Acupuncture works! (My Experience of Migraines)

Member Name: StampedingTurtes

Product:	My Experience of Migraines
Date:	20/08/09 (42 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Makes a simple headache feel like a massage

Disadvantages: Every single thing about them.

The first migraine I ever had was quite frightening really. I was about 11 years old and sitting at my desk in school when suddenly I couldn't see my jotter properly. I could see the words when they were only in my peripheral vision, but when I looked directly at them there was nothing... no blackness or blur or anything, just nothing. Then the pain came. Apparently I shrieked and shot up from my seat and out the door!

I started to get migraines relatively frequently after that. When I was in first and second year in high school it was particularly bad. I was sent home so often.

My migraines
Everyone's experience of migraines seems to be different. Mine come on very insidiously. First of all I will probably feel a little tired, but not really connect it to anything. Then hours later I will be doing something and my vision will be a little disturbed, just feeling like I need to rub my eyes. After that the blind spots appear. They are not something solid; I can't actually see the blind spots if that makes sense. There are just parts of my field of vision that are no longer there - big blotches in the middle and off to the sides and whenever I want to focus on something, that disappears too. Sometimes the blotches or blind spots can be coloured and look like the marks left on your eyes when you look at a light for too long, sometimes they shimmer and sometimes they're just big patches of nothing. I have also gone almost completely blind on a couple of occasions and even although I know what's happening, it's still terrifying!

After the visual disturbance comes the pain. It is incredibly difficult to describe the pain of a migraine. For me it usually starts in the socket of one of my eyes and radiates out to that side of my head. I usually have a sore jaw too and sometimes my neck. Sometimes the pain engulfs the entire front part of my head. It's not a sharp pain. It's not dull either. If the feeling of nausea were a pain, it would be like this. It's a sick pain. Almost like bone pain. It feels to me like my skull is being crushed in a vice or pulled apart somehow. There are not words to describe just how excruciating a migraine can be.

On top of that, I can't stand to be in bright light, I feel weak, I usually vomit until there's nothing left to throw up and my speech slurs and slows.

When I get the visual disturbance part I take painkillers as quickly as possible because sometimes this can stop the migraine in its tracks. I feel total and utter panic when I think I might be getting a migraine. It's not something you can work through. You can't have one and go about your business. Some people's migraines last an hour or some. Mine tend to last about 12 hours then another 12 hours of the after effects. So that is a whole day out of my life.

The after effects of a migraine for me are extreme tiredness and pain when I move too fast as well as a kind of thick groggy feeling that engulfs me for a while. These, I can deal with, but it usually does eat up some time from work/uni/studying.

Relief?
When I have a migraine I take co-codamol or Syndol. All I really want to do when I have one is fall into non existence. I lie in bed in the pitch dark, usually with the window open and a hot water bottle in the bed. I have to have something cold on my head and on my eyes. The colder the better. I also feel that applying pressure to my eyes gives relief without actually taking the pain away, so I push my hands into my eye sockets - that sounds horrible eww - and bury my face into the pillow. Apparently during a really bad one my mum heard a banging noise coming from my room. It was me banging my head off the wall. Apparently I just wanted a change in the pain. That's another thing that's unbearable. For large portions of time the pain stays the same, no matter what you do, it doesn't get better or worse, it just stays there hurting you in exactly the same place. Sometimes all you want is to move it or change it somehow!

I was getting them so often, even when on medication, that we began to look for other things to help and we found something brilliant! Acupuncture! The woman used a laser acupuncture technique on my head. I went for several sessions and eventually I even came off the tablets!

Nowadays I still get migraines, but maybe only about 10 a year which is a massive improvement. I'm sure it was the acupuncture that did this. I haven't actually had any acupuncture for 7 years or so, but I'm still much better than I used to be!

I also know to avoid my triggers much more now. Infact the thought of eating the trigger foods makes me feel really ill. My triggers included a cheese slice - the one time I ate one it gave me a belter of a migraine...haven't so much as smelled one since. Cheap ice cream - the stuff that has little ice crystals in it...boak! I can't even look at the stuff. Also extreme tiredness or too much sleep can give me very mild ones.

Anyway, that's my rant about migraines. I hope you never have to experience one because the pain is just so much worse than anyone can describe!

Summary: Revolting things that suck the life out of you!