Every Way Chronic Migraines Affect My Life | SELF

so there's something about so far it's all right from the 1975 or the main theme from the notebook or same drugs by chance the rapper or something about those songs that really just helped me with my migraines and i don't know why but i'm glad that they exist hi my name is kate i am an actress a singer-songwriter and currently a student and i deal with moderate to severe migraines so today we're going to go through every single way in detail that migraines affect my daily life every single person has their own way that they deal with migraines today we're going to go through how i deal with migraines section by section my diagnosis social life diet beauty light exposure and sleep the first time i ever experienced a migraine i would say it was around four years ago i did not know what migraines were at this point i didn't have the sort of language to articulate what was happening to me in the moment and then i had this splitting just feeling in my head it was just blinding and this was the first time it ever happened to me i didn't really know what to do i thought i was just having a very just out of this world headache at the time i just kind of curled up into a ball in my bedroom and waited for it to to pass but it was a very rough night so a migraine is a severe neurological condition that can cause sensitivity to light sound smell and even movement so for me i experience the aura first there's not really a word to articulate it but there's this sort of feeling this inexplicable feeling that kind of overcomes my body i call it heat but he heats up the best word but we'll just call it heat that kind of accumulates in my temples and then from there my migraine is just this sort of all-encompassing pain there's this sort of throbbing at the crown of my head this tightness in my temples the slightest light the slightest sound i cannot be around that it's all just too much it's as if the world stops the only thing that really exists is this pain my migraines could sometimes last between two to five hours depending on how bad it was it was getting to a point where i was having migraines like almost every day i was just looking online like going through like certain websites of social media i'm like is anybody else kind of experiencing this because it happened one day and then it just didn't stop happening so what's going on so i decided yeah it's time i need to go to a doctor because nothing is helping and this is kind of becoming a consistent thing i went into the neurologist's office and she made it very clear that she wanted to work with me to find the best solution that would be that would work for me so right off the bat she was like the first step that we're going to take together is really documenting what's already happening i would write down immediately how many hours that i slept the night before if i ate breakfast yes or no what i had for lunch and dinner how much water i drank caffeine or no caffeine and whether or not i had a migraine that day and how bad it was for me and i kind of kept a log of that for a while and sort of this collaborative process we noticed that the more i slept the more i drank water completely cutting out caffeine and certain things from my diet all of these things like we noticed there was a trend like when i did more of this like i was less likely to have a migraine or my migraines were a little less intense consistently within the first two months my life was just kind of changed i would say [Music] before i was diagnosed and kind of got the treatment plan that i'm on now migraines sort of severely limited what i was willing to do socially there were a few instances where i would kind of just believe without an explanation if i was in public let's say if i was talking to someone like the way i'm talking to you you would just be having a conversation and i would literally just stop and leave i had to spend a lot of money on ride shares at certain times because i was just really afraid of having a migraine on the subway just being in a crowded underground space like there's light there's so much noise like and not really being able to escape think about that that was very that sort of idea was very frightening to me my biggest thing before was just get home get home get home because i'm in danger so when i feel the aura you know of a migraine coming on when i'm in public i need to excuse myself and get myself to sort of a quieter or just a separate location where i can kind of go through my plan and you know do whatever i need to do to deal with it so i have a really big hoodie that i still sometimes like will bring with me now but essentially it has a really big hood and i'll just like put it over my eyes and that will kind of give me the makeshift sort of uh thing of like being in a darker kind of space but i also realized over time that there's certain songs and i can't explain them but they have like a typically a note on the piano and something about those songs will really calm me down and really kind of focus my thoughts into one place so i always bring like my phone a portable charger and headphones as well to sort of kind of bring up this playlist that i have i call my playlist headspace case the main theme of the notebook like the main like film score thing it just it calms me down it sort of gets me in the right headspace from the 1975 there's a song called so far it's all right same drugs chance the rapper is also on their result it's very important that i added so now when this happens and i've kind of done my little routine i can kind of just come out and go about my day for the most part i can pretty much go back into whatever i was doing before it which has been really helpful and kind of life-changing for me it might seem like a no-brainer but you do need food to function for the most part and when you're a student your schedule can sometimes just be insane like staying up all night to study and not really taking care of yourself i would notice that those days when i didn't eat when i didn't really care about water i was just kind of trying to check off whatever box i had those would kind of be the worst like for migraines and i was a lot more likely to have one of those really bad migraine days if i was just not taking care of any of these things so my diet actually i would say it's a piece of the larger puzzle that directly impacts my migraines skipping meals is not a thing for me like i need to make sure