Announcing April Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival

The theme of the April 2011 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival will be "What frustrates you most about living with a headache disorder or migraines?" As always, feel free to interpret this topic however you like.

Entries are due by midnight (the end of the day) on Friday, April 8, 2011. The carnival will be published right here at Somebody Heal Me on Monday, April 11, 2011.

Feel free to post comments or contact me directly to ask any questions you might have. Please spread the word to any migraine or headache, pain or chronic illness bloggers you know and consider posting an announcement on your own blog if you have one.

For more information about the carnival please visit the main carnival page: Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival. 

Thank you for your continued support of the Headache and Migraine Disease Blog Carnival!


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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Pacing: Just Three Things

From time to time I find myself having trouble keeping my head above water. It usually starts when I'm unable to do anything for a day or two (or longer). Nothing around the house, no errands, no writing. Nothing. When I come back to a more manageable level of pain and energy I feel completely overwhelmed by all the things I feel I need to do. Being overwhelmed makes me shut down because I feel as though there is so much to do I'll never catch up. I don't know where to start and feel like there isn't any reason to bother.

To combat this overwhelmed feeling and the resulting panic I have instituted what I call a "just three things" rule.

Pacing is an incredibly important part of managing a chronic illness, but it can be hard to put the concept into practice in your day to day life. Pacing encompasses the idea of checking your gauges, which I've written about in the past (see Pacing: An Important Tool for Coping with Chronic Illness). But it also involves adopting a mindset of not allowing yourself to become overwhelmed and stressed out by your limitations. 

The "just three things" rule is this: Every day pick out three tasks that are manageable given your limitations that day. Some days it might be something bigger, such as grocery shopping, while other days it might be something as simple as brushing your teeth. We're all at different levels of pain, stress, fatigue and depression, so your list may not look the same as mine. That's the beauty of this kind of individualized approach.

Adopting this rule takes away that tendency to say "but what about that and that and that" into infinity, as well as that "OMG I feel so horrible this has to wait until tomorrow" desire. Yes, some things will have to wait, but if we work within our limits we're treating ourselves with respect and kindness. Life is far too short to waste time berating yourself for having limitations due to your health issues.

It also helps me roll with the punches of never really knowing from one day to the next what to expect of my pain or energy levels. This approach treats every single day as a new start and keeps me from trying to impose too many expectations on myself without taking reality into consideration.


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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Migraine as a Spiritual Ailment? Please

I receive Google email alerts when the word "migraine" pops up in the news. When I received an alert about an author giving a talk on living with migraines at a small college I wanted to know more.

By doing a quick search I discovered the lecturer has written a book about migraines as a spiritual ailment. I will fully admit I rolled my eyes and thought about how much I'd love to trash such a book on this blog. After all, what a silly notion. In fairness, though, I thought I should see the book before I eviscerated it, so I went to the page where it's being sold and downloaded the free preview.

I started reading through and most of the information seemed accurate enough. Maybe my initial impression had been unfair. After all, I use meditation to cope with migraine disease. Perhaps she was advocating something similar. You know, aside from that business about migraine being a spiritual phenomenon.

Unfortunately she describes migraine as a vascular condition. This is an old fashioned, out of date perspective on migraine. It's a neurological condition. The blood vessels do in fact expand and contract during a migraine attack, but this is no longer thought to be the root cause of migraine. Instead, it's a process that occurs as part of the migraine attack. She also talks about cures, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. Migraine is managed, not cured. Though we can greatly reduce the number of attacks someone experiences, there is no cure for migraines. To be perfectly honest it reeks of quackery when someone suggests otherwise.

I think we owe it to ourselves to explore any and all avenues for coping with and treating our migraine disease, but I don't think being accurate about the scientific aspects of migraine is optional. I do believe mindfulness can help us cope, but it's not a cure and migraine isn't a spiritual condition. It's important to be accurate about what we know about migraine disease even if we're taking a less than mainstream approach to living with it. Anything less is an insult to the entire community.

