why i am thankful for chronic migraines

I am deeming myself an unreliable narrator as so much of the story I am about to recall I cannot fully remember. But with the help of my mother, I am able to piece together a story that makes sense to me. 

I’ve been a migraine sufferer since I was twelve. My migraines started right before I got my first period. After my hormones leveled out, the migraines subsided almost completely and were controllable with medication when they did happen. The migraines were really no big deal in my life. My relationship with the medical community was normal, but maybe more frequent than the average person. I was diagnosed with “suspected” celiac also when I was twelve. This contributed to my migraines whenever I was somehow exposed to gluten. But that was rare since I hardly branched out with my food choices once I found safe foods. I was a kid who was sick a lot, but never with anything serious (random maybe, but not serious). 

At this time, I had a lot of faith in the medical community. I aspired to be a doctor and started planning for medical school when I was only eight years old. I was a kid who never minded going to the doctor, probably because it happened quite frequently, but I liked the idea of being able to run tests on patients and discover what's happening inside their bodies. Doctors always seemed interested, empathetic, attentive, and like they really knew you. I’ve come to realize that this is not the disposition of all doctors, especially when you are a pediatric patient suffering from a chronic illness with no visible signs or causes. 

It was the first semester of my junior year of high school when the migraines increased dramatically in frequency and intensity. My normal medication for migraines (Excedrin Migraine) stopped working. I couldn’t end one particular migraine with any medication I tried. For days, I did everything I knew to subside the headache, but nothing worked. This particular migraine lasted eight months with seemingly no explanation why. The migraine was never-ending. Doctors ask you what type of pain you are having: throbbing, sharp, dull, burning, aching, stabbing, radiating, etc. I found it easier to check off what pain I wasn’t having. It was unbearable. On top of it, my mental health was spiraling. I was practically asleep for these eight months. I spent them curled up in bed with ice packs, heating pads, a head massager, eye masks, etc. with every drug imaginable running through my system. 

When the migraines first started increasing at such a rapid pace, we scheduled an appointment with a neurologist I had previously been to when my migraines began. I was put on the waitlist for an appointment, which was most likely three months out. I was able to see the neurologist in November, and he prescribed the basic rounds of migraine protocol medicines. I was very nervous trying these medications since I had such adverse side effects in the past to medicine I was given in the ER. I tried every medication he gave me, even the ones that make you dizzy and feel like your skin is on fire. Nothing worked. By May, I had missed 87 days of school. I had lost friendships, had to quit my dance team, and got my first grade below an A in my life. 

  On top of working with the neurologist, I was seeing every type of physician you could think of. I saw my gynecologist who determined it was not my birth control or periods that were influencing the raging migraine. I saw a chiropractor who worked on my scoliosis, a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, a spinal specialist, a mental health therapist, nurses, ER doctors, spiritual advisors, specialists in Chinese medicine, function medicine, etc. I had many blood tests, allergy tests, x-rays, MRIs, CTs, hormone tests, neurological tests, etc. No one could figure out what was causing the migraine and how to stop it. 

I was starting to give up. The doctors became less sympathetic to my story and more eager to just shove a bunch of pills down my throat. Most doctors were not looking for the root cause of the migraine, just looking for a new medicine to numb the pain. I was giving up and so were my doctors. My mother later told me that my neurologist in the end said I should go to the chronic pain facility at Cleveland Clinic because he had no other answers for me. I never particularly liked this neurologist. He seemed cold to me, very business-like. He broke this life-altering opinion with no warmth, but a cold matter-of-factness. He had nothing else to offer me and thought no one else did either. My mother could not and would not accept this non-answer for me. She was my rock, my fighter, and my advocate. I never realized before how much pediatric medicine relies on someone, anyone, being a strong advocate for that child. Even though I would like to consider my sixteen-year-old self as not a child, in the eyes of my doctors, I was. I was a sixteen-year-old girl who was claiming I had a months-long migraine that resists all medications. I needed my mom to be my voice especially when I was in such a debilitating state. Without her fighting for me and rejecting the option of a pain facility, I would have dropped out of school and been a chronic pain patient for the rest of my life. 

After mustering up all the resilience I had left in me, I carried on and researched for answers. It’s funny how I found my answers in the least expected way you would find real accurate medical information, Grey’s Anatomy. Now, I know what you are thinking, but I’ve always loved Grey’s Anatomy. I was in the middle of rewatching the show for probably the fifth time when Derek Shepherd came across a patient with a seven-year-long migraine. I shivered, but then I remembered the end of this patient’s story. Mark Solan, an ENT, looks in his nose and finds there is an anterior ethmoid neurovascular complex, which means that a nerve (ethmoid nerve) was being disrupted causing the pain. I was shocked. Why had no one looked in my nose? My pain was regioned around the area of the sinuses, and I had ENT work done when I was little on my ears for two tympanoplasties. But no one had even recommended an ENT. So immediately, we got an appointment with the ENT. Before the appointment, we had a call with a migraine specialist in Texas who was doing experimental procedures with metal electrodes surgically put under the skin to control migraine pain. It all sounded so scary, but we were desperate at this point and considering it.  

Feeling on edge after the call, I was put at ease when we walked into the doctor’s office. It reminded me of being a kid when I went to the ENT’s office. It was nostalgic. My doctor looked in my ears just like he had when I was three. Then, he looked into my nose and found many different things. He saw that I had a deviated septum with a bone spur that could potentially be pressing on a nerve. He also told me that I had chronic sinusitis and a sinus cyst that showed up on the CT scan. It felt like I could finally breathe. He said that he could perform surgery to correct it, which could more than likely make my migraine dissipate. My family felt so relieved. He put me on a round of antibiotics for the chronic sinusitis, which gave me my first migraine-free day since January. 

After my surgery, I was able to get completely migraine-free and resume my normal life. I felt so blessed, but I thought of all of the other chronic pediatric cases that get unsolved and brushed over like mine almost was. I went through a period during and after my migraines of some intense depression. I had lost all trust in my body and in most of my doctors. I am to this day terrified of getting sick and falling back to where I was. For some time, I really lost faith in the medical community and was overwhelmed with the overall attitude toward pharmaceuticals and medications. I was not sure what kind of doctor I wanted to be, but I knew I did not want to be like the doctor who turned me away and gave up on me. After everything I have gone through, I want to make it mean something in my life and be a driving force in my dedication to serving others. That is why I am majoring in neuroscience and want to be in pediatric internal medicine. I want to be an advocate for kids who don’t have a mother like mine and still need their voices to be heard and taken seriously. That is why I am thankful for chronic migraines. The experience, as I think most medical experiences do, shaped me as a person. I gained so much wisdom and empathy and proved to myself that I could overcome anything.