Tag: NMAMBC

Coping, Doctors, Treatment

My Ideal Headache Specialist

Kerrie Smyres

Migraine Awareness Month Blogging Challenge #19: “The Match Game” — Describe your perfect doctor to treat your migraines.

My ideal migraine doctor attended Hogwarts and then completed four years at a top-notch magical medical school. After a four-year residency in neurology, she did a two-year fellowship in headache medicine at the world’s best magical headache clinic. She’s kind, compassionate, brilliant and innovative — and she’s never had a patient whose migraine attacks couldn’t be controlled. Chronic migraine is her expertise and her typical patient goes from 25 migraine days a month to five. The treatment is complicated, painful, time-consuming and, of course, expensive, but it works beautifully.

I feel a little snarky writing that I want a magic doctor in response to the blog challenge, but I’m tired and fed up as I begin week four of severely disabling migraine attacks. I have seen so many headache specialists, including some brilliant, well-respected, highly regarded, compassionate, academic superstars and yet I still have a migraine nearly every day. My current headache specialist and the person I saw in Boston are my favorites. I trust them both tremendously and know they have my best interests at heart. And yet I still have a migraine nearly every day. It feels like my migraines are beyond the current understanding and experience of medicine and that only a Hogwarts graduate has the knowledge to get them under control.

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated by Fighting Headache Disorders.

Community, Coping, Symptoms

Migraines and Zombies Have a Lot in Common

Kerrie Smyres

National Migraine Awareness Month Blog Challenge, Day 12: “Let’s Do the Monster Mash” – choose a movie monster that reminds you of your migraines and tell us why.

I examine the similarities between migraines and zombies in this Migraine.com post. Appropriately, I’ve been brain dead since Sunday from one of the worst migraines I’ve had in months. Hope to have my mind back in working order tomorrow.

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated by Fighting Headache Disorders.

Coping, Mental Health

An Ideal Day, Migraine-Free or Not

Kerrie Smyres

National Migraine Awareness Month Blog Challenge, Day 9: “Daydream Believer.” Describe your dream day — without a migraine to hold you back.

Describing an ideal migraine-free day is empowering for many people, bolstering their hope and motivation. For me it is distressing, as it threatens the acceptance of my illness that I’ve fought so hard for. Part of accepting that I have chronic migraine and chronic daily headache has been understanding that I may never again have a headache-free moment. I do not strive to be pain-free, but to live as well as possible given my circumstances. This doesn’t mean I’ve given up my search for relief — I will be overjoyed if treatments ultimately result in the cessation of my headaches and migraines — but that I can be happy even though I have migraine and chronic daily headache.

I try to make each day as perfect as possible. If a migraine attack dominates the day, “perfect” may be getting settled on the couch with a good book. On other days, I seek to do what I need or want to do in the time I feel well enough to do so. If I waited to be migraine-free to enjoy my ideal day, I would stew in resentment until it arrived. I try to make every day, however mundane, as daydream-worthy as possible. That’s one of the beautiful, torturous lessons of chronic illness.

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated by Fighting Headache Disorders.

Books & Products, Coping, Treatment, Triggers

Migraine Light Sensitivity and Fluorescent Light Headaches

Kerrie Smyres

National Migraine Awareness Month Blog Challenge, Day 8: “Let there be light.” Most migraineurs have issues with light sensitivity. What do you do to cope with it?

Well, this one is easy for me: TheraSpecs migraine glasses! TheraSpecs was born after my headache specialist warned me that wearing sunglasses all the time was actually making my eyes more sensitive to light and that a special precision tint was available for glasses that would help with photophobia without increasing my over all light sensitivity. Researching that information, we found that this tint is also excellent for managing sensitivity to fluorescent light.

Many people report headaches from fluorescent lights, either in the long tubes like you see at stores or CFLs for home use. It appears the problem is that fluorescent lights flicker faster than the eye can consciously see, but the brain still picks up on that flicker, which can cause many people to feel sick. TheraSpecs protect the eyes and brain by filtering out the wavelengths of light where the flicker is concentrated, relieving the symptoms fluorescent lights can cause.

Learn more about TheraSpecs and get your own pair (and relief) today! US shipping is free and international shipping is half off through Friday, June 15 in honor of National Migraine Awareness Month light sensitivity day.

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated by Fighting Headache Disorders.