Month: June 2007

Community, Patient Education, Resources

Expert Answers to Questions About Migraine & Headaches

Kerrie Smyres

Teri Robert and John Claude Krusz, a neurologist and headache expert, have been hard at work on answering patients’ questions about migraine and other headache disorders. You can learn a lot by poking around in the previous answers or ask your own questions.

Community, Reader Stories

All Types of Art Submissions Requested for Migraine Book

Kerrie Smyres

Betsy Blondin, an editor and writer who has migraine, is compiling and editing all types of migraine art to publish in a coffee table-style artistic and creative book about migraine. She describes the project as:

I have wanted to publish a book like this for many years to provide another way for people with migraines (and those who live with them!) to share their expressions of migraine with others and to help promote awareness to people without migraines that organizations and sites/blogs such as yours have long been doing. I am particularly interested in helping to illustrate the positive and uplifting moments and events in the lives of people with migraines, because I feel that while migraine is horrendous, it doesn’t define who we are all the time.

Here’s my Web site page about the project: http://www.wordmetro.com/projects.html, and I’m attaching submission guidelines for the book for your information. I am offering a nominal fee to contributors whose work is accepted for the book.

The submission guidelines are below. You may e-mail Betsy with questions about the project.

Migraine: Expressions
Writing and Art Submission Guidelines

Thank you for considering contributing your creative writing and art to this migraine art book project. My hope is not only to help promote an awareness of the impact migraines have on our lives, but also to illustrate hope and positive events and to share how much we all do and accomplish. Although migraine is a huge part of our lives, it doesn’t define who we are.

For All Submitted Works

  • Please include your name, location, contact information, and a little bit about yourself with any submission.
  • If your work is accepted for publication, you will receive more details and an agreement to sign (you will retain ownership of your work and receive a fee). Artists and authors will be asked to confirm that the submission is their original work, that they own the rights to it and are therefore free to license us to print it in the book.

For Written Works: Quotes, Poetry, Prose (Essays, Short Stories)

  • Prose should be 2,500 words or less.
  • Written material can be e-mailed to migraine@wordmetro.com as attachments, preferably in Word documents or saved as plain text or rich text format.
  • Please edit your work prior to submission. If your creative piece is accepted but needs editing, we will contact you.

For Works of Art: Drawings, Paintings, Photographs, or Other Media

  • Please send print/high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi, 4 to 5 inches) digital files of photographs or scanned work, preferably saved as jpg files.
  • Smaller files can be e-mailed to migraine@wordmetro.com, and larger files (more than 5 by 7 inches) can be mailed on disk to Word Metro, P.O. Box 984, Carlsbad, CA 92018.

I hope you’ll consider submitting something. I’m trying to figure out what mine will be, but will let you know what it is when I do.

Coping, Mental Health, Treatment

Living From the Heart

Kerrie Smyres

Since yoga class yesterday, I have been in a terrific mood, even when my pain was bad. I’m loving the warmth of the shining sun, listening to music so loud that I can’t hear myself sing, admiring the pure happiness of the neighborhood kids.

My yoga teacher talks about living from the heart rather than always being led by your mind. We are guided to surrender our thoughts to the “heart center” (essentially your spirit or soul). While I agree with this idea in theory, believing in it is different than feeling it.

I spend too much time in my head. I’m a thinker who obsesses easily and am extraordinarily self-critical. The life changes of having a chronic illness have intensified and increased the frequency of all these thoughts.

Being in my head is not only in my mind, but in my brain. It literally directs one of the most prominent aspects of my life—chronic daily headaches and migraines. Living from the heart means thinking and obsessing less, but also keeping my illness from controlling my life. [insert raucous laughter here]

When I’m guided to send kind, supportive messages to myself, I give demands couched as encouragement: “Be nice to yourself,” “Worry less about if you’re a good person,” “Approach everyone with love.” Yesterday I unwittingly replaced these judgments with “Honey, honey, come and dance with me.”*

I got it. My heart invited my mind to celebrate with it. Love widely, be compassionate to yourself and others, care for others without neglecting yourself, accept who you are. It was an incredible feeling. The message was so clear that I haven’t thought about it much; I have simply lived from the heart.

*Maybe I should be concerned that lyrics from a Dave Matthews Band
song popped to mind while meditating. The song, Everyday, was originally written about the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani, the leader of the South African Communist Party who fought against the apartheid government. It’s all about love. I’m good with that.

Community

What Do You Want to Read on The Daily Headache?

Kerrie Smyres

Two years into blogging, I’ve learned that sharing isn’t complaining, writing about myself isn’t necessarily self-centered, and that many people read blogs for the personal connection they feel with the blogger. I’ve also found that I certainly have enough to say without whining and moaning. (I’ve also gotten e-mails asking me to write more about my experiences.)

So, I want to know what you think. Should I write more about what I go through? Essentially, I want to know what keeps you reading The Daily Headache. Here’s a poll to make it easy, but I’d love for you to leave a comment with your thoughts.