Sunday, March 25, 2012

My Brain, My Pain by Jennifer D.

ipad pics 020The next four entries will be about my experience with the pain of migraines. For twenty years, I was mistreated for an array of psychiatric disorders that I did not have. I actually had a pituitary tumor in my brain that caused an imbalance of hormones. The fluctuating hormones mimicked mood swings and anxiety. They were misinterpreted as bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I was prescribed a multitude of psychotropic drugs, which I responded negatively to. Instead of helping,this compounded my problems. Over the 20 years, I was tried on fifty plus medications. I suffered severely from side effects, which the doctors then added more medications. I was in and out of psychiatric hospitals nearly 15 times for up to 30 days each. Three years ago, I was so drugged that I began falling. I had a mild closed head injury that started a migraine cycle that hasn't stopped. The MRI after the head injury showed that the pituitary tumor was now only slit like. I got a new team of doctors who weaned me off of all of the psychotropic medications, and amazingly I got so much better mood wise. Unfortunately, the migraines have not been easy to control. With my past exposure to medications, typical medications are not effective at normal doses. But, I can't tolerate the side effects at higher doses either.

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