The other day I was at the accessibility centre at my school waiting to take an exam and i overheard some people in the department talking about a girl with migraine who could not write her exam. They were speaking about migraines so loosely and like a condition that was not so bad and that the girl was at fault and she would get a zero. I find it disturbing to hear/see the lack of awareness about migraine and consequently, the lack of understanding of this disease. The man was saying that he had never experienced a headache in his whole life and the woman said that she used to have migraines when she was younger. The they went on to talk about the symptoms of migraines like how the girl said she would stay in the dark and vomit all the time until the migraine went away. They then started talking about that girl again and said that how could she come to school and give a doctors note if she had such a terrible migraine she couldn’t take the exam? I felt deeply defensive about this, since when living with chronic migraine for one year i have noticed that there are some days where i have a migraine but I am okay to go places with effort. There are other migraines where it hurts so speak, hear and see anything and i am confined to my bed, or I try to get home ASAP. The rest of the days are usually headachy, yet productive. I have learned to get used to or adapt to living with pain all the time and i know my limits of when i can try to attempt to do things or if i should rest. Despite this, somedays i push myself too hard with terrible migraines and end up having a very painful, hard to end migraine-which put me in the ER that time. The man and woman were laughing about the fact that she e-mailed her teacher that she would be out for 3 days from this migraine. I don’t know the whole story but my first feeling was a very defensive feeling. Although I didn’t say anything to them, I felt like telling them what a chronic migraine sufferer really goes through and all the pain & debilitation that we have to learn how to handle emotionally and physically by the use of multiple medications and/or preventative meds that we must take everyday with the various side effects that they may include.
On another note, Kerrie Smyres, a migraine.com blogger mentions that when we try to describe our pain we should really try to pay attention to our functionality as well that day and determine how functional we are with the level of pain we are in. I feel like this is a great tool to use as a description of our migraines to our doctors and to others not suffering with the disease. This is my own interpretation of the traffic light system:
Green light: I may have a headache or on a very lucky day not! I feel very productive
Yellow light: I have a migraine+fatigue, yet i am pushing myself to function and i feel less productive, but with effort i get things done.
Red light: I am confined to my bed, unable to speak, crying from the pain and not at all productive.
MIGRAINE.COM article
I find it a little bit easier to describe this to Doctors so they could determine how many days i am completely dysfunctional. Take some markers and draw away on your calendars! Or if you are a i-cal (computer calendar) fan like me, put different color bullets for each color of the traffic light after your day. I hope that everyone has a great weekend!
~Amanda
mycrazymigrainelife 