Posted 2/23/2014 6:28 PM (GMT 0)
For the last 6 years I've read through these forums for tips, tricks, and a sense if understanding during my darkest days. I've suffered with migraines since I was a teenager, but these last few years had left me desperate, determined, defeated, and enraged at times. How could something so common cause such chaos in so many propels lives- without a cure?!
When I say I've tried everything- it's no joke. I've kept my journals, eliminated food groups, tried every western and eastern medicine that may be linked to affecting migraines, been in the care if UCSF Neurology, Mayo Clinic studies, and had honestly accepted that migraines were just going to always be part of my life.
I was a frequent visitor to the ER; it was just the normal routine. Mig would start, gave myself a time out- took imitrex injection, followed by zofran pill- if the pill didn't eirk to controll the involuntary nausea and vomiting, the it was time for the IM injection of phenergan. hot shower, biofeedback, cold packs on head... No relief.
This was my life. Day after day, I'm still so proud of myself for getting through it all.
I ended up at a pain management doctor to regulate my pain medicine balance. Trying to find the balance of tolerable pain while still being able to function through life; this was a tough challenge for a long time.
2 years ago, after hundreds if hours if research online in forums like this- I asked my pain mgmt dr about the nerve stimulators I'd read about. He was very unfamiliar with it, BUT took some time to research it on his own for me. This lead to the change of my life!
It took some time (like everything for migraines) but we moved forward with a trial, then permanent implant of a St. Jude stimulator. The wire leads ran around the back of my head (occipital nerves) then connect to wires that run to the base of my neck to the actual modular device which is in my butt ;)
When they turned the device on after surgery I experienced immediate relief- you can imagine the tears I cried!
Unfortunately, it didn't eliminate the pain wholly/
I was pretty devastated, but my dr wasn't willing to give up. We fought with insurance, evaluated realistic expectations, and a year later I opted for a seconded implant, this one at the front of my head (super orbitol).
It has been 4 months/ and I am overwhelmed with gratitude and relief, my migraines are gone!!!!! No more pain medicine clouding my life, no more ER visits, no more staring into a toilet for hours...
If any if you have questions about different treatment options- medicines- doctors who just don't understand- I GET it!
Please don't hesitate to ask ANY questions, I want to help..
I feel like I've been to war, battling doctors and insurance companies that feel like the enemy, to feeling left alone in the battlefield when no one understood what I was living-
BUT I made it out alive, now it's time I tell about it!
Hope I can help you win your war- Migraines are no joke!