After over 19 migraine-free years, I have started suffering from them again.  And what a resurgence!  When I was a teenager, I had about three migraines (with aura) every spring and summer, and then they were over until the next year.  My last migraine was during the summer of 1987, right before I started St. John's.  I don't think this is insignificant, given how terrible my teens were and the promise, largely fulfilled, of St. John's as a better place.

On November 25, 2006, I experienced a slight disturbance of vision that I attributed to having glanced into the sun.  I went about my Saturday errands, walked over to the Post Office, bought some stamps, and as I walked back home realized that no sunspot would last 15 minutes.  Remembering that my friend J. used to say that caffeine helped a migraine, I stopped at Diesel on my way home, bought a double expresso, drank it in a gulp, and went straight home and went to bed, stopping only to tell the Red-Haired Boy, "I believe I have a migraine.  Please don't make any noise."

When I woke up, I felt better, but my head was sore when I bent over.

Thus began my adult journey into the world of migraines.

In spite of all efforts at prevention, thoughts about triggers, attempts to eat and sleep regularly, a great reduction of stress on my job, supplementation with magnesium and riboflavin, I am still having three migraines a month.  And even the abortive drug of choice, Imitrex, only works sometimes.  Plus it's useless if I don't take it at the first sign of a migraine, the first inkling that my vision is disturbed, and I am beginning to think that if the Imitrex doesn't get rid of the migraine, it actually makes it worse.

I am starting this journal as therapy for myself and to help others.  But being sick, really sick, 3 or 4 days a month has also led me to contemplate the nature of health and illness.  Migraine is well suited to these kinds of musings, since it is a fully, but temporarily, debilitating condition punctuated by periods of good health.  A migraineur, then, has insight into both worlds.

I invite comments, but do screen them for spam.

mood: contemplative tags: headache, health, illnesss, migraine