migraine a possibility for me. I popped a Frova before I began this blog - still feeling a little pain, but I'm going to go for a walk and hope for the best.