that i eat at least three times a day and eat nutritious meals that's point blank the second thing i noticed was i am just a lot better when i have very protein heavy meals so now my diet really looks like eating protein in the morning so i would usually have like eggs i would also have oatmeal for lunch i'll have like i'll say a chicken salad but i use the word salad very loosely here because it's really mostly just chicken and maybe like kale and like lettuce on the side and then like for dinner maybe uh like seafood on top of it just making sure that i'm eating that i'm not in a position where i'm hungry which can make me more easily stressed like all of that has really helped me with my journey and dealing with my migraines so water is very important i typically for the bare minimum i'm going to drink 2.5 liters but i typically drink a gallon a day so i'll kind of do about the bulk of it but a lot of it in the morning and that kind of refreshment from being hydrated is just really helpful to me and my mood so i am very sensitive to anything that kind of deals with tension on my head and that in itself has really affected how i approach beauty so for example with uh hairstyles a lot of black women really love to incorporate protective styles i do like as well but i've noticed that i have to really be particular in the protective styles that i use so right off the bat with my braids like the hair that i i'm sort of rocking right now um i solely go for knotless braids so i cannot do like certain box braids or any sort of style that involves tension on my head because that can be very detrimental and kind of lead to migraines and that sort of uncomfortable feeling that comes with them for knotless braids it's sort of your regular hair and then the extension is fed into the braid so there's not that tension of putting them together at the root the extension is fed into my hair that's already braided and it's really a painless process it can sometimes be a little bit frustrating sometimes because a lot of really cool protective styles that i like seeing on other black women you know involve tightness and it kind of can be a little bit like frustrating to not necessarily be able to do the same thing all the time but i am very fortunate that i have found a style and a method that kind of works for me for like detangling my hair i use a wide tooth comb and i kind of i'm very gentle with my hair from like ends to roots taking my time on that aspect i like to keep my scalp like healthy and breathable so i use certain like oils for my hair as well to kind of help it with staying clean and just staying like breathable as well but essentially my entire hair routine really revolves around keeping things free of tension and just keeping the space well in general i love sunlight i love being outside i love the summer time i love that kind of aspect of it but light can make a migraine so much worse for me and be very detrimental to that sort of experience if i'm at home and i'm experiencing the aura i've already kind of set up my place to make things super easy for me i took out the bulb for like the main light in my room my window already has um that sort of protective dark sheet as on top of my blind so my room is already jam-packed with everything that i need right off the bat at all times so another thing that i'm really conscious of are just sort of the light from my devices so my phone my laptop right off the bat i am always on dark mode the brightness is on the very lowest setting and then on my computer there's a certain plug-in that i have on my computer that kind of makes every website that i go on uh darker so transition lenses are actually really helpful for me because they get darker if i'm directly like in the sun and can just be really helpful for me when i'm in a really sunny environment [Music] i noticed that you know in my journey and my process when i was documenting what i was going through that i was a lot more likely to have a migraine in itself but then also to have a really bad migraine if i didn't really sleep well so i kind of wanted to go forward and make sleep a really important part of my treatment plan and my process so in general seven hours of sleep is my minimum and that is come hell or high water rain or shine i am getting seven hours of sleep the night before because it's very serious to me so a weighted blanket people have different uh weights that they like i believe mine is about 20 pounds 15 20 i'm pretty sure um and it just kind of feels like some people call it a warm hug and a weighted blanket kind of just centers you it's like you can't really you can't really toss and turn for the most part you kind of just have to be still and have to come into yourself i sleep with a sound machine and it's it's technically a for babies but it works fine for me it kind of creates this low hum that fills up the space [Music] that sound in itself kind of just forces me to not go into my own like loop of again things that i might have to do the next day and just really creates this space where i can just relax i am not someone that plays about this like i make sure that i'm taking my 30-day medication like diligently like i make sure that i always have the as needed medication like on me and again i'm really fortunate to kind of be able to do things but it would be cool if maybe there was a day one day in the future where i didn't have to do anything i do know that the cumulative experience of having migraines has made me someone that is very likely to stand up for myself very likely to put my foot down for certain things i i know what to prioritize what's really important for me and i just i can advocate the heck out of my back out of myself like i really can for myself and that's a really important thing to have so you know there definitely was some negative parts of that journey but i'm really happy to be here on the other side of it [Music] you

Channel: SELF

Views: 13,915

Keywords: chronic migraine causes, chronic migraine diagnosis, chronic migraine help, chronic migraine remedy, chronic migraine symptoms, chronic migraines, chronic pain, day to day, day to day migraine, day to day self, kate odulukwe, life with chronic migraine, life with migraines, living with migraines, migraine, migraine pain, migraine suferer, migraine sypmtons, migraines and lights, migraines and music, my chronic migraines, self, self day to day

Id: Gxam7Cq9VEk

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021