Have you ever had a migraine?
A lot of people think that it’s just a bad headache. I’m here to tell you that it is much more, and much worse. It’s a complete brain fritz and cerebral horror show.
I haven’t had a full-blown bad one in quite a while, so I was incredibly disappointed and upset a few minutes ago when I was in the bathroom looking in the mirror and discovered that my nose had disappeared. I knew then that my day was going to be hell.
When my migraines start, I get a large blind spot right in the middle of my vision. It gets bigger and weirder as time goes by – right now I have having a difficult type typing this because whenever I look at something – the screen, the keyboard – it disappears.
Now, the blind spot is joined by bizarre, multicolored, shifting patterns. It looks like rings of that holographic metallic stuff they make stickers out of.
It’s growing so fast that I will now have to abandon my plan to go out to get breakfast — there’s no way I can drive right now, I’m pretty much blind in one huge area of my vision.
It’s been so long since I had a full migraine that I no longer have any medication. Looks like I’m in for a painful, difficult day. Except this time, I have a blog and a means of explaining what a migraine is really like for those who haven’t had to endure one.
By the end of the day I will be begging someone to skewer me with an ice pick to put me out of my misery. It’s just the pain talking, please don’t show up with sharp implements.
The good news is that they rarely last more than a day, and it should be gone by the time I wake up tomorrow. Assuming I can get to sleep.
[12:51PM] There comes a time when the visual stuff clears, and I have a window of about a half hour until the real pain hits. I took that opportunity to stop next door to see my neighbor Danielle, who also gets migraines. Miracle of miracles, she had some Imitrex — albeit some weird nasal devices rather than the pills I’m used to. So, I’ve had a squirt of the miracle drug, and am now laying in bed.
A couple of people have remarked on the fact that my bedroom is painted a very dark blue-green and the curtains are heavy and dark gray. Now they know why: when a migraine hits, all your senses become wildly painful. The light is always too bright, noises are way too loud… everything is on overload. So, I designed this bedroom to serve as a dark sanctuary for migraines. Close the black-out curtains and turn out the lights, and it becomes a dark box. Sometimes I wish for one of those sensory-deprivation tanks when I get a migraine, but this is the best I can do.
[7:13PM] Imitrex is a wonder drug. Truly. I should temper my annoyance at such pharmaceutical nonsense as Viagra and Claritin to point out the boon to humanity that is Imitrex. Thanks to 20mg of this miracle substance, I am pretty much pain free at this moment. The only reminder that I had a migraine is a certain level of dizziness and kind of a thick-headed feeling… but no more than Britney Spears must feel on a normal day. A wasted day, as I expected… but at least not a horribly painful one.
I have been quietly readng this blog for a while and enjoying it. I found it on the Metro Blog Map. On this one I had to respond because I feel your pain! The last time I got a migraine, everybody’s left eye was gone, no matter how close or far away they were. What I do, since I have never had Imitrex, is to put a pillow and a blanket over my head in a dark room and sit incredibly still until I fall asleep. I usually feel a bit better when I wake up, but it’s like a whole day has been stolen.
Gene, I say amen on the sensory-deprivation wishes…But I have to say this: you DO notice, right, that the coverlet on your bed is rather…wild? You’re welcome to have the taste you want, just saying that the patterns on that would keep me from sleeping, were it my coverlet, and nevermind the distraction it would cause if I were having a migraine…you know?
Imitrex doesn’t work well for me…wish it did.
Angel, helpfully.
Hmm. OK, well, my bedspread is certainly not plain, but when you’re in a pitch-black room with your eyes closed, it hardly matters, does it?
I wouldn’t call it WILD. ::grin::