zee cutie?

New migraine medication. This one is a battery-powered patch called Zecuity.

How the Patch Works
Named Zecuity, the battery-powered patch is manufactured by the pharmaceutical company NuPathe. About 8 inches long and 4 inches wide, it wraps around the arm or thigh much like an ace bandage. According to Bastings, it uses an electrical current to move the drug through the skin over the course of 4 hours. A small battery and computer chip regulate the charge to make sure the patient gets the right dosage.

The patch provides an alternative to pills, nasal sprays and injections. "Many migraine sufferers experience debilitating pain — sometimes so acute that they can't swallow a pill," says Bastings.

He adds that some people don't like the unpleasant taste the nasal spray can leave behind, and others are uncomfortable with injecting themselves.

That said, the patch does have some drawbacks, notes Bastings. For one thing, it's large enough that it can show when worn under short-sleeved shirts or shorts, and requires some privacy (and at times, the need to undress) to put it on. "For many people, popping a pill is a lot more immediate and simple," Bastings says.

And the patch is not without side effects: about 25 percent of subjects in the clinical study complained of a painful sensation at the patch application site. Others didn't like the reddening that most patients developed after using the patch.

that old mortal feeling

Last night the migraine arrived after much quiet knocking. At least it had the patience to wait until after work and some miles on the bike. I went to bed at 11 feeling awful, and woke up at 3am to puke. I woke up every hour til 8am doing the same thing. Puking my guts out.

I'm about to go to bed and I'm still kinda recovering--I feel a little disoriented, a little stumbly and forgetful. These things pass. Of course the real bit I'm struggling with is how I feel emotionally after being migraine free for 10 days. That is a long period of time for me. I wasn't feeling "cured" but I was feeling alive. Alive. I felt limitless, but not reckless. I can't describe that type of amazing. Obviously I feel the sting after being sick last night.

A pause here to kind of explain my migraine recovery. The first day after a migraine sucks in its own special way. Total newborn status. I'm exhausted, uncomfortable, and more often than not I am still in some pain. Emotions are pressed up to the surface. This specific kind of melancholy while the serotonin fills back up. At the same time it feels like a miracle to sit upright, to walk, to engage in a conversation. That shit feels incredibly surreal after feeling what feels like dying. But then there you are, the other side.

All this to say I'm okay with it. One migraine in ten days? That's huge. It's getting better. I'm staying steady with my diet and exercise. My butterbur arrived in the mail on Saturday so I've added that to the arsenal. Super B, magnesium, butterbur daily.

This migraine wasn't as awful as it could've been(even though throwing up so much always sucks and makes things a bit more difficult...as in ever throw up while your head is being pulled apart?). The thing that helped me the most was staying calm. I hate getting sick but knew it was going to happen. All I could do was make myself as comfortable as possible and go with it. When I couldn't get quite over the edge I would just do a neck roll and for some reason that would trigger the lurch in my stomach perfectly. I'm proud of myself for staying calm. I didn't cry and I didn't feel helpless. Today I recovered by doing what I had to do--forced myself to eat a little something, slept and slept and slept. But I didn't baby myself--as soon as I could, I got moving. The sooner I caught up with my "normalcy" the better I felt emotionally. You get up, you get back in the game. While I've always known it and believed it, that attitude is fairly new to me with this stuff. I feel much more in control since making changes. And last night's pain can't take away those 10 days. Onward.

remember this, self.

Today marks one week with no migraines.

If you were me you would find this slightly amazing.

I'm following my diet, taking my supplements, and reducing my triggers. And filling my life with more things I love and less of what stresses me out. It's a simple formula. And it's working.

I can't even...yeah. I'm happy.

on writing about it.

Going through old journal/writing archives. I found this entry from March, 4 years ago. I definitely still feel this way, though I write about dealing with migraines more often. It's still difficult, but that's alright.

March 31, 2009
So I heard a poem tonight with an all too familiar ring to it. The kind of thing that could have spilled from my own mouth. Not exactly, but pretty damn close. Immediately after the poet read her last piece for the evening, I jumped up and went to her, squishing past the thrones of students to touch her elbow so she would turn to me. I started in right away:

“Hi, I enjoyed your work immensely. Do you suffer from chronic pain?”

She squints at me, because I’m talking fast and direct. “Pardon me?”

“Do you suffer from chronic pain? I thought that one poem…”

A light appears, she nods. “I get migraines, yeah.”

“That’s what I thought. I’ve had chronic migraines for twenty years…”

And I’m kind of gushing at this point, trying to express how much it meant to hear a poem like that. I admit to her how scared I am to write at length about it, even more petrified to share it with others on a microphone. She nods and seems to understand. I say that much to her and then start to pull away, afraid that I approached her with too much. I just couldn’t hold back my feeling of…relief, I guess? To hear someone say it. To be encouraged and inspired by that. Her poem made my eyes well up, because I do not feel that brave yet, or else I am and I just haven’t found the means(or the time, or the space, or something) to tap into it yet.

