I started having migraines about eight years ago. I woke from wisdom tooth extractions in excruciating pain on the left side of my head. What we didn’t know was that my TMJs had been damaged and would require reconstructive surgery. Then another, and another.

We thought we caught it early. I’d have the surgery and it would be okay. At first I’d get the migraine and I could sleep it off with Advil, then it became muscle relaxers, then Darvocet, then things spun out of control and I was seemingly constantly in the Emergency Room with head pain so bad it made no sense. MRI’s and CT’s later the head was clear, but the TMJs still hanging on to cause problems. It seems I was likely predisposed as my aunts and mom and brother have migraines just much milder.

Mine can last for weeks on end. I am on week three and I finally took a pain pill so I could get relief, but I can’t sleep. I feel dizzy and half here and half there. You’d think that I was on some strong drug, but I am not it is just the migraine causing what they tell me is migraine phenomena where blood vessels pop out on the side of my head, my lips get numb, yet they twitch and my eye gets droopy on the affected side.

Nausea and vomiting seem to be my companions with dizziness that makes me feel like I may not make it from room to room in my own home. They know call them complex daily migraine of intractable, sometimes status migrainous, but the bottom line is that 60 drugs in eight years and still no true relief. I can take 1200mg of Neurontin and be in the throws of a terrible migraine. I don’t know anymore and there are days I call the doc’s office and wonder do they truly understand that in my 20’s I am having difficulty making it from one room to the rest and I feel so helpless against this pain that I can no longer sleep off, but is my 24/7 companion. They tell me all I needed was a trigger. Apparently the TMJ injury with the extractions was enough a trigger to put my life upside down.

I am greatful for the health I do have, I just mourn the life I had as an up and coming professional that is now struggling just to pay student loans and they call me constantly even though I haven’t got the money. I keep plugging hoping that somehow, somewhere, we will find that magic bullet if you will. The drug that works for me when so many have not.

I have tried so many experimental things from radiofrequency ablation to burn nerves, to MHNI, to an occipital nerve stimulator and repeated blocks in the nerves of my head. I have had so many MRI’s I am pretty sure I might start glowing in the dark…so if you are here where I am at…you aren’t all by yourself though it often feels that way. You aren’t the only one fighting it daily. And, I wish and hope and pray they find something that works for you godspeed. I am waiting…and hoping…