‘Migraine, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me.’ – The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

I thought I should share my migraine credentials. I started getting migraines when I was 17 (about half my lifetime ago). I would wake up every Friday in the middle of the night. After a trip to the bathroom to be sick, I would go back to bed and usually be ok by the next day. For weeks it happened like clockwork. Then in university the migraines would flair up during exam times, sometimes lasting for a week. I got through it, became a teacher and continued getting them during stressful times like camp and report-writing weeks at the end of each term. Throughout this period, I relied on painkillers and rest, although somehow I rarely took sick days.

Then during one summer break in my twenties things changed. I don’t know what triggered it, and my doctors didn’t seem interested in helping me find out. For weeks I got migraines every two to three days. I would be recovering from one when the next one would hit. I feel immense gratitude that I wasn’t working at the time because I would not have been able to continue. I saw GPs and a neurologist, who gave me stronger painkillers and the first of my daily, chronic migraine medications. Since I didn’t like the idea of being on drugs that could be doing who-knew-what to my brain, I began exploring alternative treatments.

Today I have gone on and off many daily, preventative medications with varying results and side-effects. I’ve visited many alternative, non-Western, traditional (whatever you want to call them) practitioners also with varying results and side-effects. I think I’ve been given advice from every medical and non-medical person I’ve met, whether I asked for it or not. This blog will be my chance to document some of that and (hopefully) explore some new or untried options so that I don’t need to rely on the current brain-chemistry altering medications forever.

‘Shall I compare thee to a migraine? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.’ – Sonnet 18, Shakespeare

This quote came to me at 4am, when I wasn't sleeping for the fourth night in a row. I was worrying about getting a migraine from my disrupted sleep patterns, then inspiration struck. I've learned to recognise its zap and, low-and-behold, here is a new blog.

The meaning of the quote for me is that I am more than my migraines. So let me introduce myself: I am a teacher and writer, who lives in a large coastal city in Australia. I have a cat and a husband, who I love and appreciate particularly knowing that my migraines affect his quality of life as well. When I'm not reading or writing, I like to play tennis, cook and travel. I have a sweet tooth and a weakness for dark chocolate. On my CV it says I'm organised (a worrier and an over-planner, really), passionate (read: enthusiastic to the point of wearing myself out) and creative (head often zinging with ideas, getting in the way of sleep or housework).

Aside from inspiration, another reason I'm starting this now is that I can. I am teaching part-time and writing part-time. Also, the chronic-ness of my migraines is pretty manageable at the moment. I've come to know that it's important to do what I can, especially prevention-wise, when I can rather than waiting until it's necessary (but too late). This blog itself may not be a prevention tool (wouldn't that be great if a few hundred words into a computer program would cure a migraine!), but over the next several months I'm planning (and hoping and wishing and dreaming…) to go off the daily anti-epileptics I'm currently on. I want to try once again to manage my migraines without medication.

I have some ideas of alternatives (lifestyle, medical and herbal) that I can try. Plus if I run out of ideas, I just have to mention that I get migraines to someone, anyone, and they'll invariably say, 'I know ___, who gets migraines, and s/he does ___ to get rid of them.' It's like that joke: how do you get rescued from a deserted island? (Play solitaire.)

P.S. If you're interested in my other writing you can find it here, on my writing website.