Want to share your 30 Things? Here’s how: Migraine & Headache Disorders 30 Things Meme.
1. My diagnosis is: Transformed Migraine, Chronic Migraine and a bunch of other Migraine Types
2. My migraine attack frequency is: Every single minute of every single day, although it varies in intensity
3. I was diagnosed in: 2005
4. My comorbid conditions include: depression
5. I take 1____ medications/supplements each day for prevention and __3__ medications/supplements to treat an acute attack
6. My first migraine attack was: when I was a teenager, but I didn’t know I had migraines
7. My most disabling migraine symptoms are: the intense pain, the slowness of thought, and the nausea
8. My strangest migraine symptoms are: I can’t find the right words and often misspeak
9. My biggest migraine triggers are: Weather and odors
10. I know a migraine attack is coming on when: My eyes start to hurt and I have a problem finding words
11. The most frustrating part about having a migraine attack is: staying in bed and missing life
12. During a migraine attack, I worry most about: getting fired
13. When I think about migraine between attacks, I think: how long will this last
14. When I tell someone I have migraine, the response is usually: Oh, so do I or so does so and so.
15. When someone tells me they have migraine, I think: I’m sorry
16. When I see commercials about migraine treatments, I think: another thing to try, maybe this one is the key to a solution
17. My best coping tools are: just willing myself to get through whatever situation I am in when the pain gets intense
18. I find comfort in: finding activities and hobbies I can still do, I have taken up scrapbooking and genealogy since the migraines have been bad
19. I get angry when people say: Why don’t you go out on disability? (like it’s that easy)
20. I like it when people say: Are you feeling better?
21. Something kind someone can do for me during a migraine attack is: Not make me feel guilty if I have to cancel plans.
22. The best thing(s) a doctor has ever said to me about migraine is: Everything I know about treating migraines I learned by treating you. (BTW, he’s a general neurologist but he has helped me more than some of the best known headache specialists on the East Coast)
23. The hardest thing to accept about having migraine is: I can’t do the things I want to do.
24. Migraine has taught me: to be more sympathetic to others
25. The quotation, motto, mantra, or scripture that gets me through an attack is: Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you.
26. If I could go back to the early days of my diagnosis, I would tell myself: Find a new doctor, now.
27. The people who support me most are: my doctor and my family.
28. The thing I most wish people understood about migraine is: there is a difference between daily migraine and a migraine that happens a few times a year. I know. I used to have just a few a year–it’s still difficult, but more manageable than a daily migraine.
29. Migraine and Headache Awareness Month is important to me because: people who want to be informed can be.
30. One more thing I’d like to say about life with migraine is: I still have hope that a treatment will be found that will change my life back to what it once was.
This is a reader-submitted story. Reader-submitted stories solely represent the personal point of view, experience, and opinion of the author, not of The Daily Headache or Kerrie Smyres.