Life can be a pain in the butt from time to time; however, what bugs me more than that is when life is a pain in the head! I am one of those who periodically suffers from migraines. More often than not, I have an inkling or two when one is coming on. I begin to feel an intense tightness in my neck where my shoulder muscles and neck muscles connect. No matter how much I stretch or rub my neck and shoulders, this particular tightness fails to abate. Then, usually without warning, it explodes into a flaming migraine! When that happens, I am finished! The day is shot! I am unable to concentrate! I am incapable of thinking! I have to lie down in hopes that it will go away.
As much as those kinds of migraines bug me, the ones that bug me the most are the ones that wake me up! Yikes! In my experience, these kinds of migraines come on when I have a busy day ahead of me – a day with little or no room for rest or relaxation. When one of those wake me up, I work as hard as I can to get ahead of it by taking three Excedrin and waiting in the quiet darkness of the early morning hours (I do this because it is typically around 4 am when I am awakened). On rare occasion, I am able to get a jump on the impending migraine and the three pain killers knock it out. For that I am grateful. That, however, is a rarity. What happens more often than not is that the migraine stays and plays the ebb and flow game all day long. I find myself taking more Excedrin (sometimes up to 9 in one day) before it goes away. By that time, I am exhausted.
What does my experience with migraines tell me? One of the things it tells me is that sometimes there are no obvious reasons for them. Sometimes they just come one. Another thing my migraines tell me is that I need to slow down and pay attention to my stress (or better yet, distress) levels. They tell me that I need to pay closer attention to self-care. I need to breathe and meditate and stretch and chill. I believe that the better I learn to handle my stress, the fewer migraines I will have. Then, perhaps they won’t bug me so much!
Peace!
Mark E. Hundley
