Monsters

****WARNING*** descriptive and potentially triggering language used to describe pain.


Everyone has monsters. In reality, I've got a few. But the one that's been with me most of my is the MIGRAINE MONSTER.

Now this monster has taken on many different forms in is 29 years it has been with me, a few years ago I figured out that I, have spent more days with a migraine than without during my life.   When I was a kid I was told I may outgrow them when I but puberty, then it was maybe when you finish puberty, now it's maybe when you reach menopause.  Honestly I don't think they know I don't have much hope that they will stop. This is the life I was delt.



As a young child I had classic symptoms:vice grips pain- like someone wrapped a belt around my head and pulled really tight,  as well as light and sound sensitive and nausea.

Looking back that was manageable compared to the monster I deal with now.

On the days I have this type of migraine now, I still go to work.  I turn off the lights in my classroom. I let my students know I have a migraine, they are amazing. I work in an autism program so no one does a double take if I have head phones on or the lights off.

Unfortunately for me, my monster went through puberty and hormones f*cked sh*t up!

In my late teens I started to get migraines with auras....colored spots in my field of vision that aren't really there.  I also tried a new medication at this stage...Imatrex and I ARE NOT friends.  The pain changed in my teens too. Ice picks going through my eyes were added to the vice around my head.

Aura's changed how migraines impacted my life. If it's just pain I push through. Sometimes more than I should, but when my vision's impacted, I don't feel comfortable driving, and that has an adverse impact on my life. Be it having to get an Uber to get to work or to get home from work, having to rely on other people. Or having to stop completely and take it off.

Unlike some people who have an aura prior to their pain starting, and then it goes away, my aura's persist for the duration of my migraine.

In grad school with the increased stress and maybe the fact that I was officially done with puberty and my hormones were leveling out, my monster upped it's game once again.  I developed something called a hemiparalegic migraine, where part of your body is paralyze.  While I don't have the same level of  head pain associated with this type of migraine, it is for obvious reasons the most debilitating.  In 8 years I've had 4. I am thankful for it's rarity but horrified because there are no warning signs.

What life is like today:

I take profilactic medication now, and I've got medication that works if I catch the migraine within the first 30 minutes about 75%of the time. I still average about 7 migraine days a month, but this is down from 19 a month as recently as 2 years ago.

I always get a migraine the entire week of my period regardless of what medication I take. I have an IUD, to try to limit the number of times I have to deal with that a year.

I am in the process of trying some alternative medicine and therapies, and will speak more to those when I have a better grasp on if they're working or not.


I have no memory of life without this monster. I would like to reach a point in my life where this isn't my monster, but until then, here's what works for me

• Weighted blanket 25 pounds 
• Ginger tea
• Caffeine on hand at all times
• Noise cancelling headphones
• Blackout sleep mask 
• Icepack head wrap 
• A really understanding team at work
• The most empathetic students