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In it, he giddily describes meeting with patients and realizing that migraines were much more than a single-type of headache. "I was at first disconcerted, but later delighted, at the complexity of the histories I received," he explains. "Here was something which could pass, in a few minutes, from the subtlest disorders of perception, speech, emotion, and thought, to every conceivable vegetative symptom. Every patient with classical migraine opened out, as it were, into an entire encyclopedia of neurology."That's me. An entire encyclopedia of neurology. Here are some of the types and sub-types of migraine I have suffered from: classic migraines, common migraines, food and caffeine migraines, menstrual migraines, stress migraines, let-down migraines (migraines that happen after finishing a particularly stressful task—often called "weekend migraines"—mine hit after turning in homework or finishing tests). I sometimes have migraines when it is a humid day and about to rain. I have migraines when I think about migraines too much. I can unintentionally summon them. In fact, as I finished writing this I started to feel one creep into the background of my head. A shadow. And I made myself get up and work at something else to try and shake it off.I didn't learn from my neurologist how to manage my fear of migraine or my impending sense of doom. I wasn't given a toolkit to understand my symptoms or side effects. Dr. Sacks gave me that.
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At some point in tenth grade, I was finally sent to a neurologist, a man who looked uncannily like Bill Clinton and had a "Don't Panic" sign hung on the wall behind his office desk. He prescribed me Imitrex, an important migraine drug, only available in injectable form at that time. That day, I learned how to give myself shots in my arm. The needle hurt, the medication burned and often left me bruised, and the drug sent waves of nausea curling up and down through my body as if I were riding on a boat in a storm with 20-foot waves. If Imitrex had worked better for me, I would have been able to continue my day. But it knocked me down most of the time, almost as bad as the headaches themselves.On Munchies: 'Rooibos-Infused Wine Might Save You a Headache'
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Despite his entreaty not to panic, I didn't learn from my neurologist how to manage my fear of migraine or my impending sense of doom. I wasn't given a toolkit to understand my symptoms or side effects. Dr. Sacks gave me that. In Migraine, he quoted Montaigne, "Fear of this disease used to terrify you, when it was unknown to you." And he explained that people who read his book will not be cured, "but at least he will know what he has, and what it means, and will no longer be terrified."Things have changed for me in some ways. I still suffer from severe chronic illness, and sadly, I still spend many days in bed. But migraines are rare for me now. I feel lucky to have under a dozen a year.I can't say that I am a graceful sick person. I have spent so much of my life responding to illness, that I am constantly trying and usually failing to stuff bitterness and anger under my bed and out of sight. Illness and chronic pain has affected my career, my friendships, my ability to care for my family, and altered my sense of self. Reading Dr. Sacks was and will continue to be a wake-up call for me. I am alive. I am breathing. Get up. Try again. You're remarkable in your abnormality. Don't be afraid to celebrate the strangeness of it all.Follow A. N. Devers on Twitter.