I am a sixteen year old female and I have been suffering from chronic migraines for 9 months now. They are debilitating, and keep me from living my life, they have gotten in way of school, sports, friends and family. I am finding it all very hard to deal with, and since no one in my family has never once had a migraine nobody completely understands. Along with my migraines comes numbness in my face, stomach pain, fatigue, depression, and nosebleeds. I have had CT scans and MRI's but they have all came out clear, and doctors cannot seem to find anything wrong. I spend most of my time with a stint in my arm because I have to go to the hospital so often to receive Maxeran through an IV because my other medications don't work (topamax, amitriptyline, and zomig) I have basically been told by doctors that there is nothing that they can do about the pain, and the migraines are just a part of my life, and I will have to deal with them. At 16 this is very hard to hear. I am maybe looking for someone with a similar story, to tell me how they dealt with realizing there was no end the their pain, or some ideas as to what is going on.
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give me hope.
Hi Megan
I have a 16 year old son. We went through a lot with his migraines, but I'm happy to say that his story has a happy ending.
My son had migraines beginning at age 5. When he turned 13, he got a horrible migraine that wouldn't go away no matter what we did. It turned out that he had chronic daily headache and frequent migraines (15+ per month). He had to leave school for a portion of his 8th and 9th grade school year. He was unable to do all the things he used to do. It was a horrible time.
The best thing I did for him was find this website. Through this website I was able to find him a migraine specialist. I took him to several different doctors before we settled on our current specialist. He had a lot of drug treatments (IV, preventative and abortive) and non drug treatments (massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, biofeedback). We did everything we could think of.
About a year ago, our specialist added another medication and suddenly things improved. It's been a whole year. The doctor just took away that extra med last month. My son takes one prescription a day. He has few migraines. It's a miracle.
Our life and most importantly his life is normal now. I honestly didn't know if the day would ever come. I feel like he may have outgrown the worst of his migraines. They started getting bad when he was doing a lot of growing and his body was changing rapidly. He is no longer very sensitive to his migraine triggers.
The best thing you can do is find yourself a good headache specialist. Don't be afraid to try the meds they prescribe. There's always another medication or combination of medications to try. Don't be afraid to switch doctors if yours isn't working for you. We currently see Dr. Jack Gladstein in Baltimore. He is a pediatric headache specialist. We are now seeing him once a year. Prior to that it was every 6 months. I took my son to local doctors, to doctors in Buffalo, Chicago, Philadelphia and Delaware before we settled in with Dr. Gladstein. It's a 4 hour drive for us, but well worth it.
Good luck to you.
Jean Ann
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Hi Megan, and welcome to MyMigraineConnection.com!
I'm sorry you are going through this at such a young age. You've come to the right place for support and information. May I ask if your parents are aware of your head pain and able to help you?
Seeing as your current doctor isn't able to help you, it is time to consult a Migraine and headache specialist. It's important to note that neurologists aren't necessarily Migraine and headache specialists. Take a look at the article Migraine and Headache Specialists - What's So Special? If you need help finding a Migraine specialist, check our listing of Patient Recommended Migraine and Headache Specialists. Please don't lose hope, there are lots of options out there, finding the right doctor may be the first step.
Do you know any of your triggers? Migraines can be triggered by not enough or too much sleep, dehydration, certain foods like chocolate, and weather pressure changes. We have a free Migraine diary HERE that allows you to track your triggers, medications and make notes about your Migraines.
Thank you for creating a SharePost. SharePosts are a form of blogging, and there are many things you can do with them. You can share an experience, suggest something that's helped you, use SharePosts as a Migraine and headache journal, and many other things.
We also have a discussion forum that you may want to check out. Especially if you have questions or are looking for information, you may find the interaction on the forum to be quite helpful. To get to the forum, just look for the orange box marked "Manage" and click on the Migraine Forums link. Because our forums are maintained by a third party, you'll need to register for the forum. You can use the same information you used to create your community log-in if you like. If you want to go directly to the forum, you can click HERE.
Along with your personal "My Home" page and the discussion forum, you'll find links to a great deal of helpful information and a spot to sign up for our free newsletter on the main page of our site, http://www.MyMigraineConnection.com.
If you have any questions, please feel free to post them to the forum or send me a message through my profile.
Welcome again,
Nancy BonkMyMigraineConnection.com Expert