I don't get migraines the same way other people do. That is, they're not as severe. My first symptom is always a visual one, not pain. I see a floating blind spot, a semicircle that looks like it's made of crystals, all jaggedy and sharp-edged. And what happens next depends on my reaction. If I sit down immediately and close my eyes and relax, the blind spot usually slowly melts away and then is followed by a headache, but an ordinary headache of average magnitude, treatable with ibuprofen. If I ignore the visual warning and try to continue doing things, the blind spot grows bigger and bigger until I can only see peripherally and a strange numbness spreads across my face so I can no longer feel my lips, my forehead, or the tip of my nose. My fingertips also become numb. The debilitating part, of course, is the blindness, which renders me helpless to drive, to work, to read, or to do much of anything. And when I keep trying to push through the blindness and numbness, the headache that inevitably follows is extremely painful.
Being the stubborn bonehead that I often am, I have tried to force my way through migraines on several occasions, telling myself I can tough them out if I really try. And it has never worked, always resulting in a much worse situation. Finally I learned that I cannot beat the awesome power of the migraine headache, and have learned, instead, how to minimize it.
And it worked; it's better now.
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