Since I think it's probably unfair to write about the book and not tell you the name, here is a link to the page where it's being sold: Migraine: Pain of the Body, Cry of the Spirit.


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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Why Does My Head Hurt? Primary Headache Disorders

If your doctor eliminates the possibility of a disease or condition being responsible for your head pain, you may be left wondering what that means. What are some of the possibilities?

Headache disorders that are not caused by another disease or condition are called primary headache disorders. According to the International Headache Society the most common of these include migraines, tension-type headache and cluster headaches.

Migraine typically involves one-sided head pain accompanied by nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, sound and smell, neck pain and dizziness. But symptoms can vary widely from person to person. For a more detailed description of migraine check out this post: What is Migraine? Migraine can be episodic or chronic.

Tension-type headache is thought to be related to stress and muscular problems. These headaches can come on in individual attacks, similar to migraine, or take on a chronic form, lasting for an indefinite length of time with no relief.

Cluster headaches are frequently occurring, incredibly painful attacks that last for a short duration. Cluster headache is rare, but fairly easy to spot when you review the pattern of the person's attacks.

In addition, other primary headache disorders include primary cough headache, primary exertional headache, primary headache associated with sexual activity, hypnic headache, primary thunderclap headache, hemicrania continua and new daily persistent headache. New daily persistent headache is diagnosed when the patient experiences pain on both sides of the head every day and does not exhibit more than one of the symptoms typically associated with migraine, such as nausea or sensitivity to light or sound. If you've read All in My Head or Chocolate & Vicodin those authors were dealing with new daily persistent headache.

This article is meant to just scratch the surface of the possibilities for people who are in the process of being diagnosed. All of these disorders can vary from person to person and diagnosis is often more an art than a science.


Sources:
IHS Classification - ICHC II
WHO: Headache Disorders


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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Your Chronic Pain Tool Box: Personalized Pain Management

The truth about living with a chronic pain condition like chronic migraines is that it's no one thing that will make your life bearable or perhaps even enjoyable. You need a tool box full of options you can pick and choose from to put together a system of pain management that works for you and gives you somewhere to turn when one thing isn't working well.

Medications can be an important and healthy part of pain management. I would certainly never try to convince a migraineur not to use them as part of a migraine management plan. Triptans are an extremely important medication for migrainuers because they are the only medication that works to treat your migraine attack by aborting it rather than simply dulling the symptoms. However, if medication is the only thing you have to rely on, chances are you're going to be let down from time to time. The same is certainly true of pain medications. The reality is that most people living with chronic migraines are going to need to incorporate pain medication into their personal pain management programs. But you need to have other things to rely on for times when the medication doesn't cut it or when you're unable to use the medication for any number of reasons.

At this point you might be wondering what else there is. Injections, surgeries or something even worse? No, that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about developing a well-rounded pain management program that includes things like gentle exercise and stretching, a healthy diet, plenty of water, mindfulness or prayer and real life support.

Having these tools at my disposal gives me somewhere healthy to turn when I think I can't take it anymore - either physically or emotionally or both. When I start thinking, "I can't take this," I stop my thinking and try to change it around. I ask myself what of the things I know help me could I do right now to calm myself down and get centered despite whatever crisis I'm dealing with at the moment. I made lists of these things while I was doing a behavioral pain management program, and it's incredibly helpful to look back through them when I'm struggling for inspiration.

The tools that work well for you are probably not the same as mine. But I hope by sharing what's in my toolbox I can help inspire you to explore your options and adopt some new practices that will help you cope with a life filled with pain.