I have so many feelings about it. It’s all I could think about on the ride home. It was so nice to hear someone else share perspective on the experience. It isn’t something people really talk about because I think sufferers build themselves to protect it, and there is a weird shame/embarrassment involved with being in pain that I can’t even begin to assign words to. Hearing one person’s poem about it on a Tuesday night is not enough, I know that much. I’m glad I could relate, and I’m glad that it moved me and I’m content with my approach to her afterward. But my story and mine, it is still trembling in a weird self-contained casing just under the surface, a raw egg dropped in a pan with the heat still off. Just waiting there slightly shaking. It’s not going to speak itself.

I tried once, at an open mic not too long ago. It was a weird situation. I didn’t feel heard. It’s a two part feeling. One, I do not feel that I expressed it to my full ability. I’m still working on that. Two, I think it wasn’t necessarily an issue of people not listening, but more about me paying more attention to what happened in the air after my sentences. In some way, a way that I cannot explain, I expected the sky to split. I expected the earth to take away my feet. In some tiny weird way, maybe I expected that release to be ultimate.

I have to realize that speaking about it isn’t going to absolve me of the illness. It isn’t going to take it away completely. That isn’t the aim, it isn’t the bulls eye. Speaking out is about awareness, wrapping my own head around it, letting other people in when sometimes I’d rather push them away. These are hard things to admit. When all you want is understanding, why would a person aim to be separate, for distance? It’s all a part of grasping how I feel about it. I seek a personal relief, and it doesn’t have to be(and isn’t going to be) grandiose. Maybe in segments and fractions and glimpses, and I’m okay with that. I’m beyond okay with that.

stupendous

This is the first Monday in many weeks...maybe even months...that I did not leave work with a migraine.

Instead I came home, worked out, made dinner, cleaned a bit, and did some writing.

Honestly, it was like getting time added to my clock. A mighty pleasant surprise. So thankful to spend a Monday evening NOT in pain.

stats

(January 2013)



Among adults of all ages, migraine is one of the top 20 causes of disability expressed as years of healthy life lost to disability (The World Health Report 2001, WHO)

Severe migraine attacks are classified by the World Health Organisation as among the most disabling illnesses, comparable to dementia, quadriplegia and active psychosis (Shapiro & Goadsby, Cephalalgia, September 2007)

Migraine is the least publicly funded of all neurological illnesses relative to its economic impact (Shapiro & Goadsby, Cephalalgia, September 2007)


Depression is three times more common in people with migraine or severe headaches than in healthy individuals (WHO, Factsheet 277, March 2004)

Migraine remains undiagnosed and undertreated in at least 50% of patients, and less than 50% of migraine patients consult a physician (Pavone, Banfi, Vaiani & Panconesi, Cephalalgia, September 2007)

scattered complaining

Another discovery with this new diet of mine:

if you run out of the right stuff to eat, go back to the store and restock.

Simple, right? Not so when you're on a tighter than tight budget. This was my mistake for the past week. Not having the right stuff in my pantry meant cutting corners, which meant eating more of the "not right" stuff. Which, you know, end result: stupid headaches. Migraine, headache. Refrain refrain. Add the cycle of hormones to this and boom: first class in hell.

I have no one to blame but myself for this. I'm kicking myself hard for it, despite my best efforts not to. Tomorrow I go to the grocery store and properly redeem myself.

It's the guilt. The guilt, guilt guilt. Bonecrushing sometimes, the shit we pile on ourselves for not being strict enough, for not being able to follow through, etc etc. The migraines pull all of it to the surface. How can one feel guilty for being sick? It's real easy when you find yourself being sick more often than not.

These are just thoughts. I'm just spilling em.

Other things on my mind:

I'm not a huge fan of public transportation, but I'm glad it's there when I need it. Lately the weather has been too shitty to commute in by bike, so I'm stuck riding the bus to/from work. Little things(but big things to me) drive me bonkers about public transportation--nothing makes me see red faster than a crowded standing room only bus with one or two idiots taking up two seats by placing their belongings in the empty one next to them.

The bus is also a trigger for migraines...more frequently than I care to admit. There are individuals that wear heavy, heavy perfume. People that slather it on as you're sitting next to them. Or someone sits down in front of me that just hotboxed a cigarette at the bus stop. These smells can send me straight to hell if I'm already hurting. What do I do? I change seats. One time the entire bus smelled like exhaust, I had a migraine, and the combination of that drove me off the bus half a mile from my usual stop so I could throw up.

I know what smells trigger my pain--know it as soon as it hits my nostrils. I wrap my scarf around my mouth or I bury my face in my hat. There is nothing you can do about these public triggers--when people get ready in the morning it's not up to them to know if their perfume will make my head hurt. I am well aware of that which isn't in my control. One can never tell what the person next to you or behind you is going through. I know this and yet I cannot express how angry I get when I realize that someone's scent of choice is going to put my head in the toilet. I catch myself getting angry in the moment even though there is nowhere to direct that emotion. It's better to stay calm, keep breathing, and covering the nose.

This particular post has no point really. I've had a migraine hanging around for over 24 hours now and I'm just hoping that it will move on like a storm cloud.