Questions for those who suffer migraines.

There are already a lot of reason to not support Michele Bachmann, but I am not convinced that suffering migraine headaches is one of them. How debilitating are they? How much medicine does one need to keep them under control? Is this something that would prevent one from effectively discharging the duties of President?

You might want to read this whole article:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1528222

She suffers from 'stress' and she takes THREE different medications.

I have migraines and you don't get THREE different medicines, it is normal to take 'one'.

But I also get some major-league sinus headaches and pseudo-ephidrene (which is a pain in the ass to get anymore) is the only thing that works.

Sounds like something straight out of a movie. Also sounds more like drug-seeking behavior than a true illness. I wonder if her husband the "doctor" is an enabler. It might also explain her bling loyalty and obedience to him.

Slight pain in the a**. Much better than the 'substitute.'

I had migraines. They were debilitating. They ended when I got older.

But, back then there weren't any really good medications for them. The doctor would give me some sort of shot every once in a while. But the migraine would return after the shot wore off.

Finally, I learned to sort of feel warmth going to my hands and feet and utterly relax. That helped more than medication.

Drinking a lot of milk seemed to make the migraines worse. May have been coincidence.

Anyway, my migraines simply vanished with time. But I had 3 a week at one point. They make you very irritable and passive and very, very tired.

Can't concentrate, light bothers her...doesn't want to be bothered by anyone. She has spent whole weekends in bed.

Much depends on how severe Bachmann's are. (If this is what is going on)

From my experience and knowing friends who have them migraines can vary from just being a really bad nuisance headache to being completely debilitating, vomit inducing pain with visual effects that prevent reading or driving. Sometimes the sufferer will get a warning - visual halos, a precursor ache, or some other sign that a migraine is coming.

If that happens there are medications that can help some people to reduce the severity. I am not familiar with the medications or any side effects they might have. By the time those came out, I had learned how to limit my life and deal with my migraines.

Some migraines are triggered by foods or environmental things. One of my friends has migraines that are triggered by MSG and similar compounds. She has to be very careful about what foods she eats and seldom eats out because of the fear that she will get one of her triggers. My friend is an attorney and she works for the state, earning much less than she could if she could handle private practice. But when her migraines appear she can't deal with more challenging work. She now mostly works from home, which saves her from some of the environmental triggers that cause migraines.

My migraines were hormone related. I finally got rid of them once my uterus and ovaries were removed. It took over thirty years for me to convince a doctor that was direct cause of my migraines and it wasn't until I began a very debilitating menopause that they would finally do the operation I wanted when I was 25 and had already been suffering for twelve years.

My business suffered from my migraines. I was unable to function when they were bad. Between 1990 and 2002 when I finally was rid of them, it got so the migraines took four to eight days out of each month. I had to rely on my hubby to handle the business when that happened. If I had to function I could, but it was at a diminished capacity. And my migraines were not the vomit inducing ones my friend has.

Only Michele Bachmann can know if her migraines would interfere with her ability to function. But even without that I do not believe she has the ability to be President. With any added handicap such as frequent migraines, she is NOT than able, IMO.

In fact, the second OB-GYN I consulted told me I was imagining it and told me to just live with it. She also blew off all the other problems I was having. As a result, I did not go to another OB-GYN for over twenty years.

Even if I had known, given the other symptoms I was having and just starting the menopause from hell, I would have gone the same route sooner if I could have convinced a doctor to do the operation.

For many female migraine sufferers, life begins at menopause.

And so do I.

One SIL can't function well at all. She typically ends up in the ER twice a month. She can't afford any sort of prescription coverage, so hers aren't tamped down by medication.

The other SIL has insurance and medication. She ducks out of life now and then for a few hours, but she has managed to hold a job as a teacher for many years.

I average one a year, rarely two. I can usually spot one, and I simply duck out too. I go to the bedroom, pull the drapes and ban noise of any kind. Sometimes I get very light sensitive and sometime relief comes from puking. Only twice have I had to go to the ER for a shot of morphine, and that's been more than a decade ago. Those two times I recall clearly. I would've taken a shot in the head, frankly. Anything for relief.

It'll vary from person to person. I wouldn't let migraines be my determining factor in my vote. She appears to be bat shit crazy, and that is enough to not vote for her.

He said that Bachmann appears to be on an 'abortive' med that is taken before onset to mitigate the effects.

There also is a prophylactic med, he said, that is taken daily to prevent or mitigate episodes.

He also dislosed, at the end, that he is a migraine sufferer.

It appears that for most people, this affliction is controllable and should not be a bar to serving as President.

