Migraines have been a part of me since I was about six or seven years old. I lost many days of activity to them over my lifetime. It was well into adulthood before doctors agreed to call the migraines what they are, and slowly we began the dance of trying to find treatments that worked. I outgrew over the counter meds long before those conversations started, but as they are wont to do, that's the first place doctors went. After a while, they gave me a prescription for Fioricet, a moderately helpful drug that at least helped me sleep off the worst headaches. After a while, we progressed to Maxalt, a melt-on-the-tongue go-getter that worked faster. It also tasted strongly of artificial sweeteners, and I got to where I couldn't stand to put it in my mouth anymore.
It was about three years ago that I got myself stuck in a nasty migraine aura. I didn't know that was what it was until months of testing. My whole body was electrified. I buzzed. Even my tongue felt like I was licking a nine volt battery. My neurologist suggested that Botox for migraine had a shot at fixing this. I was almost afraid to hope, but I went with it. Lo and behold, it worked like a charm. The aura stopped, and I found myself able to be in afternoon sunlight without immediately collapsing in pain. It has changed my life for the better.
I have the injections done every twelve weeks. It's something like thirty-one tiny needle sticks, all around my hairline, across my eyebrows, and down the back of my neck. It stings a little, but doesn't hurt badly. The worst part of the whole process is the crunching sound as the needle pierces the scalp.
I went in for my regular appointment this morning. I told my doc how I can always tell when it's starting to wear off, not just because I get headaches, but because I get such weird aura symptoms. I hallucinate smells, for one. I smell stale cigarette smoke in houses where I have never allowed a single person to smoke. I also hear music differently. Normally, when I hear songs, I hear the whole sound blended. During a migraine, I pick apart sounds as clearly as if I am standing in the recording studio, in the middle of the band, with them spread out around me. I can separate each instrument or vocal line in ways that I would never do normally. When I tried to explain this to the neurologist, he said that it made total sense to him. He explained there was some evolutionary advantage to having migraines, and that it often happens when your brain is functioning highly. I'm not sure I'm repeating what he said accurately enough. (I was being stabbed with a needle over and over while I was listening, after all.) The jist was yes, my heightened senses tracked with the things he has heard and read about aura. And now I feel like I have a whole new thing to research, not because I'm not familiar with it after a lifetime of experience, but because looking at it from a different angle makes it seem fresh and new and interesting.
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