Ok, so the details of this story are going to seem a bit jumbled… because in my mind they were a bit jumbled… because when you have a serious migraine attack, they are always a bit jumbled…
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It was Easter time, and I had a bad migraine. Not really shocking, but not great. It was early in the morning, but I couldn’t stomach breakfast, so I went to bed… but the room was stinking hot and too bright. I went to the TV room instead where the blinds do a better job of blocking out the sunshine and lay on the cool leatherette couch. My husband said he would take the kids out for the day and go to the Easter Show. I was grateful the house would be empty and quiet. I vaguely remember waving goodbye from the couch.
Not long after they left, the migraine got a lot worse. The medicine wasn’t working and I was struggling to walk from the couch to the bathroom, one half of my body felt like I had suffered a stroke. I wasn’t scared… as someone with hemiplegic migraine, this had happened before. The problem was, however, that each time I lay on the couch, the concrete roof above me would fall on my head, crushing my skull… no matter how many times I reached up, I was unable to push it away and free myself from the pressure…
I started to become distressed, I was struggling to breathe… I was being crushed after all… so I would stand up… limp to the bathroom where the roof wasn’t caving in… but then my legs would give way; I needed to rest… I crawled back to the couch… waited for the roof to collapse again.
Eventually some part of my mind decided I was dying; I needed to call for help. I knew my family were overseas, so they couldn’t help, so I would have to call for an ambulance. I have vague recollections of crawling around on the lounge room floor trying to call 911 on a TV remote control (although in Australia it’s 000). No one answered my call.
I think that I wept in a ball on the floor until I fell into a coma-like-sleep.
When I woke up, an hour or ten later, the crushing sensation was gone. I no longer felt like I was dying. BUT something felt terribly wrong in my mouth.
About two days later, the migraine had lifted enough that I was able to drive myself to the dentist. Even without an x-ray he was able to see that three of my teeth were broken.
Because it was a week before Christmas, he advised me that he wouldn’t be able to do the three crowns before the office closed, so he placed metal bands around the three teeth to hold them together until the new year.
Over the next few months, at 3 hours a sitting, and several thousand dollars later, I had three crowns placed on my teeth. By the third tooth I was jokily-complaining that I should have my own carpark in the basement beside his! He then made me a mouthguard to wear to bed at night to protect my new teeth, wished me well and cashed my checks.
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Looking back, I can’t untangle the chicken-and-egg conundrum that was the pain of that day. Was the migraine agony so bad that I broke three molars as I clenched my teeth and bit down against the pain? Or was my biting down on my teeth increasing the pain in my head and making the migraine worse? Or was it a doom-spiral of one leading to the other, increasing the other, making the other worse still…
One thing I do know… it was the worst migraine I have ever had; a 10 out of 10 on my pain-scale.
Since then, I still wear a mouthguard to bed – every night of the week AND every time I go to bed with a migraine attack – to protect the porcelain crowns I have, and my other natural teeth from further damage.
What’s telling about the attack, (from my curious point of view anyway), is how much of a mess there was in the details. How did Christmas become Easter? Why was the bedroom already stinking hot at breakfast time? How did my kids going to a local show send them overseas? Why was a TV remote control mistaken for a phone? Why call 911 not 000? Why was I convinced I was being crushed to death when I lay down, yet capable to seek refuge by walking into another room?
Without sounding silly about it, I would have stood before a judge and sworn on the Bible that these were the truths, the whole truths, and nothing but the truths of the event… until I realized they weren’t.
A migraine is NOT just a bad headache – it is a neurological condition that unleashes a storm of cascading chaos throughout your brain and body… it’s not fun and it’s not pretty… and sometimes (sigh) it ‘aint cheap… even if all you do is “lie around all day”.
If you get migraines – I see you – and I’m sorry – write to me if you want a shoulder to digitally cry on.
If you don’t – here’s hoping you never do… but if you do… consider purchasing a mouthguard!
Take care taking care, Linda xx
The Mindful Migraine 
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