Unfortunately for Bachmann, the meds can't help her crazy thoughts (and EYES!) or her loose mouth.

If she was suffering from 'only' migraines then she wouldn't be "shuttled in and out of emergency and urgent care".

Interesting article here: http://www.politicususa.com/en/michele-bachmann-incapacitated-valley-doll


p.s. I suffer from very severe debilitating migraines and I've never been shuttled in and out of emergency and urgent care - and there there have been many times that I thought my head would explode and that I'd die.

I rarely have headaches, but even my 'ordinary' kind are painful and I wouldn't wish them on anyone.

I don't make too much of Bachmann's affliction because that's not the real problem with her: it's what she says and does. We don't need to resort to some claim of incapacity to subvert her.

Besides that, I woud hope that we wouldn't disparage people with such afflictions to make a case against her.

Excedrine works for me. In fact I keep big bottles of it everywhere:at home, at work, in vehicles, etc. I take 2 or 3 in the morning as a preventative. They are easier to prevent or deal with early than once they get rolling.I deal with them and still do my job.

I have found a trigger for mine though (hormones!) so now I'm on the birth control pill - one that is not triphasic so the hormone dose is the same. I take it constantly (I don't go off once a month) with a 1 week break every 6 months.

Before I figured out my trigger, I got visual auras mostly. It was debilitating because I couldn't SEE! It was usually over in 30 minutes or so and I was lucky enough it never happened while I was driving, but they were scary. I'd have to go lie down when I got the aura. I would only get the headaches sometimes, and always after the aura. Those weren't so bad, they hurt but tylenol or advil made them bearable. I was getting them 2-3 times a week until we figured out my trigger. I wasn't on any other meds for it before and now it's just the pill. I only get them once or twice a year now.

So I'd say if she has them under control, like I do, they wouldn't prevent her at all from her duties. From what I've heard though, it sounds like they are totally out of control. Since mine are mild and I can't function through the aura part of it, if hers are more severe I would say it may very well mean she wouldn't be able to conduct all her duties. We'll see how she makes it through the primary. If she can do that, she's probably okay, if god forbid (OMG, who'd have thought this would EVER be happening with HER?!) she wins.

He used to take Alka-Seltzer just when he got the flash. I don't have them, so I don't know if this would work, but if it helps some, I'm glad I could help. Plus I'm curious if it does work.

I have severe mgraines (classic and optic); before I was put on Topamax, I had perhaps 5 migraine-free days a month. Severe stress, lack of sleep and some other things can still trigger a mgraine, but now I only have one or two a month. I take two meds daily to prevent migraines.

I used to take Maltex, Imitrex injections, Fioricet (still use that) and any other non-NSAID pretty often. Lived on Exedrin.

Migraines are bad enough (so I'm told), but cluster headaches are the most evil sumbitches on the face of the Earth. If there's any worse pain, I don't want to know about it. If Bachmann suffers from cluster headaches, as opposed to migraines, she can be truly said to be incapacitated.

Some people get them on a monthly basis, "lucky" types can go several years between attacks.

Moreover, the usual pharmaceuticals (known as abortives and expensive to the tune of $20-$25 per pill) prescribed for cluster headaches can be dangerous to one's heart if taken more than twice in 24 hours. But when you are in the grip of a cluster headache, you do not care about this part; you would embrace Death if it stopped the pain.

After a cluster headache, after you've had your pill(s) and the demon has gone away until next time, the surface of your head can feel like somebody has beaten it. And you're weakened from the experience to the point where you sure don't feel like dealing with your job.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000786.htm

I would encourage Bachmann to do the same.

When I first heard about this story I thought it was absolute shit. "We should be above this," I told myself. Then I did some more reading and discovered that, like me, Ms. Bachmann has had a difficult medical history with regard to her migraines, or at least that's what the records show.

So I put myself into the position of President, and I thought about it. Would I, someone who has a history of "status migraines" (Google and feel better about your life), someone with multiple migraine triggers, be able to effectively and faithfully discharge the duties of the President?

I hate to admit this, but the answer is "no". Three days with limited or no sleep and high stress? I wouldn't be functional...hell I wouldn't be communicative. Two to three instances of that and I'd be begging for the Secret Service to shoot me.

So I think it's valid to at least raise the question of "will this obviously difficult medical history of migraines prevent her from being an effective President?" But while it's valid to ask the question, we shouldn't jump to any conclusions, because as you can see from the responses to this thread, migraines vary from person to person.

The real problem now is, would you (or anyone) trust her if she said she had them under control?