Kathleen A. Hunt General Practice Law Blog on Lawyers.com

I was recently diagnosed with migraines. After
months of dizziness and headaches, my primary doctor had me convinced that I
would soon die of a brain tumor, while my friends cheerfully debated whether I
was more likely to have multiple sclerosis or recurrent strokes. (The prospect
of these disabling illnesses, of course, created all kinds of other anxieties -
see today’s guest blog by financial advisor Leslie A. Margolies!) Many tests
later, I walked into a neurologist’s office. “How long have you had migraines?”
he asked. Huh?

 
I should have been relieved. After all, I figured,
the diagnosis was the hard part. The treatment would be easy. Take a pill,
change my diet, follow the rules and I’d be fine, right? Nope.

 
As it turns out, millions of people suffer from migraines.
And I do mean suffer! When I get a nasty one, all I want to do is curl up in
the dark, someplace quiet, and pray for oblivion. It hurts just to say that it
hurts, much less try to function in any normal way. The really scary part is
that some people have it much worse than I do; I can hardly imagine agony like
that.

 
I started by simply trying to ease the pain. My
neurologist handed me samples of a few different kinds of medications and
advised me to try them as needed. “Just don’t take more than one in a day,” he
said, “but these shouldn’t have any significant side effects. They’re all pretty
safe.” I clutched my motley assortment of pharmaceutical packages, crossed my
fingers for luck, and went home.

 
It was a week before I had the courage to try one.
“No significant side effects,” I kept telling myself, as I nervously put the
first tablet into my mouth. Mistake # 1: I had forgotten about doctor language.
You know doctor language. We all do. In doctor language, women “may experience
discomfort” in childbirth; to the rest of us, she’s in pain, just as any
rational person would be while trying to pass a basketball. In doctor language,
an Alzheimer’s patient is simply “somewhat confused” when he addresses his
shoelace as his old Aunt Shirley; you and I might use stronger terms. So when a
doctor said there wouldn’t be any “significant” side effects, I should have
been warned: the almost-immediate explosion of fiery torment that suffused my
entire head for the next hour was, well, not significant.

 
Okay. Lesson learned. It was time to do some
research. The truth is out there - or so I confidently believed when I sat down
for some quality time with Google. That was mistake # 2. Every article about
migraines was like those outrageous weight-loss advertisements: “your results
may vary” was the basic message.

 
Migraines are caused by abnormal activity of the
blood vessels in the brain. Beyond that, nobody seems to be certain what causes
the problem - although there are general clues - and solving it is even more of
a hit-or-miss proposition. Some people are susceptible to dietary “triggers”
(things which precipitate a migraine attack), but many are not. Smoking, sleep
(too much or too little), and stress (good or bad) are other common culprits;
nonetheless, many people are not affected by any of these factors. It’s all so
individual that it can seem overwhelming. 
“There is no justice in migraine,” commented a woman on one particularly-unhelpful
website. You got that right, sister!

More next time, as the journey continues . . .

Comments? Questions? Contact me via email at kathleenhunt@uniquelaw.com or by  phone at 510-289-2288.