Three days lost

14 Jun, 2017 by Barry 4 Comments

There are two conditions that conspire to make my life difficult at times. One is considered a mental disorder by the medical profession although I hope that in time this attitude will change. Once homosexuality was considered a disorder by the medical profession, and when I was a child, left handedness was certainly treated as punishable condition.

How times have changed. Today we understand that what is considered “normal” is in many cases, just the bulge in a bell curve of human variability, and one doesn’t need to be “cured” if one tends to be at either end of the curve.

Of course I’m referring to autism. While autism has its challenges, most of those challenges are because of the way other people, in other words “society”, respond to how I exhibit aspects of autism. While I think autism awareness is ideal in theory, I’m afraid that awareness isn’t accompanied by understanding. In Western culture, it seems that it’s being demonised as an epidemic; something that needs to eradicated, even to the point where the desire to  eradicate the person with autism is seen as understandable, although thankfully not condoned. This must change.

The other condition, and the one that has had the most effect on me over the last few days, is considered a disorder, by the medical profession, and with which I heartily concur, is migraine. Having been laid low by a particularly painful attack that has kept me in a darkened room for three days, unable to eat, think rationally or coherent thoughts, I would like nothing better than for science to find a cure, or even to reduce the severity, frequency and duration of attacks. Looking at the Migraine Buddy app on my phone, I see the following statistics for the last 31 days:

No. of attacks:	14
Average attack duration:	32 hrs 25 mins
Attack days:	27
Attack-free days:	4
Pain Intensity (1 – 10 scale)	Minimum: 3 Average: 6.3 Maximum: 9

The three most common symptoms (apart from pain) are sensitivity to light and noise, and Tinnitus. These occurred in every attack. However following symptoms occurred in at least half of attacks: Aphasia, giddiness, sensitivity to smells, fatigue, blurred vision, blind spots, ataxia, and confusion, with nausea occurring in only six of the attacks. Distorted spatial awareness, hemiparesis, tremors, dysarthria, and facial numbness occurred in five attacks. There are a few other less common symptoms, but I think the list is long enough as it is.

While the frequency and duration of attacks are a little up on a normal month, it’s not by much. Migraines do limit what I can do and it means that I’m not able to make definite plans. Everything depends on my condition at the time. It means that I’m often seen as “unreliable” because I can’t commit to being at a particular place at a particular time.

Even blogging has to go by the wayside during a migraine, as I’m unable to string a coherent paragraph together, and I’m unable to perform even the basics of proof reading during many attacks.

Currently I’m in the postdrome phase of the last migraine. This means that although the throbbing head pain is gone, it still feels like I’ve been hit by a bus, and I’m not sure how coherent my writing is. The postdrome phase can take as long as a day, sometimes longer,  to finally fade away, but at least, that little guy with the sledgehammer who has been so busy inside my skull for the last 3 days has gone for now. For that I’m extremely grateful.