Living with headaches

Living with chronic headaches sucks.

I've had headaches all my life. My dad used to say there was no such thing as headaches. Yeah, right.

Most of the time I just ignore the pain and soldier on. It's the way it's always been so it seems normal.

I did get some neurological testing in the late 80s but everything was normal or at least, there was no tumor or anything obvious like that.

No, my headaches are more insidious, more run of the mill, more routine.

It wasn't until 2001 that I was even diagnosed with migraines. It was the aura that did it. I couldn't complete a sentence, I couldn't remember the word for tongue, I was seeing spots, my fingers were tingling. My doctor thought I might be having an aneurysm. She drove me to the ER herself.

Usually, I just get the migraine. Sometimes, I get the aura but no migraine. I prefer this. But for the fact that I can't see, I can still function. It's still a pain, trying to function when there are big blind spots in my field of vision but at least there's no pain. Once I had aura when I was trying to paint the house. It's kinda hard to paint when you can't see what's right in front of you. My peripheral vision was fine but peripheral vision doesn't work so well for house painting (0r working at a computer, etc).

Migraines suck. Trying to figure out what triggers a migraine and how to prevent a migraine sucks. It's one of those ridiculous conditions infested with contradictions and nebulous answers. Caffeine might trigger a migraine or it might forestall a migraine. What's true for one migraine sufferer (or migraineur) isn't for the next. Is the headache I have right now even a migraine?

So far, my response to this diagnosis has been basically to ignore it until the pain gets too bad, then I take a pill. This coping mechanism isn't terribly effective.

The thought of trying to figure it out makes my head hurt.