While there is nothing quite like the dull thump heralding the beginnings of a migraine, it’s the preceding aura which holds most terror for me. If you’ve never experienced one of these jarring aberrations of the brain, it’s almost impossible to convey. Even amongst migraine sufferers, only about 20% ever get touched by its auric symptoms. For me personally, it always starts at my hands. Sometimes it’s a tell-tale numbness and pins and needles which spread like heat up towards my elbow joint. Sometimes it’s more of a sense of disorientation—as I look down at my hands, I can’t tell which one is which. Almost immediately I lose a grip on my words. I find my speech begin to slur as if I’ve had anaesthetic for a root canal, my lips tingle and I can’t make the shape for vowels. Simple statements become impossible; I can no longer read. Increasingly large patches of searing bright light start to dance from right to left across my field of vision and then like clockwork the waves of nausea begin, the cloying taste of acid at the back of my tongue, my teeth wobbly in my gums as if I could simply twist them out and put them under my pillow.
This whole swell lasts an hour or two before the true bell-toll pain begins, crescendo-ing over the next day, leaving me allergic to daylight. I always used to describe it feeling as if I had a spiked medieval mace suspended in the centre of my brain. If I could keep my skull totally level, the pain was bearable. The minute I moved a milli-degree to the left or right, the pointed edges would pierce into non-existent flesh, creating a shattering, yet totally invisible pain.
My migraines started when I was eight years old, something which isn’t wildly unusual with up to 10% of children experiencing them frequently. Debilitating headaches represent an important cause of disability in kids, being one of the top five causes of illness related absenteeism. A 2020 study on the impact of puberty on paediatric migraines found that children with migraines lose a mean of 7.8 school days a year due to illness in comparison with 3.7 for non-migraine sufferers. For me personally, swap those days for weeks. Migraines had a huge, relentless impact on my tween years. Before their onset, I was already a sick note, in and out of hospital through my childhood, most notably with a severe bout of glandular fever when I was 6, which had me on an isolation unit for weeks and in recovery for years. For my single working mother, my endless ailments were the gift that just kept giving, emotionally and logistically blindsiding her while she was already teetering on the abyss of an extreme juggle.
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