Patient Perspective: living with migraines

I feel like there is no way that migraine doesn't affect my life. I think about it all the time. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Mitzi Joy Williams. And I'm a board certified neurologist. And I'm here today with Adam, Kerrie, and Shauna,

and we're talking a little bit about migraines. And we're specifically going to talk about how migraines can affect a person's everyday life.

So why don't we get started with Adam? Adam, how long have you been living with migraines? For me, I've had migraines off and on my-- my whole life,

I would say. But about three years ago, they became chronic to where I started dealing with them just on a regular basis.

What about you, Kerrie? I-- The first migraine attack I remember I was in fifth grade. Mine have actually been chronic since I was 11.

And I'm now in my mid 40s, so more than 30 years. Wow. And Shauna? I would say the same as Kerrie.

I always remember having headaches, even as a little girl. My earliest memory, probably seven. Yeah. So that's not uncommon.

I have many of my patients who have migraines who may be diagnosed as teenagers or as young children. And we actually used to have a saying when

I was training that a headache is migraine until proven otherwise, which tells you how common they can be.

There certainly can be some very significant symptoms associated with migraine that can affect your everyday function and your ability to do your jobs, et cetera.

So since you all are finding ways to manage, finding ways to deal with your headaches, what tips would you give to someone who was newly diagnosed

with migraines to help them kind of deal with what's going on? I would say, find a really good primary care

doctor and a good neurologist. I had two-- two neurologists under my belt, and my primary care doctor is amazing.

She checks for everything, not only my physical health, but my mental well-being. And also, don't be afraid to tell your doctor, hey,

that medication is not working for me. Let's try a new plan. Everybody's talking about nutrition.

Nutrition is key. Stay hydrated. I drink a gallon of water daily. It's intense, but it works.

And I would say as soon as you feel the migraine coming on, you want to get ahead of it. Right? So whatever medication or holistic therapies

that you use, as soon as you feel that pulse right here or right here, you got to start, because once it's full blown, that's it.

It's too far gone. One of the biggest things was just eliminating a lot of stuff in my diet that-- that didn't really need to be there.

So eliminating caffeine, eliminating sugar, learning what to eliminate that could potentially

help my situation and help me have less frequent migraines was-- was really helpful. When I think about when I was newly diagnosed,

I was focused on all the physical symptoms. I was seeing doctor after doctor trying to relieve the symptoms. And what I learned over time is that there are two components

to living with migraine. There are the physical symptoms which are the most obvious, but there are also the emotional symptoms.

This is a really hard illness to live with. It's unpredictable. You have to cancel plans. You feel unreliable.

There are so many ways that it affects your life. And I think it's super important to pay attention to that, to both the physical and the emotional side

of living with migraine. Changing the way you think about migraine can actually help you approach it better. I'm not saying, oh, just think differently,

and all your pain will go away, and everything will be fine. I don't mean that at all. I mean that if you think about your coping strategies

and just the way that you approach living with migraine, if you take some of that stress off-- Shauna, was talking about stress earlier and what

a trigger that can be-- and if you can find ways to take away or at least reduce the stress around migraine itself,

that can give you a little bit more bandwidth to be able to try new treatments, or--

or try lifestyle changes, or maybe start incorporating exercise. It just gives you a little bit more freedom. [MUSIC PLAYING]