I have lived with migraines since childhood. My consciousness work is useful to control pain.

English

As Shannon Shelton Miller reports

While I was eight years old when I was officially diagnosed with migraines, I don’t remember any time when I had no serious headache.

My sensitivity to light and sounded in primary school caused me nausea, vomiting and severe headache. They also gave me a serious headache that played during the break or when I did some kind of physical exertion.

My mother had migraines as a child, so that I had migraines because of her background and since my parents were very proactive, they brought me to advice with a pediatrician to evaluate me. My father, who had a work in relation to public health in the community in New York City, also insisted on having advice with a neurologist. Despite the initiatives of my parents, there was nothing that a girl can certainly prescribe migraines in the 1980s, and the medication she took no pain at all.

Up to the age of 14 he took a medication for blood pressure in a preventive way and used medication that does not need a medical recipe to treat migraines. I had the feeling that they ignored what I said when I complained that I had no effect on medication and learned to endure pain when I had episodes of migraines. I was in bed to endure my breathing because it even did to breathe when I forgot tears on my face. I longed for the moment that I would vomit because I knew that it would be if the pain would take off.

I also had to deal with the stigma of my classmates and adults who did not understand that my pain was real and valid. I lacked a lot and often came to nursing, and teachers, nurses and classmates said: “Well, she doesn’t want to take part in school activities. He doesn’t want to do her job” even though he was one of the best students in the classroom. I dealt with a lot of stigma that created depression and anxiety. There was also a lot of pressure and stress to achieve a certain academic level and the constant fear of when the following episode would occur.

When I was a teenager, I began to be for sale against pain recipe against pain recipe, but I continued to take in -house preventive medication and analgesics for migraines with the same routine. Finally I stopped taking the medication for blood pressure and only treated the episodes of migraines when they appeared. I did as much as possible to be myself, to live my life and do the things I wanted to do. I took ballet courses almost every day, my mother taught ballet so that my sisters and I were always in the studio. I think it was useful to condition my body, and that felt better.

I also clung to the hope that after puberty I would stop having migraines, as my pediatrician suggested. My mother stopped having migraines, so I thought that if I could resist a few more years, everything would be fine. Unfortunately that didn’t happen to me. Now I also know that the way you taught me to treat migraines was the worst thing I could have done. I didn’t know that the use of excessive analgesics worsens the disorder and makes it chronic as it happened to me.

I ended the high school and went to Hawaii for my university. There I met a man who worked in the marine infantry and became my husband. We immediately fell in love and married when I was 19 years old and he was 20 years old. When I was 23, he was a woman and mother of two children, we lived on the continental platform of the United States and were pregnant with our third child.

In the first few months of my first quarter I had the worst episode of migraines that I had until then. It took five days and I had never had one before that lasted for more than 24 hours. I was worried that this was more serious and my obstetric gynecologist referred me to neurology for an RM. In the end everything was fine, no aneurysm or another serious problem was found, but I had the feeling that my pain was despised when it was said: “Only a migraine.”

While the intensity decreased in the second quarter, it was much more serious every time he had a migraine and lasted at least two days. I treated a terrible pain every day and everything I could do was a preventive medication that could be taken without risks during pregnancy, together with a soda or a very concentrated cup of coffee. After my pregnancy, I tried another round of medication that requires a medical recipe because at that time I had 15 chronic episodes of migraines or more per month and a headache out of migraines. This drug had serious side effects for me, so I continued to test medication that did not work.

It was frustrating because I thought I wanted to do everything I could and I started thinking that something was wrong with me. I had serious depression and anxiety to the point that I often had suicide ideas. Once I tried to do it, but luckily I survived.

When I was a little more than 30 years old, I had to deal with the mental effects of my disorder. I have said goodbye to my attention and although I always used traditional medication than natural methods did not work, I felt more empowered in terms of my decisions. Due to changes in insurance, I could also have advice with a headacon specialist for the first time. I will never forget the first consultation, the specialist was with me for almost three hours and checked my medical background. After all, I had the feeling that someone listened to me and saw me and offered me options that had never offered me before.

I started writing a blog as “Die Migraine Diva” in 2011 [La diva de las migrañas]”In order to sharpen the awareness of the reality of life with a migraine disease and headache and also about my experience as a black woman, who tries to control and seek support. This gave me the opportunity to share my story to a larger scale in order to participate with pharmaceutical companies and to work with other medical and practical organizations.

My pain can now be checked and I am excited, which is sometimes a rare situation because I am very used to waiting for something bad. I still have to juggle to maintain treatments, e.g. B. traveling to a headache treatment center in Philadelphia several times a year to obtain infusions outpatient. My medical team here in Virginia is responsible for procedures in the office such as neural blockades and drug administration. My husband and children endure a lot, take care of me and want me to improve. But I also understand that I am very lucky because I have access to medical care and my finances are stable. I know that not everyone has these privileges or access, and this is an important part of my consciousness work to contribute to other people to control their disturbance with methods that offer them a better quality of life.

I know that my disorder does not define me. It is easy to define the symptoms that we experience and statements such as “I am depressed” instead of “I have a depressive episode”. The same applies to migraines. I say that I have a migraine, but the migraines don’t check me, even though there is sometimes the best to do it!

The difference is that many useful tools are available to me and as long as I continue to use my consciousness work as an additional control tool, this is useful so that my pain makes sense.

This educational resource was created with the support of Pfizer.

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