Retirement: probably not going to happen

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Retirement calculators suggest I need to be saving 75% of my current annual income to be prepared for retirement. That’s not remotely possible at my income level.

A minimum wage worker with full time hours in my situation would need to save 42% of their income. Someone making the living wage for my area would need to save 22% of their income. A median wage worker in my area would need to save 21% of their income.

Given that a living wage doesn’t leave room for retirement or any other kinds of savings, let alone debt payments, and that many people don’t even make a living wage, it’s no wonder most Americans are utterly fucked when it comes to retirement.

What really bites is that if I’d been able to take all the money that I paid (and am still paying) for school and my health over the last 12 years or so and stick it in a retirement account, I’d never have to save another penny.

Catch

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When you have to eat fresh, unprocessed food or risk triggering a migraine attack, but you are frequently and unpredictably* unable to cook or eat for days at a time because of migraine attacks.

* I say unpredictably, but I suspect a strong correlation with the day I need to cook something or it starts to go off.

A few kinds of visual disturbance common with migraine aura

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Papanague [subject #46], Disturbed "visual snow" vision, 2006. © 2006 Papanague

Papanague [subject #46], Disturbed “visual snow” vision, 2006. © 2006 Papanague

Most of the time at least part of my visual field is continuous TV-static-like tiny flickering dots. Sometimes it expands to cover my entire visual field. This is officially called visual snow. I always thought it was part of my migraines. Perhaps it is. But it turns out that visual snow can occur independently of migraine. If you do have visual snow and migraine aura, this increases your likelihood for a whole host of fun visual weirdnesses!

Like:

  • palinopsia: the persistence or recurrence of a visual image after the stimulus has been removed
  • spontaneous photopsia: the presence of perceived flashes of light when nothing is actually happening?
  • photophobia: THE LIGHT IT BURNS
  • nyctalopia: night blindness

I get all of these except the night blindness. Luckily, most are non-existent to background noise outside of a migraine, though the visual snow gets annoying fast when I try to meditate. If I focus on it the wrong way, it gives me a migraine :/

Any visual snow, etc with your migraine?

Headache. 2014 Jun;54(6):957-66. The relation between migraine, typical migraine aura and “visual snow”. Schankin CJ, Maniyar FH, Sprenger T, Chou DE, Eller M, Goadsby PJ.

GLP-2 and leptin are associated with hyperinsulinemia in non-obese female migraineurs.

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GLP-2 and leptin are associated with hyperinsulinemia in non-obese female migraineurs.

Hyperinsulinemia is a condition in which there are excess levels of insulin circulating in the blood relative to the level of glucose. While it is often mistaken for diabetes or hyperglycaemia, hyperinsulinemia can result from a variety of metabolic diseases and conditions. [wikipedia]

Typically, hyperinsulinemia is associated with obesity.

Interesting here that 1) it’s happening in non-obese migraineurs 2) there’s A LOT of food stuff around migraine – eating the wrong food, not eating at the right time, not eating regularly enough, weight gain associated with migraines, etc.