Candy Meacham

Breathing room

Over and over again, I find that extricating myself from a nearsighted focus on my own life, preoccupations with illness, politics or family problems, gives me space to let go and breathe in other possibilities.  With a little distance from daily pain, I can re-orient, think about the world around me and make room to appreciate people, ideas, nature and more.

This sort of opening up is a huge relief.  Ultimately I can then come back home, so to speak, allow myself to imagine other outcomes and better understand what my own next step might be.

Continue reading “Another Country”

Comparing myself

I sit in my brown swivel chair in the kitchen, with a headache, day 3 in a row after a couple of busy, people-intensive days earlier in the week.  I feel listless and blank as I finally give in to the overwhelming desire to take a serious break.

Continue reading “Not Guilty”

Something we never talk about

Abuse is common and occurs worldwide.  It can be physical, emotional or sexual, and it also includes neglect.  There is a strong association between a history of childhood maltreatment on the one hand and migraine and other chronic pain disorders on the other.  This article by researcher Gretchen Tietjen is a good summary of the issue.  http://www.medicaldaily.com/emotional-abuse-childhood-migraines-391660

Continue reading “Migraine Linked to Abuse”

Retreat

It’s 6:00 am when my head prods me awake with a burning pain at the top of my skull.  I roll out of bed and make it to the bathroom, the only stop on my way to a prolonged sequestration in my bolt hole.  Sometimes I can tolerate a cup of black tea but not now.

Continue reading “Chronic Migraine is Boring”

Have you tried………?

Somewhere on the long, winding road we travel seeking a remedy for our migraine pain, most of us resort to so-called alternative treatments.  We tend to pigeonhole curatives such as acupuncture, rolfing, homeopathy and cannabis as “out there,” unproven, therefore worth less than the pills and surgeries prescribed by our doctors.  Yet we all have much to learn from the health and spiritual practices that come to us from the East and elsewhere around the globe:  acupuncture, Tai chi and Qigong from China, Buddhist spiritual practices from Japan and Tibet, ayurveda and yoga from India, Native American healing from throughout the Americas, and more.

Continue reading “Alternative Treatments”

We are 10 min. north of Santa Cruz, California, on a magnificent stretch of Hwy 1, heading toward San Francisco on our way home to Washington State.  Looking out to sea, I spot a blue black slice slipping under the off-shore wind waves followed by the unmistakable blow of a second whale.  I feel a moment of supreme satisfaction.

Continue reading “Hypersensitivity”

Disconnected

I live my life in staccato, each day discrete and disconnected from the last, separated by episodes of head pain and nausea. Thinking, the other day, about this particular piece of my struggle with migraine, a memory came to mind – of a zoetrope, a 19th century optical toy my husband built years ago for our kids.

Continue reading “Staccato”

And making it to my son’s wedding

It’s May, and my youngest son’s wedding is just around the corner.  Noisy, crowded social events often precede a severe migraine headache, and I’m afraid of ending up in bed, missing one of the most important days in my son’s life.

Continue reading “Facing My Fear”

Aging and migraine

When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine, Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I’d been out till quarter to three Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?
    The Beetles

Continue reading “When I’m 64…”

New in January 2016

This new “machine” is a portable, single-pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (sTMS) device.

It has been approved by the FDA “for acute treatment of pain associated with migraine headache with aura.”  From the manual, “The SpringTMS is intended for self-treatment and delivers a non-invasive, brief, single pulse of magnetic energy to the back of the head.  This creates a brief electrical current in the brain intended to stop or reduce the effects of migraine headaches.”  These mild electrical currents excite and depolarize neurons in the brain.  They inhibit CSD or cortical spreading depression and thus have the potential to terminate aura and subsequent headache.

Continue reading “SpringTMS”