MY CHRONIC PAIN TOOLBOX:

• MOVEMENT
• stretching exercises
• yoga
• walking
• swimming

• DIET
• avoid triggers
• plenty of water
• keeping easy, healthy choices on hand at all times

• SPIRITUALITY / RELAXATION
• mindfulness meditation
• relaxation breathing

• MINDFULNESS & BEHAVIORAL PAIN MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
• pacing (see Pacing: An Important Tool for Chronic Pain Management for more information)
• dashboard (see Behavioral Pain Management Dashboard for more information) 
• weather practice - "The weather blew the discomfort in and may blow it out at any moment." (from How to Be Sick by Toni Bernhard)
• Tonglen practice - "Breathe in the suffering of all those who share the symptoms you are experiencing." (from How to Be Sick by Toni Bernhard)
• Byron Katie's four questions: (1) Is it true? (2) Can you absolutely know it is true? (3) What happens when you believe that thought? How do you react? (4) Who would you be without that thought? (see The Work of Byron Katie & her book Loving What Is for more information)

• HOBBIES
• pets
• reading
• knitting
• movies & TV

• SUPPORT SYSTEM
• My community of fellow migraineurs
• message board friends
• close real life friends
• family

• SOCIAL INTERACTION
• book clubs
• knitting groups
• local real life social media group gatherings
• support groups
  

What's in your toolbox? What's lacking? What might help fill those holes? Talk to you doctor about which changes might be right for you.


Related Posts:
Recommended ACT & Mindfulness Resources
Crazy Making Pain: Mindfully Battling It
Why You Should Try Mindfulness to Cope with Pain
How are Chronic Pain & Acute Pain Different?
Pain Tolerance: How Your Behavior Decreases or Increases It


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Extremely Flexible People More Likely to Have Migraines

When I started a behavioral pain management program a few years ago the physical therapist noticed that I'm very loose jointed. While being moderately flexible can be a good thing, it's not great to be that flexible because it's harder to keep your body in the correct posture. Given that knowledge I wasn't exactly surprised when I recently saw a headline about extremely flexible people being three times more likely to experience migraine.

The researcher whose work established this connection believes both hypermobility and migraine share roots of being related to collagen. Collagen is a protein that connects joints and tissues. His hypothesis is that if collagen is too elastic it leads to overly flexible joints and stretchy blood vessels. However, the notion that migraine originates in the blood vessels has gone out of fashion in recent years with the awareness that it's actually a neurological condition. Perhaps extremely elastic collagen makes the blood vessels more susceptible to the expansion and contraction observed in migraines.

This was an extremely small study and participants were taken from a connective tissue clinic, which may have skewed the results toward sicker people. It will certainly require larger studies to determine whether there is anything to this connection.

Source:
Extreme Flexibility Comes with Triple Migraine Risk

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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Don't Forget: Migraine Chat Tonight

Please join us tonight for our weekly Migraine Chat from 6 -7 pm CT. Anyone living with migraines or other headaches disorders is welcome. We meet up every Wednesday evening for an hour in a password protected chat room on Chatzy to talk about what's going on with us and ask each other questions about different experiences and treatments. It's an incredibly supportive, fun group. I hope to see you there!

To participate go to: Chatzy Migraine Chat
(Remember to bookmark the link for the future. It will be the same every week.)

Enter password: somebodyhealme

When: Wednesdays, 6 -7 pm CT

For more details visit: Migraine Chat.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

National Migraine Organizations: Hope

Are you familiar with the national organizations raising funds, providing support and lobbying for migraine patients? Let me give you a brief overview. They need our support.

Migraine Research Foundation - The Migraine Research Foundation is a nonprofit organization that raises funds for migraine-related research efforts. So far they've awarded $700,000 in research grants to 15 researchers. All of the Migraine Research Foundation's administrative overhead costs are covered by underwriters, so all of your donation goes directly to funding migraine research.

National Headache Foundation - The National Headache Foundation provides information and support to headache patients, families and treatment providers. They help facilitate support groups and hold educational programs and meetings throughout the country. There are some excellent educational materials available on their website.

American Migraine Foundation - The American Migraine Foundation is under the umbrella of the American Headache Society, a professional society committed to improving the knowledge and skills of medical practitioners who treat headache and migraine patients. Their particular focus is on education: both for medical professionals themselves and the public. They also support and encourage scientific research that benefits migraine patients.

Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy - The Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy is a collection of nonprofit organizations engaged in advocacy and research related to headache disorders. They advocate for increased funding for headache disorders research and other similar awareness efforts, including lobbying on Capitol Hill. They will be holding their Headache on the Hill lobbying event again this year on May 31, 2011, and June 1, 2011.

If you visit the AHDA website you can sign up for action alerts that easily allow you to contact your Congressional representatives to encourage them to support funding and policy that foster headache disorders research. You won't be inundated with email by the group, and it's truly very quick and simple to participate in the action alerts. It's too easy not to do it if you or someone you care about lives with a headache disorder.


Donations to any of these groups are welcome and encouraged. You don't have to give a lot to make a difference. If we all give a little it will add up quickly.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

March Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival Posted

The March 2011 Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival is up at No Extended Warranty. Go check it out and share the link with your readers and friends. Many thanks to my wonderful pal Emily for hosting this month. She did an awesome job. Dealing with the spam alone sometimes feels like a full-time job!

March 2011 Headache & Migraine Blog Carnival: Life Hacks


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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

What is Migraine?

Migraine is a commonly misunderstood condition. Many people believe it's a headache. Since everyone has had a headache at some point they often can't understand what the big deal is. Migraine attacks usually do involve a headache, but they are much more complicated than that.

Migraine is a neurological condition that typically involves not only head pain, but many other symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, sound, smell and touch, dizziness, neck pain and visual disturbances. A migraine attack usually lasts between 4 and 72 hours. In approximately 15 - 20% of migraine patients their migraine attack is preceded by an aura. An aura is a neurological disturbance, such as seeing spots or smelling something that isn't really there.

Diagnosing someone with migraine is basically a process of elimination. There are no tests that will tell you someone is experiencing migraine, so doctors try to eliminate other possible explanations for the patient's symptoms. Patients are often given a routine battery of tests, including an MRI. Since symptoms can vary so widely from person to person diagnosis can be difficult.

About 36 million Americans live with migraine: 18% of women and 6% of men. Nearly one in four households have a member who lives with migraine. As many as 14 million Americans live with near-daily migraine symptoms. About 10% of school aged children are migraineurs. The World Health Organization considers migraine one of the 20 most disabling conditions.

Migraine is not well understood. Researchers have made headway trying to determine what happens in the brain that brings about a migraine attack, but the brain is such a complicated organ that it may be a long, long time before we know what really goes on in it with respect to migraine attacks.

Sources:
Migraine Research Foundation: About Migraine
American Migraine Foundation: About Migraine


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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Last Call: March 2011 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival

Please don't forget tomorrow is the deadline for submissions to the March 2011 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival.

Submit your blog article using our carnival submission form or by emailing your submissions directly to me. The theme is: "Life Hacks: Tweaking Work & Life to Deal with Migraines."

Entries are due by midnight (the end of the day) tomorrow, Friday, March 11, and the carnival will be posted by Emily at No Extended Warranty on Monday, March 14.

Please let me know if you are interested in hosting a future edition. Contact me any time with questions, suggestions or ideas for themes. I'm always looking for help with the carnival. Don't hesitate to post a comment or email me with questions.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Music as Makeshift Therapy: Alt Rock Edition

Music is widely acknowledged as a therapeutic mechanism for people suffering with a wide range of different health issues. From time to time I like to share the music that helps me cope.  It's been a long time since I've done this kind of post, but I'm hoping to do them more often because music is a huge part of my life.

Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside


Broken Bells - The High Road


Cage the Elephant - Thank You Happy Birthday - Around My Head


Adele - 21 - Rolling in the Deep


Datarock - Fa-Fa-Fa


Arcade Fire - The Suburbs - Ready to Start


Cake - Showroom of Compassion - Sick of You


The Decemberists - The King is Dead - Down by the Water


The Black Keys - Brothers - Tighten Up



Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Weekly Migraine Chat Tonight

Please join us tonight for our weekly Migraine Chat from 6 -7 pm CT. Anyone living with migraines or other headaches disorders is welcome. We meet up every Wednesday evening for an hour in a password protected chat room on Chatzy to talk about what's going on with us and ask each other questions about different experiences and treatments. It's an incredibly supportive, fun group. I hope to see you there!

