At
the risk of sounding like a public service announcement, I'm going to just come
right out and say it.
I
hate migraine headaches. I absolutely
hate them.
Last
night, I probably had what I consider to be the mother lode of all things
migraine. To make matters worse, I was
right in the middle of a shift at work when I felt the sharp, pounding pain of
a migraine headache seeping in.
One
minute, I'm pricing video games, and the next, I feel like the people on the
cover of the "Grand Theft Auto V" game just shot me in the front of
the head! Anyone who has ever gone
through a migraine headache knows what I am talking about. The sharp pains that come all of a sudden
physically immobilizes you in your tracks.
It's brutal. Absolutely brutal.
It
is a frustrating part of life for me.
Every two weeks like clockwork, I always happen to get a migraine
headache. So, I suppose you could say
that I average a total of twenty-one migraines per year. That may not seem like such a huge number to
some of you reading this, but if you are like myself - one of the one billion
people in the world who suffer from migraines - they can be quite debilitating.
Oh,
sure, my migraines don't impact my ability to work or do everyday
activities. In my case the longest I
have ever had one was eight hours. And
if I have a supply of Advil on hand, they can dissipate in just two hours. But some people have symptoms for as long as
three whole days. And if you are one of
those people who have 72-hour migraines, you definitely have my sympathies.
But
as I said before, I had never suffered a migraine that was as bad as the one I
had last night. It was throbbing so bad
that it caused me to walk slightly abnormal and I was feeling nauseated. I really thought that I was going to pass
out or throw up or both. Now, nausea
and trouble walking are unfortunately common symptoms of a classic migraine, so
there wasn't much I could do except let the symptoms go away on their own (with
help from Advil, of course). On the
other hand, I did feel some relief knowing that the agony that I was feeling
wasn't caused by something else (food poisoning, the flu, stroke, heart
attack).
(Yeah,
I admit that I become quite the hypochondriac whenever I feel pain. I have a low tolerance for pain. I refuse to get piercings or tattoos done as
a result!)
I
don't really remember when I got my first migraine headache, but they have been
something that I have always remembered having. I know that I probably missed a few days of school because of
migraine headaches, and I am fairly sure that on a couple of occasions, I've
had to go home early from work because the pain got too great.
But
I suppose it was inevitable that I would be stricken with the curse of the
migraine. After all, one of my sisters
gets them almost as often as I do. And
our dad is also a migraine sufferer, as was our late grandfather on our dad's
side. Basically, if you wanted proof
that migraines were a genetic trait passed along from generation to generation,
my family is a shining example of that.
You
know, come to think of it, my dad's side is where I seem to get all the genetic
defects. Migraines, poorly developed
foot arches, male pattern baldness.
Gee...thanks, Dad! Really, thank
you.
But
really, there is some truth to that. Of
all the migraine cases that happen in the world, about 67% of them are within
families. So, chances are that if you
suffer from migraines, you'll have someone else in your family who does as
well.
I
also seem to be a bit of a minority when it comes to the demographics of
migraine sufferers. Migraines tend to
happen more often with females.
Approximately one-fifth of all females in the world will have at least
one migraine in their lives. In men,
that number is only one-ninth. But hey,
I suppose in that case, I beat the odds.
Just a shame it was in the migraine lottery and not Lotto 6/49.
By
the way, did you know that the word migraine comes from the Greek word
"hemikrania", which translates to "pain on one side of the
head". It's true. Although my migraines are different every
time, I have to say that I get the majority of them at the frontal lobe,
usually in the right hand side. I would
assume that they take place on the right hand side as I always have blurred
vision in that eye prior to one taking place.
I believe that stage is known as the "aura phase".
Yeah,
it's quite interesting what you find when you research migraine headaches. Apparently there are several different
stages that take place in the life of a migraine. They are the prodrome, aura, pain, and postdrome. I won't go into detail about each one, but
let's just say that the aura phase is the warning sign, and the pain phase is
hell for anyone.
So,
what triggers migraine headaches?
Stress is a big one. And I would
probably hazard a guess that stress played a part in almost every one that I
have had these past few months anyway.
But fatigue, hunger, and even exposure to bright light can be factors in
causing migraines.
Thankfully,
treating migraines is quite simple. You
just have to take pain relieving medicine each time you feel one coming
on. But for those who get them every
other day, or those who actually miss a lot of work because of them, there are
apparently surgical procedures that one can undergo in order to correct them.
Or maybe I'm pregnant. Yeah. That's gotta be it. ;)
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