Migraine

I get how chronic dialy migraines and fibromyalgia can wear a person down. How could it not? It is a constant struggle to get anything done and you suffer for it one way or the other. No amount of medication juggling, so you don't rebound, is going to help when you get migraines all the time. I have been on the road to find a preventatives for more years than I can remmeber, becuase I cannot remember anything. I get that it is a process and eventually I may hit one that works for another two years and I hoping that will be soon.

Point it, I think my brain is leaking out my ears. I have no memory. Might as well put it that way, becuase that is what it feels like. I forget to pay the bills, I forget what day it is, I forget if I have taken my triptan twice in a row and can take another or have already gone over the three day rule. I forget conversations with everyone and no amount of jogging my memory will give me even the faintest recollection of it. I have been told I repeat conversations, almost word for word on my part. Frankly, if in my reality I do not remember it, then it did not happen. I can't remember people's faces at all. I may vaguely recall the name, but even if I had known the person a long time or met them a half hour before, I simply do not recognize them. There are months of time I have no memory of. Things are hazy and time seems to pass quickly, because in my mind a lot of things just go bye-bye. Then there is all the migraine fun that makes my work life extra fun when I can't forget what I am talking about, can't finish a sentence, use the wrong words, can't understand what I am hearing, can't write and can't read what i do write. Everything feels so surreal like I am flaoting on through my life, the life such as it is. it is hard enough to think through the pain but even harder still to think with a broken brain. My visual aura is so constant and bright that I can't see if I do not where my sunglasses. It seems like the aura phaze is now a permanent state of mind for me. If I am not getting a migraine, then I have one, if I do not have one I am recovering from one. How am I supposed to get anything done when I am never out of a migraine?

my life is one big deja vu, because I have been there, I have done that and completely forgotten it. I honestly do not know what terrifies me more: not being able to work at all or having to work like this for the next thirty some years. Rene Descartes was right. I think therefore I am. Literally in this moment, I think therefore I am... but once this moment passes it is gone from me, no real memory of the past no ability to formulate goals. Just raw existence, without the life. I can say I am living in the moment, but really it is just being in the moment. And doubt everything, because you have to, everything your brain is telling you can be wrong and sometimes is. 'I said what? I don't remember that, therefore maybe I did not. Maybe I did. Can't prove it one way or another.' Maybe all those sparkles I see are real. Maybe that ringing noise I hear is my brain imploding. Maybe that study that said people with migraines experince less mental decline as they age was wrong because the people with migraines experience no difference. Maybe my brain is stuck like this even if the migraines just went away. Maybe all those migraines actually caused brain damage or hard wired my brain backwards. Or maybe all that pain gets in the way of processing memories to begin with.

I know this, a lot more stuff is slipping through the gaps in my brain than is staying in there. if only my brain had a back up drive I could down load into. The point is I have no idea how people are supposed to function like this. Grin and bear it? Cover the walls with sticky notes reminding you of lists you forgot you wrote? Tell people you did mean to say 'worble' instead of work, because that is the new hip way to say it? When people ask you how you do it you reply 'cause im a real sicko that loves pain.'? If I was not on auto pilot I am not entirely sure I would get out of bed in the morning and go to work, except for that whole needed to eat thing. I feel like I am 'passing' for functional. I feel amazed I am capable of doing my job, or any job, when I have gone past working around my disibility and am just a walking migraine passing as a person. if this gets any worse I am going to wake up with total amnesia. What concerns me is that it is getting worse. The migraines are the same frequency, the pain is the same, and yet every year I become more brainless. it becomes harder to communicate in any form, to the point I may have to develop my own transation device to get my point across (in my world right means left, when I say right, I actually mean left. When i write the letter p, I actually mean d or 9 or q).

I know what you mean. My migraine specialist said that my brain is miswired, but she believed all the memories are still there...I just can't access them or they're jumbled. For me it even wiped out my work knowledge (I was an engineer), knocking me back to elementary knowledge level and skills. I suffer with seizures (non-epiletic) with my attacks, which may be a big key to the memory issues, as it just shakes my head up.

Are you working with a migraine specialist? If no, you should go see one. He/she should run some tests to make sure nothing else is going on in addition to your migraines. I had cognitive testing done too.

How about side effects from medicines? For example, everytime I took compazine for my nausea, shortly there after, I'd go into this severe confusion state. I have confusion with my HM/migraines, but this was a definite trigger and separate from an attack. You might want to look at your meds and see what the side-effects are.

I'm wishing you a pain-free day, Tonya

I am working with a migraine specialist, thnak goodness. He has not done any cognative tests... which I think would be rather depressing to get the results of that! I do know that I am working a job that is pretty much maximum mental capacity for me right now, and I chose it because I was not able to do anything else but wanted to make a half decent living. I had given up on my academic career onces the migraines got out of control... was going for my phd in philosophy, but seriosuly, if I cannot remember the day of the week I am not going to wrap my head around quantum physics.

My medication cetainly does not help, but you might be right... I was put on something for nausea that is new, and had not thought it would cause anything like that, but perhaps it is, or perhaps it is with the Lyrica I take as a preventative... something to bring up with the doc I guess.... assuming I remember.

I've been having increasing memory problems myself. I've been going up on Lyrica, so now I'm wondering if that could be why I'm experiencing this, too. Definitely something to ask the doc about.

Diana

I have been on the same dose of Lyrica for a bit now, but I can tell you I did have some problems with it in the beginning... mostly with waking up. I would wake up so beyong groggy it was not funny; stubling around, not quite understanding what time the alarm clock said or what time I needed to get up and then even assuming I did get up on time for some reason i still ended up late for work and could never figure out why. Plus for awhile it was dangerous for me to blink... as it led to me nodding off, sometimes at work and sometimes at red lights... either way was not so good. So that drug for me was brutal in the beginning... now I pre-set my alarm for 1 1/2 hours before I need to get up and hit snooze a billion times. For me that med definately has the side effect of making you insanely out of it if you are already the least bit tired, but I don't find it impairs my memory or concentration during the peak hours of the day, just morning and nap time.

My memory's suffered some since both thyroid and migraine issues cropped up. Sometimes things take more effort to cram in, and quick recall can be pretty good one day, and horrid the next. I find that when my collective goop is in a decent group things are better. When I'm overly tired or physically exhausted, that's when I have the most issues. I can get very foggy indeed. I used to be able to remember everything without lists or calendars, and now I have to absolutely live by both, and they've become my lifeline. There are bad days when I've had to have notes to remember my notes, literally. Even on decent days, I can't be without my calendar, and I make rotating lists from it on index cards, too. Once I found a system, it hasn't been too bad. But, yeah, it's definitely one of the hardest parts of this whole thing to deal with, and also at times the most frustrating.

I can SO relate to your brain leaking out of your ears, Myth! Mine is, too. I don't know if it's the Topamax or my normal aging.

My daddy started with memory loss when he was in his late 40's, we think. My memory has been turning itself on and off for a while (I'm 55). Lately, it's been more off than on.

Droolie, I try to keep a calendar, and what Daddy called "punch lists." Trouble is, DH will ask me to do something or call someone when I'm not near either one, so I forget, then I catch all kinds of grief! Of course, he usually asks me first thing in the morning, before I'm out of bed.

Kinda makes me wonder about all those ancestors who died from "senile dementia."

Rebecca, The Island Mama

Aw Myth, I wish you didn't have to describe it! All I can say is, preach on...! I am so sorry you're having such a terrible time...I know so many of us here can totally relate.

Of course I get distracted easily by other thoughts so I am rather absent-minded, and I am sure that doesn't help. My husband leaves me notes on things to do when I get up so I won't forget.

Your frustration comes through quite clearly from your post. No one can blame you...I wish I could just hug you right now and make you feel better!

I can relate! There are so many times I want to say, "You can't possibly ask me to add something to my list, because I don't have my calendar book in front of me."

Even when my memory for things to do was great, the downfall would be someone asking me to remind them of something or other on their list. My mom is always the worst at telling me not to let her forget this and that. It got to the point where I'd give her *that look* and remind her who she was asking to remember to remind, and didn't she know better by now. Most of the time I did remember, it was because she was already doing what she wanted me to remind her to do, and so I'd remind her after the fact.

quote:

Originally posted by newbattleaxe:


Droolie, I try to keep a calendar, and what Daddy called "punch lists." Trouble is, DH will ask me to do something or call someone when I'm not near either one, so I forget, then I catch all kinds of grief! Of course, he usually asks me first thing in the morning, before I'm out of bed.



Rebecca, The Island Mama

Well I guess we all seem to agree about the side effects of chronic migraines. That said it all. "My brains are leaking out of my ears" Once my son told me he thought I had "perceptual difficulties" He was in middle school I think at the time. I don't believe I have improved since then except to say I am accepting more of my disability and try to let some of it go.
I think we all discount what we are able to accomplish and I echo the sentiments of others who can't believe they are able to work as they do. In fact my last horrible migraine when I ended up in my MDs office I cried " I can't believe I work as much as I do" The sad thing is I really like what I do and feel I have more to give if it were not for the horrible pain and chronic nature of this disease.
Thank you all for sharing, there is some consolaton in knowing that other people experience similar symptoms.
I don't think I want to have cognitive testing though I am afraid of what they would find out.
Feel good everyone.

I'm at the point were I forget what I'm saying mid sentence. I go to the kitchen and forget why I'm there. After my last migraine (which was the worst one I have ever had)things have gotten much worse. A few days afterwards I had a new brain MRI and it showed 15 spots. All my previous MRI's had been norml. So I actually am brain damaged....