To participate go to: Chatzy Migraine Chat
(Remember to bookmark the link for the future. It will be the same every week.)

Enter password: somebodyhealme

When: Wednesdays, 6 -7 pm CT

For more details visit: Migraine Chat.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Reporter Serene Branson's On-Air Migraine Attack

As people who follow migraine-related news chances are you've heard about entertainment reporter Serene Branson's on-air migraine attack during the Grammy Awards a few weeks ago. Many of us who experience migraine attacks have never dealt with those kind of complicated neurological symptoms. You may be wondering what kind of migraine she experienced and how she's doing now.

Branson is a television reporter in Los Angeles who became famous across the world when she suffered a migraine attack during a live segment following the Grammy Awards. Her words became garbled, she felt weak and experienced numbness in her arm and hand. She was diagnosed with migraine, rather than the stroke so many people thought she'd suffered.

Her doctors diagnosed her with what they called a complex migraine. This is a sort of outdated term that isn't found in the International Headache Society (IHS) Classification. The IHS Classification is a well-recognized guide doctors use in diagnosing headache and migraine disorders. The term complex actually describes the symptoms related to the attack in that the there were a variety of complicated neurological issues involved in her migraine attack. Under the IHS Classification the specific kind of migraine she experienced is called hemiplegic migraine. This term refers to migraine attacks that involve motor weakness and visual or other sensory symptoms.

Branson has said her doctors started her on a preventive medication. They don't believe she'll necessarily deal with migraine attacks in the future, but want to try to prevent them if they can.

Unfortunately if you Google Branson's name you'll see some YouTube videos of people making fun of her attack. The idea that anything about her migraine attack is funny is just astounding to me. What kind of sick jerk pokes fun at a neurological disorder? That kind of thing makes me really worry that maybe people aren't as good as I'd like to think they are. However, I also know the number of people joking about her attack is very small. And she mentioned in interviews that people from all over the world have reached out to offer her their support, which is very cool. While I'm sorry she had to deal with this I'm glad it has initiated a more public discussion of the true nature of migraine disease.

Sources:
IHS Classification: ICHD-II
Serene Branson Finds 'Uncomfortable' Oscar Fame
Serene Branson Returns to Red Carpet Two Weeks After Grammy Scare
Serene Branson An Accidental Advocate for Migraineurs?


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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Childhood Migraines Linked to Weight Gain Among Women

According to a study published in the journal Headache women who experienced migraines as children are more likely than others to gain weight as adults.

Researchers studied more than 3,700 women who were being followed for an unrelated study on pregnancy outcomes. The women were asked about their height and weight at age 18 and just before they got pregnant and whether they'd ever been diagnosed with migraine disease.

One in every six average weight women had been diagnosed with migraine disease while one in four obese women had been diagnosed with migraine disease. Even after ruling out other factors such as high blood pressure and smoking the migraine risk was still higher among overweight women and the risk rose with higher weight.

Unfortunately the study relied on the women to self report the information, which can be a limited method of data collection because it requires the subjects to remember and accurately report. However, the results in this study echo the findings of previous research studies on weight and migraine prevalence.

The researchers said it is possible that the gastrointestinal issues associated with migraine disease cause women to alter their eating habits or that the effects of exertion, a common migraine trigger, causes them to modify their exercise habits. However, the study did not address the possible explanations for the correlation. These possible links are pure speculation.

I wonder if it's possible there is some correlation between women with migraines and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). PCOS is the main reason I carry extra weight, and I've known a number of women who, like me, live with both of these diseases. But that is just my curiosity.


