Migraines, defining bane of my existence

Man I hate migraine headaches. I didn't always have them... when I was a teenager I was diagnosed with petit mal epilepsy. A mild case. And the doctor prescribed a drug called tegretol, that I took daily, to control it.

Big fucking mistake.

Seizures ended, sure. But within a year (my first year at college, yippee!) I was having mood swings - in two years I started having migraines that were so intense I wanted to die. They started with a visual flutter - kind of like staring into the sun, I'd see that weird hyper-green and yellow color - that would fade in across one or both eyes - and then WHAM, here comes the pain. Like having someone beating your head with a sledgehammer. I would find myself rocking and butting my head into the concrete block walls of the dorm for relief, any relief, any distraction from the single, intense pain that took over my entire universe. When it broke - after an hour, or three, or five - I slept, exhausted and euphoric. Why euphoric? Well trust me, the absence of pain produces a real euphoria when you've been IN pain long enough. I know this from experience. I get my very best, deepest sleep after a migraine.

At first I didn't make the connection between the drug and the headaches. Who would? But the more years passed, the worse the migarines got, until I spent days and days in my apartment in the dark , not attending classes, nothing. It got so bad I stopped taking my meds. I honestly wanted to die.

And surprise. Within a couple days the headaches started to regress. The sun came out from behind the clouds just a tiny bit. I started functioning. So I started taking my meds again, thinking, hey I survived, I need to get my shit together...

BLAMMO. Worse pain. And this time I made the connection. And said FUCK this. I have a life, I need to live it - I can't stand the pain one more minute. Threw the damned things away and didn't get any more. Mom and Dad never asked why I stopped refilling the perscription. Eventually the headaches receded to what I'd call a 'liveable' level. I have one every two weeks or so - more often during stressful times - and I crawl into my room and don't come out. It was hell when I was a store manager because, how do you stop working? Well, you don't - you suffer and try to survive one minute at a time.

My best guess is that the drugs did work, to a degree - I've never had another seizure (and I've checked with my fella from time to time, to be sure). But it's sort of like, instead of these electrical mindstorms turning "me" off, now they just inflict pain. Lots of it. As if the seizures just migrated to a different place in my brain - one that lets me be conscious BUT at a price.

So far it's been like this for about 18 years. I doubt now that they'll ever go away, but I can live with it. I mean, I HATE it, but I also don't go looking for another 'doctor' to fix it. The way I see it, I'm not risking losing any more of 'me'; the me that has the headaches is also creative, a great coder, compassionate, and generally pretty awesome. She isn't quite as bright as the 'old' me, at least I don't think so, but she's decent. She can be moody and depressed sometimes, and she has a hard time keeping her weight down, but she's also a great cook and a pretty tolerably good writer. So I'll stick with what I know, and take it one day (sometimes one trembling heartbeat) at a time.

Which is a preamble to saying - I'm about to get a really bad headache because I'm getting that wonky vision thingy, so I probably won't be posting tomorrow. If there's anybody out there reading - check back with me Tuesday.

L8r