Chronic Migraine Awareness

Written by Lori Francisco for Chronic Migraine Awareness, Inc.

I’d like to share my migraine disease story. I have had migraine since childhood, it runs in my family from my mom, to me and my sister, not my brother but, it continued to my brother’s son.

My worst attacks would surround my menstrual cycle and would almost always wake me up at early morning hours. As I got older, I started to see migraine attacks pop up during the day, at work, and on vacations. Having a migraine while on a road trip is one of the worst experiences ever, when we had to pull over every 30 minutes, (I’ll get to that next) I was at least happy to have a very understanding driver. 

My neurologist had prescribed me a preventative but it didn’t help much and I missed a lot of work. I began to become depressed and was then also prescribed an antidepressant.

I am glad to say that now that I am in menopause the migraine attacks have gotten so much better, and in better I mean not as frequent.

How I feel with a migraine:

My migraine attacksare usually on top of my head, feels like my head is in a vice grip and has been tightened enough to blow the top of my head off. I always get sick to my stomach, every 30-45 minutes, which lasts for hours. (This typically lands me in the ER for dehydration). I cry, a lot because of the intense pain and the only way it ends is when I would give out from exhaustion and fall asleep. 

I can say the best pain reliever I use now is Excedrin migraine, at any time I feel a headache becoming more, I take 2 and go straight to bed which usually stops it from getting worse. 

Thank you for letting me share my story.