Pioneering work that has changed our understanding of migraines
my migraines started when I was about 7 years old (possibly earlier but my memory of my earlier years is too fuzzy to be sure) - I can remember the very first one while I was sitting on a swing in the first grade.
thankfully I don&#x27;t get any auras only a splitting headache that can appear in any or all parts of my head but seemingly prefers the lower back part of my head or just behind the eyes. during my education and early career everyone (even my doctors) thought I&#x27;m just coming up with this to evade school or work. however things became serious by my late twenties when I would get 3 to 4 days of migraines A WEEK.
finally a neurologist in my early thirties recognized and accepted the fact I have migraines and gave me some medicine which kind of helped but I since I had 3 attacks a week I was going through a box of medicine in about the same period. my doctor actually got worried about the amount of medicine I was taking, my neurologist got pregnant and got on a leave of about a year and a half and I ended up taking non-prescription NSAIDs to be able to have a normal life.
I went through a box of NSAIDs in about a week for YEARS with the last two years getting really really bad where life was just one constant headache. I never realized it could a side effect of the meds I was taking. during this period I also developed spontaneous retina damage in my right eye which just didn&#x27;t want to heal properly. for such things to heal they have to scrape away the top layer of your retina and then in a period of 7 to 10 days it grows back and it&#x27;s normally painless BUT I was hyper-sensitive to the lenses that cover the retina and prevent the pain so I would be completely incapacitated for 10 days by both migraines and pain from my half-blind right eye. this repeated 4 times (it&#x27;s actually a miracle I can still see with my right eye). I was spending about 200 to 500 USD monthly (about 75% of a mean national income for my country!) on various medicine to keep my eyes lubricated during the day and night to prevent new retinal damage. I was waking up exactly every two hours during the night to put drops into my eye.
then after a particularly hard migraine attack when I went through a whole box of NSAIDs in a weekend I woke up with ringing in my ears and dangerously high blood pressure. I have developed hemorrhoids. migraine was a daily pain and I have started developing retinal damage in my left eye, too. I also developed unvoluntary twitches in ALL of my muscles and at night couldn&#x27;t fall to sleep due to very strange sensations of a &quot;mental reset&quot; whenever I was about to fall asleep. I was at an all time low and (this is the first time I ever said this to anyone), I started thinking that death&#x2F;suicide would be easier on me.<p>I normally always read through the meds papers about potential effects and stuff and one day while sitting on the toilet I accidentally took the NSAIDs papers and started reading through and realized that I have most of the unwanted effects described there. I told this to my doctor and she decided that it&#x27;s probably not side effects but something else. they started thinking it&#x27;s something neural and possibly an autoimmune disease. they didn&#x27;t find anything.
at this time I decided to make a test myself and stop taking NSAIDs and instead took another (highly addictive) medicine that&#x27;s very similar to morphine. but since I&#x27;m very worried about (medicine) addictions I was very careful with taking this medicine so the next 6 months were pure hell. constant migraine, medicine that you can take at most once a week and would offer at most 10-12 hours of relief.
luckily ALL of the above symptoms disappeared and only the migraines remained. even my eyes completely recovered, hemorrhoids went away. everything except the damned migraine. after these 6 months I did a test and took a double dose of NSAIDs I was taking earlier and overnight all the symptoms returned - finally we were sure that it&#x27;s all side effects of NSAIDs.<p>so where is this wall of a story going? finally a private neurologist that I was going to because of the muscle twitching told me about a new vaccine based on erenumab was approved and that my health insurance will cover 95% of the price. we did a trial and once it took hold after a week or two life completely changed for me. in three months I only had ONE migraine attack and it was quite mild. I&#x27;m now in my fourth month of the self-applied vaccines (one a month) and so far it works like a charm. I can enjoy life once again. I&#x27;m now 37 years old and finally I can enjoy life.<p>looking back on the last 30 years of living with almost daily migraines it&#x27;s something I wish nobody ever would have to endure. I believe that the people who came up with this medicine&#x2F;technology should be awarded a noble prize.<p>once I went through that hell I finally asked my girlfriend to become my wife and we&#x27;re in the process of moving in together and planning our wedding and thinking seriously about having children. now I know I will be able to be there for her and our children and not in bed listening to calming music all day.