Migraine & peri menopause
I’ve mentioned elsewhere on these pages about my chronic migraines, so here goes. Here’s my migraine story…
Since my late twenties, I’ve suffered with migraines. You know, those super-intense ‘headaches’ that make you feel like your skull is being crushed, served up with a big, fat side order of nausea, weird visual symptoms, vomiting and pretty much anything else you can think of that makes you crawl on the floor because you can’t lift your head and runaway to hide in a dark room.
My dad gets them and my sister does too but their migraines seem to be stress related whereas mine are usually menstrual migraines (with the odd stress related one every now and again for good measure). To be honest, I thought I’d got away without getting them as I didn’t start getting painful ones until I hit 28-29. But then it happened, on a Saturday night, in the middle of a manically busy shift at the restaurant in central London I was managing at the time. Perfect.
It took me a while to work out that when I got a migraine is was usually in the week before my period as it wasn’t every month. It was quite random at first and only seemed to happen once in a blue moon. I had one that went on for 2 weeks but then nothing for almost 10 months. Because I didn’t realise they were predominantly related to my menstrual cycle, I carried on taking the pill, which I later realised was doing me NO favours.
In my mid-30s, I started to have migraines pretty much every day, usually with only a few hours or, if I was really lucky, a couple of days in between. I went to see my GP who changed my pill to a progesterone only pill. My migraines eased up a bit but were still common plus I had terrible dandruff (a new first!). I decided to come off the pill. Best. Decision. Ever.
Things went back to my normal migrainous state of affairs but with migraines occurring most months, within the week before my period landed. But this was something I could cope with.
Fast forward seven or eight years. I start with perimenopausal symptoms at 42. 6 months later and, boom, out of nowhere, I’m driving around North Yorkshire for work and I suddenly can’t see straight. I work out by covering one eye at a time that my vision is normal but that there are about 5 or 6 copies of the ‘picture’ laid over each other and each one moving around. My spatial awareness is screwed but there’s nowhere to pull over… I end up driving at a snail’s pace until I find somewhere I can pull over - it seems like it takes forever and everytime a car comes the other way it feels like it’s charging directly towards me which is making me flinch. I want to just cover my face in my hands to hide it but can’t and am totally freaking out.
To cut a long story short, I eventually see a neurologist and, as the waiting time is 10 weeks minimum and I have been unable to see straight for over 4 days now, I go to see one privately. Who takes one look at me and says ‘do you normally suffer with migraines because I’m pretty sure you’re suffering with acephalgic migraine?’
I’m not kidding, as soon as he said the word ‘migraine’ I knew he was right, even though all the symptoms were completely different to my normal migraine symptoms and I didn’t have a clue what an ‘acephalgic’ migraine was. Even though he was running extremely late (it had got to about half nine at night) he spent an hour and a half with me going through what acephalgic migraines are and that although not super-common, he has had female patients in perimenopause with them in the past and treated them successfully - hurray! He worked out that I was in a constant cycle of acephalgic migraine that we needed to try and manage and hopefully break. He respected that I didn’t want to take HRT or fill myself with tonnes of drugs to solve the problem and gave me lots of guidance on what I can do to help manage the migraines without taking loads of pills (I take one small pill every night only and the rest is all ‘alternative’ therapies or lifestyle choices). In fact, he seemed positively delighted that I didn’t just want to throw pills at it.
So, you’re probably wondering what ‘acephalgic’ migraines are. Well, they’re also known as ‘silent’ migraines so you get all of the lovely auras without the pain. I can confirm that this does not make the migraines any less horrible - quite the opposite. Think of all the visual symptoms, nausea, vomiting, strange sensations you get around you head/face/neck and in your body when you have a migraine then add in weird, fissured vision. Google it, you’ll see what I mean. That’s me. All the time.
It took almost 6 weeks to calm down enough for me to go back to work fully but now that initial nightmare is over, it seems to be entirely manageable.
Yes, it’s a bit shit from time to time - the symptoms ebb and flow all the time (because that’s what my hormones are doing) but I’m able to keep a lid on it for the most part despite them being around all of the time. Life could be alot worse. In some ways, this whole silent migraine thing has, weirdly, made my life a whole lot better.
I mean, I used to put work before almost everything else apart from my husband and, while it’s still a huge part of my life and (far too) time-consuming, I have learnt to say ‘no’ to stuff, because I just can’t do it anymore. In short, it’s made me learn boundaries.
It’s also led me to really commit to a regular yoga practice which has opened the door for me to a whole new community and friendship and so much more.
So, as much as I want to hate it, I can’t really. And I definitely can’t change it, so I might as well embrace the challenges it has presented me with as opportunities.
