migraine disease

it really is not for sissies

All of us confront some physical challenge, I am convinced. It may be broken bones, it may be fallen arches, it may be an enduring football injury. Or it may be migraine disease. Whatever challenges your loved ones endure, I am sure you give them support and care.

Migraine disease, afflicting roughly 10% of the population, is a particularly pernicious one which falls into the oft-heard category of ‘you never know what someone else is going through’. The correct title is now migraine disease as each attack is part of a life-long illness.

Migraine is not generally something that sticks out the way a splint identifies a broken bone. But be absolutely assured that it is a real disease which manifests differently for each and every sufferer. Impossible as it sounds, the pervasiveness of the disease means a sufferer may not even realise an attack is underway until the exhaustion of having fought it off (with unpredictable success rates) sets in. When full blown in any single instance, migraine disease is completely debilitating whether it’s got an aura, is a ‘vomit migraine’, or is a ‘silent migraine’ which sounds weird but is a thing, as they say.

Too often people claimed historically that migraines were made up for attention or were just women, since the illness is worse for one gender over the other, being hysterical. It is not made up. It is excruciating pain. It is not hysteria but can have triggers that are predictable or utterly out of the blue.

There are medicines to ameliorate migraine but no cures as of now. It is a field expanding greatly as the pervasiveness of the problem is now clearer than merely the end of the last century. Those medicines are expensive and no more universal in their success rates than the universality of the causes. But, these medicines are an unbelievable relief when they work and when one has access to them.

Yes, I am a sufferer of fifty plus years’ pain so I know of what I speak. I have one friend (for whom this illness ameliorated itself as she aged, lucky lady!!) who can tell looking at me that I have an attack because of how narrowly I open my eyes. I have long hated artificial light which I realise now is because it exacerbates migraine attacks. I also spend each and every day calculating whether I have had sufficient water for the day, got an acceptable amount of sleep the night before (not much way to correct for that, sadly, as it’s really a daily deal), and whether I have consumed some substance which will kick one off. Oh, and I had a male colleague for several years who appreciated darkened offices every bit as much as I did because the scourge plagued his life.

Be gentle and be supportive. Patience and quiet and low-keyed days may help your person. And be thankful if you are not one of the afflicted. As I noted, everyone has something so migraine sufferers are not unique. We all have so much to be thankful for and not having migraine disease is certainly one thing most people can celebrate. FIN