the seriousness of migraines

I don't know Ali. Where do you live? I don't think it would be nearly as hard in Minnesota where I live. Anybody who lives here know?

I know I've thought about it. I look at my statement from SS and the disability payments are only $800/month for me. I can't live on that even if I did get it.

I don't know what the requirements are as the money alone wouldn't do any good.

I live in California which is ironic since we give welfare and free medical care to anyone who comes into the State, especially illegals. But I try to get Health Insurance through the County... I'm not poor enough or sick enough. How can you say I'm not sick enough??? Because I drag myself to work every day so I can keep a roof over my head? It's ridiculous.

Hi All,

Strangley, the fact that constant migraines adversely effect the brain is not surprising to me. Migraine directly effects the brain and yes, after years of pain, I'm sure it causes damage. It has taken a lot of my life.

As to disability, I think there is a huge misconception about how disabling constant migraines are. Most people think they are just bad headaches. They couldn't be more wrong.

Pain free days,
sailingm

Alli - and I thought Minnesota was the welfare, free medical, etc. etc. capitol of the US. There are a lot of healthy people living off the government that should be working. That is the problem. Just because you are a responsible, dependable hard working person with a work ethic doesn't mean you feel good. We are earning out own way.

Oh no California is the welfare capital in the US. We have 17% of the US population of about 32% of US welfare recipients. It's sad. And they wonder why we can't balance our budget. Between welfare and state pensions, we are being bled dry.

And people like me are left high and dry.

Imo, for the people that have severe migraines the health care budget doesnt mean a thing

In Russia, medical care is free but its quality... well... I don't think they spend 1/10th of what California does and I'd have to be on death bed to actually agree on hospitalization.

Also, they just don't prescribe anything special and doctors here are pretty much cluesless of migraine treatment, hell, I look like medical professor compared to most of them ^^

So it's pretty much like this : unless they find a reason and develop a cure we're stuck on random guessing the best way to treat our problems ourselves however good or bad health care budget is >_<

It kind of makes sense to me. Say you have something going on that is trying to make your blood vessles exapnd. You take, say, caffeine, and the vessles shrink. But when it wears off, the underlying process is still there and the blood vessels expand more quickly as they "catch up" to their destined state than if you hadn't had the caffeine.

THe above is a quote from charmed quark. I can't get quotes to work in certain browsers.
Triptans work the same way, they shrink blood vessels.

I'm confused about the whole concept of SS disability.

When I look at the SS disability website, it doesn't mention specific diseases, only a person's ability to work at a given type of job job. So if a person is unable to do heavy phycial labor due to a disease or injury, they would be diabled in terms of, say, contruction, but might be retrained for a desk job. If it is impossible for them even to sit at a desk, they might be declared totally disabled.

I know at least one person here in NJ who is on complete disability even though she has no diagnosed disease. She is very sick with some sort of chronic disease, it's just that nobody can figure out what it is.

I would assume disability from migraine is the same.

I wish I could blame it on migraines, but my memory started going way before they showed up. I think it is called being over 40. There was a good study recently that found the best preventative against dementia is walking 6-9 miles per week. If only they had found something easier.

I, too, have noticed increasing short term memory loss over the past few years. I've had M's for almost 35 years ( since I was 8 years old) and have run the gambit with every kind of preventative out there, with little to no results. I'm due for another MRI at my next neuro visit in a few weeks, so I'll be curious to bring this up & to see if any lesions are there. Hopefully not, but it wouldn't surprise me at this point.

Thanks for the info - I e-mailed the link to my neurologist as well, although I'm sure he already is on top of it!! Take care all & here's to pain-free days for all of us!!

Janice

janmil, everyone gets white patches on their brain throughout their life whether they get migs or not so dont worry about the mri.