That Migraine Guy

Hi. I'm ThatMigraineGuy. I suffer from disabling chronic migraine disease, and this is my first blog post.

Here I want to share a bit about myself and why I am writing this blog.

It's like this. Back in 2018, my job as a software engineer brought me some rewarding challenges. From the project's office at a university in upstate New York, I led a team of software developers from India and The Philippines. Visiting these places, as well as France, for extended team gatherings, made for some great adventures. I enjoyed the travel and loved the people.

But, with great privileges come great responsibilities. And great responsibilities bring a great deal of stress.

One day, I walked in the door from work to an odd experience. Standing in my kitchen, it suddenly felt as though the space around me was imploding into a single point at the center of my brain. It was as if an electrical generator had taken up residence in there and was spewing energy waves. The objects surrounding me twisted into odd proportions. A great anxiety overtook me. An indescribable feeling of weirdness arose, as if I had traveled to a distant planet. The foreignness of it all took hold of my senses. Some of these feelings persisted continuously for over six months and then slowly subsided.

I now know that migraine disease explains all of these symptoms handily:

• The imploding sensation? Although pain in the head (dull, throbbing, unbearable, sometimes on side) is common, migraine symptoms present in many puzzling ways, sometimes with no “pain” at all, but in uncomfortable and strange sensations;

• The odd proportions of the objects around me? Alice in Wonderland syndrome, in which objects appear to be bigger or smaller in proportion to the way they usually look;

• The anxiety? Mood changes —– anxiety, depression, and euphoria —– can accompany a migraine attack (I could do with more of the euphoria, but it is sadly more rare than the others);

• Feeling of foreignness? A manifestation of dissociation, also a feature of migraine for some;

• The length of the experience? Many migraineurs have episodic attacks, where there are a clear beginning and end to each attack; but there is also a state known as status migrainosus: a migraine lasting for seventy-two hours or more.

This vignette shows one slice among many of a long history of migraine disease in my life, beginning at age 20. I have many instructive details to tell about these slices.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

In the current time slice, migraine disease has put me on disability from work for the better part of the last twelve months. My current symptoms overlap with but have evolved a lot from the ones from 2018. My hope, which medical professionals and other members of the chronic migraine community affirm to be realistic, is that the right mix of medication, brain retraining, and lifestyle changes will give me enough control over my symptoms to return to work.

I aspire in this blog to share my journey through migraine disease. You'll learn about migraine disease treatments and brain science, as well as about the frustrations, emotions, and psychological booby traps of this life.

In these pages you will also get to know to some of the most resilient, supportive, and caring advocates in the chronic migraine community. Without them I would not have learned nearly as much as I have about migraine disease, and would have struggled a good deal more to avoid falling into despair.

Standing on the shoulders of these giants, I hope to share information and experiences that might help others —– to pay it forward.

So stay tuned —– it's gonna be a wild ride!