What can I do about these migraines?
I have experienced an occasional migraine (maybe once every month or two) since puberty. In December of 2006 I began experiencing migraines like I had never had before. I was 25, had a full time job that I enjoyed as much as you can enjoy a job, made a decent salary, and was a few credits from obtaining my long sought after bachelors degree.
I had just recently purchased my first home, and things were amazing and coming together for the first time in my life. Out of nowhere I started experiencing migraines almost every single day, and instead of them going away with Imitrex, or a good nights sleep, they began lasting for days at a time. Even ER visits where they give the imitrex and narcotic combo shot sometimes failed, basically putting me to sleep for 12 hours of it to wake up to the same wretched headache.
I began seeking out any medical help and support of other migraine sufferers to find a solution fast. The doctors tried Frova, Relpax, Maxalt, none for more than a couple times before no effect. They also tried giving me different preventitives such as nortriptaline, I can;t remember the others off the top of my head, one was meant for seisures.
One doctor tried having me be med free for a 2 week period of steriods thinking it was rebound headaches, none of these things worked.
Eventually after months and months of no sucess I lost my job, as I was unable to function and attend work, lost my insurance, and then have been without medical attention for about 2 years. I moved into my mothers basement and basically lay in bed all day, because that is all I can do without making my head hurt worse. I have tried hard to find triggers and have had no success with that.
Every day I get more and more depressed at the situation I have been stuck in, and it is harder and harder to keep up hope it will ever go away. I have no income, the government, social security, my disability insurance company had all spent so much time giving me the run around that I eventually ran out of medical insurance and now have no doctor to fill out their stupid forms.
I am malnurished at this point because I either can't eat or puke most of the time. Because any physical activity or light or sound whatsoever hurts me immensly, I am weak and frail and on the days my head is ok, a trip up the stairs almost gives me an athsma attack because it is the most exersion I get that week.
My familiy would love to help, but they are not the sort that can afford it. I want to get better so bad so I can get a job and have my life back but don't know where to begin, and I am in constant pain and misery. The stress of what this did to my life is overwhelming and I don't know where to turn. Any suggestion would be great!
aimee,
-:¦:-•:*'""*:•.-:¦:-•*Welcome to MyMigraineConnection!*•-:¦:-•:*'""*:•.-:¦:-
You said you recently purchased yur first home, then your Migraines began almost every day. There are a couple of things that occur to me...
How many days a week do you take something to relieve these headaches? Taking Migraine abortive meds such as the triptans or ergotamines or any kind of pain medication -- prescription or over-the-counter -- more than two or three days a week can make matters worse by causing medication overuse headache (MOH), aka rebound. See Medication Overuse Headache - When the Remedy Backfires for more information on this.
You also mentioned different preventives. You tried how many of them over how long a period of time? It can take preventives up to three months for us to see a differene, so I'm wondering if any of them were tried long enough to give them a real chance.
At this point, you're going to need to regain your general health before Migraine treatment stands much of a chance. Exhaustion and malnutrition can not only be triggers in and of themselves, but they definitely make us more susceptible to our other triggers.
Still, trying to identify triggers is a must. Trigger identification and management is an important part of Migraine management and preventing Migraines. You may have some triggers that you can avoid, thus preventing Migraines brought on by those triggers. Do you know what any of your triggers are? When working to identify triggers one of the best tools is a good Migraine diary. You can read more about this and download a free diary workbook in our article Your Migraine and Headache Diary.
Stress is something else we have to watch. It's damaging to general health. As for stress being a trigger, there's still some controversy, but I hate to see anyone accept that stress is a trigger without at least trying to see if they encounter triggers during stressful times that they either don't encounter at other times or they're only triggers when the body is stressed. The International Headache Society has removed stress from their list of Migraine triggers and put it on their list of exacerbating factors -- things that make us more susceptible to our triggers. I'd have sworn stress was a trigger for me until I kept a very detailed diary for a few months. More information in Is Stress a Migraine Trigger?. I hope you'll thoroughly investigate this as I think we do ourselves a real disservice by thinking stress is a trigger for us and not looking closely for other triggers during stressful times.
I wish there were some answers I could give you that don't involve seeing doctors, but there simply aren't any. Have you checked for state and county programs for assistance with medical care? Check specifically with the county offices of your state's Department of Health and Human Services to see if you qualify for any assistance, including Medicaid. Check your local health department. Do you or your parents belong to a church? People at chruches often know of sources of free or low-cost medical care.
I hope this helps at least a bit.
Welcome again,
Teri
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