WHAT IS MIGRAINE??

WHAT IS MIGRAINE??

Why don’t you take some painkillers, it’s just a headache.” This is the response of everyone around you when you have a headache. But, they don’t understand the headache we call migraine. Migraine is something excruciatingly painful, but many a times it has been misunderstood as a simple headache. Simple and migraine, they are not even close.

I got my first migraine headache when I was 17 years old. But, little did I know, what was happening to me. Attacks of nausea and a phobia of light and sound surrounded me. I seriously thought something was wrong with me psychologically. I was irritated with the light and was searching for a quiet and dark place. When I tried explaining what was happening to me, I was not able to say anything as I felt crippled and could not form the right sentence. I also felt temporarily blinded. This condition lasted for 15 to 20 minutes. When these stopped, I got a terrible headache in one part of my head. Years later, I learnt that this was what they call a case of classic migraine, an aura plus the headache. Finally, I got rid of the notion that I had some kind of a psychological disorder. What was worse was that people around me even said that I was imagining things. When one gets the headache minus the aura, it’s a common migraine. But when the aura, dear old aura comes into the picture, it’s the case of a classic migraine robbing us of our ability to enjoy what is happening around us. The exact cause for migraine has not yet been proved. Some say it’s a case of heredity, but that does not do justice to someone like me whose family is totally unaware of migraine. Triggering factors play a vital role in migraine.

For some, it can be a certain perfume, whereas for some it can be alterations in the sleeping patterns. Some people get migraines in years, while for some it occurs at an interval of months or even a few weeks. As for medication, no drug touches the pain once the headache starts.

People suffering from migraine have developed their own coping mechanisms to deal with it. The best thing to do would be simply lying down in a dark place for a while. Migraine is unbearable sometimes. Friends and family must make an extra effort to understand what the person goes through.

ON • CREDOS