When I have migraines, my senses become hyper-acute – light, smells, sounds, tastes, sensation are all too much. Sometimes, though, I sense things that aren’t actually there. I often smell smoke or exhaust when there isn’t any. Coffee tastes peppery. And I can hear an indistinct conversation even when there aren’t any people nearby.
It’s enough to make me feel like I’m going crazy sometimes.
I’ve complained about having migraines here before, but I haven’t talked much about how I expect them to affect me in the future. Part of that is because it terrifies me. As an undergraduate with classes that aren’t too challenging and teachers that don’t mind letting me make up tests, migraines don’t really hurt anything other than my head.
So it’s easy for me to not think about the future too much. Last week was an exception. I was attending a workshop by a fancypants scientist who makes very pretty models. The last day, we all gave informal presentations on the model we’d been working on and got lots of really good feedback from the class and Dr. Fancypants. I had a migraine and had to leave – so no advice on my model.
What will I do when I’m teaching classes? Or have lots of important meetings? Or just have to deal with a heavier workload?
There are places I can live where my migraines will be less severe, but I think one migraine a month is the best I can hope for. And I won’t know for sure until I’ve lived in a place for a few months. My current concern is broaching the subject with potential graduate advisors.
Part of me knows this isn’t going to be as serious a problem as I fear it will be. A successful and well-respected scientist in my field invited me to check out her lab when I applied for graduate school – and she has a chronic illness, too. But most of the time I’m afraid this is going to really hurt my chances.
I know I asked for your advice just yesterday, but I need your help again, readers! If you’re in a position to take on grad students, would you consider taking on a student with a chronic illness that would certainly impact their productivity? Under what conditions? If you aren’t in a position to take on grad students, are you or do you know a grad student/post-doc/prof with a chronic illness? How do they do it – what are their coping strategies? What sorts of things seem to be more difficult for them because of the illness? Do other people think less of them or complain when they’re sick?
Finding effective treatments for Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses has become much more difficult. As usual, it’s all about the money:
The problem, they say, started back in 1980, when Ronald Reagan changed the rules governing how scientists (and the entities they work for) profit from their work. Where scientists used to gain fame and fortune by publishing and sharing their work in conferences and journals — and were thus rewarded for furthering general knowledge — the new rules encouraged them to hoard their discoveries as trade secrets; and then leverage their patents and their seats on medical boards to write the disease definitions, mandate approved treatments, and completely control the scientific discourse in order to maximize the profits they made.
This story shows we need to make very big changes to how we deal with chemicals and their effects in the workplace. Right now, workers must prove that a specific chemical caused their problem. This is often absolutely impossible to do. Perhaps a better system would be to hold the employer responsible if workers exposed to a certain chemical show symptoms of exposure to that chemical. It would certainly encourage employers to be more responsible and careful about exposing their employees to dangerous chemicals.
Best review of Watchmen
Dr. Isis takes on more sexism in science, specifically this frustratingly common misconception: one of the requirements of scientist-hood is a lack of femininity or sexuality.
A guest at Shakesville on adoption, abortion, and choice:
I’m the birth mother of an adopted child, vehemently pro-choice, non-Christian, very unsuited to motherhood, and after over a decade, have got some things to tell the world about adoption. It’s been stewing since I heard about the recent rash of pre-abortion ultrasound legislation. While I am touched that so many men in such various states are so deeply worried about women possibly being all sad from having an abortion, I wish to point out to these compassionately bleeding hearts that the alternatives are not exactly without their own emotional consequences.
Holy crap. The world O Magazine has actually acknowledged that lesbians and bisexuals actually exist and that gender and sexuality are, well, complicated.
Freedomgirl writes about her experience with marriage:
After the wedding, this circle of people treated us differently. Our relationship was more serious, our status was higher. People pressured us about having children, buying a house.
All well and good. But we were doing this thing without understanding the whole story. We aren’t straight. There is nothing we can do to pass in the everyday world as mainstream and ordinary without denying some fundamental facts about who we are. Which is precisely what we did for a long time.
Most depressing evidence yet of America’s failure to educate its citizens: Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. via Bad Astronomy.
Have I mentioned how much I love A Softer World?
VOLCANO!!!!
A good take-down of the “morality comes from god” idea:
I haven’t posted on how the Petadolex is working in a few weeks, but I have still been keeping track of it. Here’s an updated graph. It’s looking hopeful! It might be having an effect.
It’s time for your weekly migraine update! I’ve been on Petadolex for a week now. Side effects: if I burp after I take my pill, it tastes bad. Nothing like the hair loss, parathesia, or difficulty concentrating I’ve come to expect from migraine meds.
Things have gone about the same as last week, though I’ve had a cold and a few sinus headaches that have almost certainly helped trigger my migraines. The weather’s still bad, too. Right now I’m looking at a foot of snow through a thick curtain of still falling snow and wondering where my desert went.
December 10 – December 16
Days with headache: 6
Cloudy/snowy/rainy days: 4
I wrote a few days ago that I was going to start treating my migraines again and that I’m trying a medicine called Petadolex. Today was my first day taking it. I might not see effects for 3 months, which, in my experience, is typical for migraine preventatives.
I’ve been keeping a headache journal so that I’ll be able to tell if it’s actually helping, especially if my migraine frequency is only reduced by a small percentage. I’m going to be giving weekly updates. I’ll be recording days with headache and cloudy/rainy/snowy days, which are my major migraine trigger. What I hope to see is a decrease in days with headache, regardless of the number of days with bad weather.
December 3 – December 9
Days with headache: 5
Cloudy/snowy/rainy days: 4
My migraines are triggered primarily by pressure changes, especially pressure drops. So things like a change in elevation, flying, and weather changes are terrible for me. I’m living in a place much drier than I used to, and my migraines are much better – several a month as opposed to one almost all day every day. But they’ve been getting worse lately. Maybe being stressed is triggering more. Maybe my body has adapted to this climate and is getting migraines with ever smaller pressure changes. Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to start treating my migraines again.
I would like to go to a neurologist, but there is no way I can afford that right now. And since my insurance doesn’t cover prescription drugs, it’s unlikely I’d be able to afford any medication a neurologist prescribed either.
I’m going to try a drug available without a prescription called Petadolex. It’s manufactured by a German pharmaceutical company and is subject to strict regulations. Petadolex is an extract of butterbur, has extremely rare and very mild side effects, is relatively affordable, and most importantly, has been shown to reduce migraine frequency.
I’ve started keeping a headache diary again and will start taking Petadolex in the next couple weeks. I’ll give it 2 or 3 months. Keep your fingers crossed, or better yet, donate to the college fund using the paypal donate button in the sidebar. Petadolex is inexpensive by migraine medication standards, but will still cost me about $75/month.
So I need to start taking a certain medication again. I was on this drug for quite some time several years ago, then off it for the past few. I was hoping I’d never have to take it again, but my body has other ideas.
The only health insurance I can afford is through the school ($1500/year), and it doesn’t have prescription drug coverage. Unfortunately, the medication I need to take is between $200 and $300/month. That’s between $2400 and $3600/year. And I cannot afford that no matter how I try to make the numbers work.
I wonder how soon Obama’s going to get universal healthcare off the ground?
I’ve got two tests in the next few hours that I haven’t studied for enough because I’ve had a migraine almost every day for the past 3 weeks.
***UPDATE***
That didn’t go very badly at all 
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