#Mhambc Day 24 - A True Fighter - http://thequirkyfox.blogspot.com

"Fighter" Have your Migraines or Headaches made you a fighter?: Watch the Christina Aguilera video below and listen to the song lyrics. How have your Migraines or Headaches made you a fighter?

How have Migraines made me a fighter? For starters, having to fight through pain all of the time sort of makes you tough. After each migraine I feel drained and worn out. The toll it takes on me physically and mentally is taxing. Yet at the same time, for some reason that I cannot explain, I feel a little bit invincible. I think to myself things like,

"Do you know what you just endured?"
"Not everyone can deal with your pain like you can."
"You're pretty bad ass because that was horrific and you survived it."

Each migraine attack I face and the countless days in between that are filled with prodome and postdrome symptoms have all pushed me to want something better. And why shouldn't I fight? The last I checked, no one was willingly offering up help, support or money to make my pain more manageable. So it must be me who takes the lead. Time and time again I have tried to conquer this disease and many times I have been beaten down. But I always continue to pick myself up, dust off the defeat and try again. I may not feel 100% sure of what I am doing and I might be skeptical of the outcome but I keep going regardless of how it will turn out in the end. If I don't try then I can't be that upset about not getting better.

For instance, today I had an appointment to get Botox to manage my chronic migraine. I first tried Botox five years ago. The locations of the injections and the number given was very different. I would always get severe stiff necks and migraines for a week after each round with no decrease in the number of migraines per month. I was very disappointed that it didn't work. Since that was a bust, I tried acupuncture, meditation, acupressure, and also took pain management classes. I got some great tools to add to my toolkit from those efforts but nothing that truly helped in the larger scheme of my migraines. Giving up was not an option so I started seeing a pain management specialist. He had me try nerve blocks that didn't work and at one point he seemed defeated in his attempts to help me. After feeling like I had come to the end of the road, he offered to do a trial run with a neurostimulator. Thankfully, that was very successful and the process was started to get a permanent system. I was elated to have controllable and non-medicinal pain management. My insurance company wasn't so much. They denied the referral and put me through a four month appeals process. I was not going to let them deny me the right to the health care that I deserve, need and pay for. They acquiesced and sent me to a neurosurgeon that they would cover to perform the surgery. No, it was not my pain management specialist but it turned out for the best. Dr. Levine was more experienced, better trained, and had a great reputation in my area. It all worked out for the best.

That was three years ago. During the time since then I have had many ups and downs with the neurostimulator and frequent trips to the ER and urgent care that lead to a suicide attempt. Although that was a very bad thing to go through, what came out of it was something I wouldn't have considered otherwise. I was basically forced off of all the medications I was on. That alone made me feel better. My therapist then referred me to her friend who is a bioenergetic practitioner. She agreed to help me and through her I have been able to make huge strides in my health. My fibromyalgia is in remission and the frequency of migraine attacks has gone down some. My neurostimulator works even better without all of the medications in my system. I no longer am content with putting grup band aids on my health problems. Healing my body as a whole is my goal now. All of these things has brought me here to today, where I am open to trying something that failed me before. The circumstances for why I am getting Botox again are very different. I am not dependent on medications and my body is in a different place than it was five years ago. I have fought through much adversity and change to earn my place here. It just wasn't time for me to have success with it back then. I had to go through what I went through and make the necessary changes I needed to make in order to arrive at this juncture in my life. I had to fight my way through it all to end up where I am.

My neurologist sent me to Dr. Shamim for the injections and he is directly in line with my approach to healing. We were on the same wavelength and he completely agreed that it begins and ends with how we treat our bodies. Pain can be managed if you are willing to do what it takes to manage it. The answer isn't always in a pill or a shot. We have to make sure that what we do in our everyday lives and how we nurture ourselves creates an atmosphere where healing is better achieved. I feel pretty good about what will come of this. The less medical intervention I need the better. Every day I focus on the bigger picture, which is overall health and happiness. With the right mindset and attainable goals, I will continue to make progress toward less pain. There will still be obstacles and I will surely get knocked down a few more times, but I will always get back up because this woman refuses to be defeated.