My Migraine Battle

I have no one word to describe this experience. Debilitating. This is as close as I can get.

It can hit me at anytime.

After another attack yesterday, I sat down in front of my laptop and did more reading on it .. hoping to find some answers.

“It’s a drop in serotonin levels.”

“Often, serotonin levels in the brain become extremely low before the onset of a migraine"

“Drop in serotonin levels leads to depression.“

“It affects your trigeminal nerve … motor functions.”

“Sensory information from the face and body processed by parallel pathways in the central nervous system ….”

“Migraine starts with an underlying central nervous system disorder… some of which subsequently affect the brain's vascular system. No experimental model fully explains the migraine process.”

“..dilated arteries..”

“Sufferer experiences a severe, relentless underlying pain”

“Pain is stabbing and intense … a combination of shock-like sensations... piercing pain is unrelenting”

“It’s a whole body experience”

“Flashes of light”

“Aura before it hits”

“I hid...”

“I feel sick. Nauseous.”

“Like having my head in a vice.”

“It just gets worse and worse and worse.”

“You can’t do anything about it. You lose control.”

“I won’t go to the cinemas with my friends. I was afraid of the flashing lights.”

“I have to lay in the dark with no noise.”

“I can’t see properly. I slur my words.”

“I just can’t do anything.”

“Its not a headache, It’s a MIGRAINE.”

“I loose control of speech and thought.”

“My words slur.”

“My vision blurs.”

“You’re drained, left tired.”

“Its like your whole head went through massacre and your brain is left bruised and battered.”

When I had my first migraine, I was convinced it was brain tumour. It had to be. Something huge was growing inside my head and waiting to burst out. I was completely gripped in fear just thinking about the pain coming again. And it did. Again, and again. Starting age 15, till now.

I lived in fear that at any moment, an aura will come. Every time I left the house for a party, a vacation, or for school, I’d think, what if? It would flash through my mind each time I go out that if my migraine hits, I’d end up spoiling their enjoyment by having to go home.

Loved ones couldn’t understand. They understood headaches and really bad headaches. All they could do was watch me cry and writhe in pain on my bed in the dark. They ask me questions. I hear voices but my head can not comprehend what they are saying. I try to say something, but nothing comes out.

The soft humming motor from the wall fan sounds like heavy industrial machinery right next to my room. My sister overturns an ice tray in the kitchen 30 feet away partitioned by closed doors and it felt like a mining explosion right in my head.

It feels as though someone had set fire to your brain nervous system and every thought or brain activity acts as pumped oxygen sending your nerve endings bursting up in flames. Suddenly you are acutely aware of how intricate your brain is. Every sensation that you’ve taken for granted is now triggering agony in you. A normal sound sends up vibrations through your synapses and what was normal information feels like acid coursing through to find its proper link in your head.

After my second attack, I was praying the third one would kill me. This is when I learnt that death is peace. Death is release from pain. I no longer feared it. I welcomed and longed for it. I cried for my family. What if I died right here, in my room, on my bed?

The third attack should have killed me. It was my worst one yet. Tears didn’t help. The pain took me somewhere else. There was no relief or escape within this body, so I left it. It felt as though I floated out for that one fleeing moment. I felt no pain. I felt nothing. Then, there was relief. A fleeting relief. I slept. I woke dazed. Half my body numb. I couldn’t feel my left check, arm and leg. Did I have a stroke? Maybe my veins expanded so far, it finally exploded? Am I half paralysed?

I recovered. Two days later, its as though it never happened, but I still suspected something was growing inside me. Maybe the next one. Will death release me on my fourth migraine attack?

Since then, I haven’t been able to repeat the little ‘out of body’ miracle experience. I tried. But i was left to feel everything. My family doctor prescribed Panadeine – Panadol with Codeine. Nothing changed.

After each attack, I’d feel dazed and lost. It’s as if the linkages in my head are slowly and achingly reforming itself. Thought is slow, but possible. I tried focusing and concentrating harder to quicken my thought response process only to be rewarded with pain - like attempting to force performance out of damaged ligaments.

It was many migraines later at age 25 that I was introduced to my first miracle pill – Cafegot. A year after, I was introduced to my second miracle pill - Imigran. The unfortunate news, I received today. These pills gradually lose its effect as your body adapts to it. They already have.

There doesn’t seem to be an ending to this tale as yet. It’s something that I’m living with.

The comfort came knowing I am not alone. It took me a while to find the words to express this experience and I hope that by reading this little excerpt of mine, if you’re a migraine sufferer living with this debilitating illness, you can also take comfort knowing that you are not alone.