T. Stedman - My Migraine Story: From Darkened Room to Writer!

T Stedman

Trials, tribulations and triggers, from diet and vitamins to exercise and mindfulness

When youve suffered from migraines throughout your life theres no way you can move forward without first getting to know properly what youre dealing with. If there is no other definitive reason for them, such as an underlying illness or head trauma, you must come to terms with one thing:

YOU ARE A MIGRAINEUR!

Its genetic, you were born with it, and the chances are, youll be one for life. There is no known cure.

That was a fundamental milestone for me. It was the point I came to when I realized it is something you are, not something that happens to you.

Ironically, it was then I felt I could actually do something about it. From that moment, I set out to do just that. After years of moaning about my migraines, trying so many harmful painkillers, and trying just about every natural and homeopathic remedy, it wasnt until I accepted them as part of me that I began to see the change.

The first thing I did was to keep a detailed log. I kept a chart on how often I had a migraine, what medication I took, what I ate each day, and what my mood was like.

This is a snapshot of my log from 2009. You can see it shows the day of the week, what time the attack started, whether it was mild, moderate or severe, whether it was preceded with aura, whether I vomited and what medication I took. I supply blank logs on my website. You can download yours at www.migrainewise.com.

At a glance you can see that I had an attack for sixteen days out of that month. I had to do some drastic rethinking to turn my situation around. The trouble is, when you have that little quality of life, it is very hard to drag yourself out of it.

This was my typical point of view before: I was a hopeless drug addict, forced to be dependent on prescription drugs in order to function in day-to-day life. I had no life and nothing to look forward to.

After I started to take charge, I started to look at things differently: I worked on getting my medication to that sweet spot where it was effective in reducing the pain and duration of my migraines, but not fogging up my brain too much. In fact, a little fog helped with that elusive concentration Id always lacked. I started to be able to work and get ideas.

POV before: If I worked hard all week, when the weekend came, Id always be flat on my back with a migraine. I had no life even if I managed a whole week at work.

POV after: After keeping my logs for quite some time, I realized there was a pattern. I did get a much higher amount of migraines at the weekend. So I began to analyse what was different about them. I realized that my body and brain slowed down at the weekend after going ninety miles an hour all week. I had late nights and I slept in.

I quickly got into a routine of going to bed no later than 11 p.m. and waking up at 7 a.m. even at the weekends. I started to get results with a significant reduction in the amount of weekend episodes. It became very evident that if I pushed myself too hard and became exhausted, I would sleep too heavily and a migraine would come.

POV before: It felt like everything I ate was a trigger, so I ate as little as possible and would feel faint and shaky. Eat regular and often, the doctors would say, and so then I piled on the weight. Id eat lunch and have a migraine come on within an hour after eating. I couldnt win either way.

POV after: I studied my diet log. It was true; there was a definite pattern in the amount of migraines that started after lunch. I went armed with this when I saw my endocrinologist. He advised me on the diet Ill share with you. It is a low-carb, no-sugar diet and it was then that my life really started to change. I lost all the excess weight (particularly the dangerous weight around the middle) and the extreme mood swings and the frequency of my migraines lessened dramatically.

Life suddenly became full of promise. I was feeling in control for the first time. I was taking charge and getting results.

This could absolutely be you!

My life now

This isnt a magic cure. I had a migraine threatening as I wrote this a result of the soya milk that Im trialling to reduce my hot flushes (Im at that age). But Ill sleep it off for an hour this afternoon and Ill be able to get back to writing. Im a writer of Dark Fiction you can check out my work at www.tstedman.com I write my migraine blog, Im active on Facebook, tumblr, and twitter, a member of Alliance of Independent Authors (Alli), and Im on Goodreads. I have my own horse and compete in rodeo. So you could say that I now have an active life.

So thats what I do I get a symptom and I adapt and adjust my life until it eases.

Im a migraineur, but I have a life!

With a few simple steps and ongoing self-monitoring, Im confident that you too can live with this thing. You can have a life

So how did it all start for me?

My name is Tracy Anne Stedman. I was born in a small village in Kent in 1965. By the age of eleven I had my first migraine

It started as a happy, bright sunny day at the riding stables where I worked for free rides, and ended with my grandfather carrying me home. I was incapable of walking because the pavement rose and fell like a rough sea. It felt like the side of my head was being hit with a sledgehammer and I felt so sick I thought I would vomit at any minute.

That was the beginning of my lifetime of migraines.

They continued through my teenage years, with regular bouts around my period, when I would have to retreat to a darkened room with a cold cloth over my eyes. I tried every over-the-counter migraine remedy and even some heavy-duty ones prescribed by my GP. All they seemed to do was make me feel tired, spacey and lethargic unable to do anything anyway.

Then, at around the age of twenty-two, I erupted in adult acne. Oh joy! Life just gets better and better. That was when the mood swings and depression became noticeable too.

Doctors diagnosed a mild intolerance to sugar around that time, but I was assured that everything would even itself out when I had kids.

At twenty-seven I had my first child, but the migraines didnt stop, instead, they were accompanied by severe dizzy spells that would last for hours. Two and a half years of post-natal depression followed.

Year after year I got lower and lower diminished ambition, diminished happiness, diminished self-esteem. By the time I reached my thirties, I had two kids and accepted that this was my lot. I just had to resign myself to at least five days out of every month being written off on a bad one, ten.

However, the worst thing was unseen by all my friends and family the deepening depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. I just couldnt see any way out of the trap.

All the while I was assured; dont worry, when you reach menopause it will all go away.

Then, at forty-four, things got even worse. The migraines hyped up in severity and duration some lasting as long as seven days in a single episode. My life became intolerable. I suffered from cluster headaches, ice-pick headaches you name it, I had it. For sixteen or more days out of every month I was out of action.

I became angry, hateful, introverted and paranoid. I put on two stone in weight. I became convinced I had a life-threatening disease that I wanted to hurry up and kill me and put me out of my misery.

During that terrible time my health record became ridiculous.