`At the beginning, you just don't feel right'

I hate when people use the phrase "my migraine" to refer to a mere headache. It's like saying "pity me"

I hate when people use the phrase "my migraine" to refer to a mere headache. It's like saying "pity me". Migraine is a status symbol for some people. It's only people who don't know what a migraine is really like who are like that. I don't want to be a victim.

True migraine is not just in your head, it's in your whole system and as much as you want to, you can't get up and go. In good years, I have suffered from six bad bouts a year - each lasting about a week. I've grown used to excusing myself from social events and dinner parties and fortunately, I have very understanding friends who never mention it. When you genuinely suffer from migraine, you feel like wearing a T-shirt which says: "don't talk about my migraine". A migraine attack is like nothing on earth. I get unsteady, I get queasy, I get thumping headaches which can be on one side or the other or in the temple. It affects my eating because I immediately feel bilious. It interfered with my life in that when I had bad bouts I had to go to bed, which meant I had to ring in sick to the office. It could take me a week to get over it.

A migraine happens on a curve: at the beginning, you just don't feel right, then when the headache hits you know it's the migraine and you don't want to be with people. My work was very stress-oriented because I was dealing with members of the public who themselves were under stress and looking for help with their own health.

A lot of migraine sufferers are driven perfectionists who work in pressured careers. I'm always on the go. People used to say to me, "Eileen you need an eight-day week". If I had three social engagements to go to on one night, I would fit them all in. It's as if the pressure keeps you going during the week and at the weekend when you're relaxed, the migraine comes along. Another factor for me is diet - I learned that my triggers were all the "C's": coffee, chocolate, cheese and cream. I've had migraine headaches since I was in my teens and I've gone through various prescription drugs that relieved the headache for a while, but then I found my stomach could not cope with tablets anymore. So I decided to try biofeedback. I go to Ann Gallagher and sit down in a comfortable chair in front of a monitor. She connects me to the machine, by taping a flex to my finger that measures temperature, and another to the back of my neck that measures muscle tension. On the monitor I see two vertical bars, a green on the left for the muscles and a blue on the right for the temperature. Ann takes you through a series of relaxation exercises and you get a sense of how your body feels.

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As you relax, watching the screen, you see the green column go down as your muscles relax, and the blue column go up as the temperature in your finger rises, which means that your circulation is improving. The aim is total body relaxation. My body goes limp and I feel heavy; other people can get a feeling of lightness. After the session, you take this new awareness away with you so that when you are in situations of tension or stress, you learn to relax, and thus reduce the impulses which give you the migraine. When I'm driving, for example, if I feel road rage building up and my fingers getting cold, I immediately start looking for that relaxed place in myself and I can feel the tension subsiding. I have had 12 sessions of biofeedback since March. Now I know when I am getting migraine and I know how to deal with it, so that I nip it in the bud and no longer develop it. I'm not saying that's easy; I have to work on it. But I do feel that biofeedback has helped me to control and manage it. The best part of biofeedback is: it makes you aware of how great it feels not to have a migraine.

Biofeedback therapy is offered by Ann Gallagher, RGN, RN, RPN, Dip Psych (tel: 01-490 5378)