Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Migraines!

A colleague just told me about this article on new migraine research. Lots of librarians I know have migraines (including me, as it turns out). I wonder if it's something about the job? Maybe we preselect... Or maybe it's that more women have migraines than men (see the article which gives percentages, but I don't know where they got them from.

2 comments:

Marie S. Newman said...

Thanks for the post. I missed this article in the Times, and it's very valuable. I'm another migraine sufferer. My migraines started when I was child, and continue to this day. I knew about the genetic link--I am the seventh generation in my mother's family to suffer from migraine--all women. My sister doesn't get them, however, and so far my daughter hasn't started, so perhaps the chain has been broken. I have tried every treatment known to medicine (I go to an excellent headache specialist), and the latest is an OTC preparation called Migravent. I take two a day, and am mostly migraine free. You can buy it over the Internet (www.migravent.com), and it's expensive, but well worth it because it doesn't have the side effects of the other migraine medications I've tried.

Betsy McKenzie said...

Dear Marie,
I would have missed the article myself if not for my colleague's comment because HE has migraines, too. I always thought mine were "sinus headaches" because I never had the aura effect before my headaches and sometimes they struck on both sides at once. My mother, older brother and sister have migraines of the more classic sort. I was so relieved to find medicine that works to contol (usually) my multi-day headaches. Evidently Frova (brand name of the prescription tryptan I take) is specifically created for those of us who suffer multiple day headaches.

I used to fantasize about putting in my will that they had to do an autopsy on me after I died -- just so they could see what was causing those terrible headaches that "weren't migraines." Having a name for it gave me permission to take better care of myself when I had a headache. Isn't that weird?