ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
I was just now donating on behalf of our entire family to ALS.org because I support causes here and there. But because we live in southern California where we are experiencing a drought, none of us will be pouring water over our heads when not absolutely necessary. Not to mention that there’s no way I’d let ice hit me like that with my sensitive migraine head. I can’t imagine what we’d use for a challenge for migraine awareness….a hot poker through the eye, a vice around the head, watching a strobe light with your eyelids pinned open, a trumpet playing directly in your ear, someone blowing cigarette smoke up your nose….
I’ve been doing much better migraine-wise, but there are SO many people suffering daily from debilitating pain. Many of them don’t have money to cover meds nor do they have access to migraine specialists, and their primary care doctors don’t take them seriously. Hospitals treat us like drug seekers and turn away very sick people at risk for stroke just because they can’t “prove” that we have an illness. Insurance companies usually limit migraine abortive to 9 per month so at our worst, we run out all the time and have to ration them in the hopes of making it the next 30 days. Pain medications can cause rebound headaches, addictions and make some unable to hold a job, yet the government doesn’t consider Migraine Disease a legitimate reason to get disability, and therefore sufferers have to go through an additional hell just to get approved (sometimes having to incur even more expenses by hiring lawyers!)
It is an incredibly complex situation, but education, as always, can help. If you know someone who suffers from migraines, please educate yourself and others so that the stigma of this disease is reduced and people start taking it seriously enough to donate time and money to finding the cause and then possibly a cure.