Source:
Girls With Migraines Pack On Extra Pounds


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Reminder: March 2011 Carnival Submissions

Submissions for the March 2011 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival are due Friday, March 11, 2011 by midnight. Posts may be submitted through the link on the carnival website or directly to me by email.
 
The theme is "Life Hacks: Tweaking Work & Life to Deal with Migraines."

The March carnival will be posted by Emily at No Extended Warranty on Monday, March 14.

For more information about the carnival please visit the main carnival page: Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival. Also, feel free to post questions in the comments or send me an email.

Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

News: Pain Medications in Pregnancy & Birth Defects

If you're a woman of child bearing age who uses prescription pain medications to treat your migraines or other chronic pain, you'll want to pay attention to this important research study. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control have determined that use of oxycodone, codeine and hydrocodone in early pregnancy can lead to serious birth defects. 

A relationship between use of opioid pain medications and birth defects has been observed since the 1970s, but unfortunately this did not change the way doctors prescribed medications for pregnant women.

The most commonly observed birth defects were glaucoma, congenital heart defects, spina bifida and hydrocephaly. Previous studies had suggested a link between opioid use in pregnancy and cleft palate, but this study did not find that connection.

The overall increased risk of birth defects is truly quite low. However, it's definitely something to be aware of and carefully discuss with your doctor if you're planning a pregnancy or are currently pregnant.

Sources:
Prescription Painkiller Use Linked to Birth Defects
Maternal Treatment with Opioid Analgesics & Risk for Birth Defects


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Charlie Sheen & Mental Illness: Not a Joke

Unless you've been unplugged from all media for the past week or so you've no doubt heard about actor Charlie Sheen's downward spiral. What could be an opportunity for all of us to learn more about mental illness and substance abuse has instead become a punchline. Isn't it funny to watch him spout gibberish and make no sense?! No, not to me.

I will be the first to admit I'm sensitive about mental illness. I live with depression and I fight against it every single day. It's a battle and some days the depression wins. It's serious stuff. People take their own lives as a result of mental illness. Fortunately I've never found myself in that situation, but I'm sensitive to those who have and the loved ones of those who are now gone.

While it does seem clear that Sheen has a substance abuse problem in addition to a mental health condition, it's not terribly surprising. It is extremely common for people to turn to drugs or alcohol to cope when they are living with untreated mental illnesses. According to the United States Department of Justice in 2002 4 million Americans met the criteria for serious mental illness and substance dependence or abuse.

If it's hard to have compassion for him, consider that this man is a father. Would you want his children to see you joking about his situation like it's a game? Aren't they suffering enough as it is? I challenge you to not be the person at the water cooler or break table who laughs along when someone brings up his behavior. You don't have to be a goody two shoes or make anyone feel uncomfortable. You can just say something like, "I think it's sad." Unfortunately I think it's human nature to be morbidly fascinated by a train wreck, but we can fight against the temptation. We can't change the way this story is reported by major media outlets, but we can choose to not be part of making a joke out of this guy's pain and struggle.

If you or someone you love is struggling with these issues, please reach out for help. If suicide is a concern, contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org. If suicide is not currently a concern you can utilize the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Mental Health Services Locator to find help in your geographical area: Mental Health Services Locator.


Subscribe to the Somebody Heal Me feed: Subscribe in a reader or subscribe by e-mail. Follow me on Twitter @somebodyhealme. 

Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.

Join Us Tonight for Migraine Chat at 6 pm CT

Please join us tonight for Migraine Chat at 6 pm CT. Anyone living with migraines or other headaches disorders is welcome. We meet up every Wednesday evening from 6 - 7 pm CT in a password protected chat room on Chatzy and talk about what's going on with us and ask each other questions about different experiences and treatments. It's an incredibly supportive, fun group. Hope to see you there!

To participate go to: Chatzy Migraine Chat
(Remember to bookmark the link for the future. It will be the same every week.)

Enter password: somebodyhealme

When: Wednesdays, 6 -7 pm CT

For more details visit: Migraine Chat.

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Content by Diana E. Lee.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation.