A question of ethics

Just something random that I have been thinking about lately:

Do you fear passing migraine onto your children?
I do, and it makes me question if I want to have kids or not. I don't know if I could stand seeing my own child suffer as I do (I know my parents hate to see me in such pain). Migraine runs in my family, though nobody has had them as worse as I.
I'm sure every person with a genetic disease asks themselves this same question. I have never thought about it before or looked it up online, but I know many people on here do have children so I'm curious to hear what you have to say.

Am i a selfish, bad person if I decide not to have kids?

I do not have children (but I still have plenty time!) and I have considered the possibility of me passing migraine on to any potential children. I think I've decided I wouldn't let it stop me if I decide I do want children.

However, I am one of the "lucky" ones who responds well to medication, so my situation isn't as bad as most of you on here.

Please don't think you would be selfish for not having children! It is a personal decision and it grates on me that people expect you to have them, just because society says you should. People have to do what is right for them and medical conditions can play a big part in that.

Forget what others think, do what's right for you. Just be as certain as you can that your decision is the right one for you

I have written your a longish post on the subject but for som e reason it all disappeared when I was trying to post it and now I am worn out - it is very late evening now here in UK.
I do have children and grandchildren so I will try to come back some other time.
In meantime, please ConcordG, try not to worry too much.
Mini

Thanks WitsEnd & Mini
I actually came across this in the migraine book I am reading (posted in another thread). I have learned quickly that I have to plan every aspect of my day/life with migraine in mind, and having children is no exception.

Sorry for such a delay in writing back.
You are wise to make sensible plans when you are M suferrer CG, however there is one thing that is absolutely certain once you start having children; and this is that nothing, absolutely NOTHING is as we expected it. And this goes for all aspects of the whole experince, no matter how old they are.

Yes, planning the right timing is important, but even that is often more easy in theory then in practice.

But returning to your main issue of M inheritance.
Well, I had M since my childhood, but there is not a one person in my big extended family that has M. So if mine was inherited (which in some sense it must have been) this must go quite a long way back.

I have two children and one of mine had some abdominal M as a child, but is M free once he grew up. The other has a very, very occasional M, and she is not even sure that it is M, or sinus problem, but nothing remotely as bad, or as frequent as mine were.

They know well how bad I was, since when they were children they could observe what this condition was doing to me, and how badly I was affected, so they are well aware what the symptoms are.

In any case, even if some distant relative from the past has "given" me tendency to M, I can honestly say that I would rather be here with M, then not to be here, as M or not M I had a rich and interesting life, and looking at my family as they are, I am so glad that I was here, to give life to such wonderful people.

I just wanted to give you my own personal feedback on the issue of having children whilst suffering from M. I hope this will be of some help.

ConcordGrape wrote: have learned quickly that I have to plan every aspect of my day/life with migraine in mind, and having children is no exception.

I can relate to this. When I was young sumitriptans hasn't been invented yet and a major preoccupation of mine even as a VERY young child was how I was going to take care of my children as an adult. I would even think what would I do if I had to take care of children at this moment. Sumitriptans became available to me when I was in my 20s but I think my view had already been formed over those many years.

It terms of passing on migraines I think I would have rather have lived with migraines then to not have been born at all. Then again I am not a chronic sufferer which sounds just awful. I guess there are also some technical things to think about too like about the nine months of pregnancy itself. How to get through that and whether you can use medication during that time or not. Also obtaining enough sumitriptans for myself is an ongoing struggle. I don't know how it is for everybody else but I am limited by my insurance and I don't get as many as I need. This has been a life long struggle that also dictated a lot of stress in my life.

But it's possible your child wouldn't have migraines at all.  And just to be silly there have been some studies that found  people with migraines live longer and in better health. I believe the study found that this was likely due to the fact that we are forced to avoid things like irregular schedules, the sun, alcohol, etc.

In any case you shouldn't feel guilty for taking everything into consideration. You might suddenly have a strong desire for children later. Sometimes it happens when hormones change and even people who didn't want children suddenly feel a desire. So you might want to stay open to the possibility but in no way should you feel guilty for taking things into consideration.

WitsEnd wrote:Please don't think you would be selfish for not having children! It is a personal decision and it grates on me that people expect you to have them, just because society says you should. People have to do what is right for them and medical conditions can play a big part in that.

Forget what others think, do what's right for you. Just be as certain as you can that your decision is the right one for you

That is awesome advice. You younger people are just great.

I decided not to have kids and part of the reason was my migraines. Yes, it is a very personal decision. I will say that I have never regretted my choice. And these days women don't have to have kids.

Chris

I've never said this word to my child. I've never tried to rationalize my pain to someone so small.

I have been giving this some thought too. If you think however how many people in the world suffer from migraines it is highly likely that most people could have a latent gene in the family history waiting to surface and give our children migraine even if we didn't suffer from them. My friend's mother suffered from them dreadfully when we were children but all three of them are completely clear.


In our family which is really large on my mother's side there are people with a history of migraine in it, but they are less than a third of my relatives, which I believe is only a little higher than the general population average in this country. So I no longer worry about passing it on. I think the problem will be in how we would cope with the time lost to migraine that should be spent being a parent.

Migraine to me can be a very demanding job in itself, or managing it, but if we can organize round the problems and are confident of our support network I don't think it would be selfish to want a child. Just as it isn't selfish to decide not to have any. I used to think that a child would need much more than my migraine reduced income could provide, but I know plenty of miserable rich people, and plenty of poor happy ones. I know people who have seemed unwell before having a child and seem to be lit up somehow now. They seem to be thriving despite the odds. I also have known people who didn't have children because of WW2 that have come to the end of their lives fulfilled and surrounded by friendship and led the least selfish lives I've ever had the privilege to be part of.

It is easy to let social pressure to get in the way too much of our decisions. We still live in a society that seems to honestly believe we are incomplete if we don't have children yet it isn't compulsory. I think that for some of us we start to worry too much when life doesn't seem to be following the recipe of others. I think that as migraine sufferers we are stopped in our tracks. It is at the stopping points in our lives that we start to look at the whole picture more closely and can start to panic. It can be argued either way that having or not having children is selfish. But surely when something affects the self so completely, on this occasion a little selfishness is exactly what we are entitled to?

best regards

Di

Ahh my whole response was just erased as well!! grr

In sum: thanks to everyone for the responses. For some reason I stopped getting notifications on this topic so I haven't seen it since the summer.

I do agree that it is better to live with M than not live at all. Also, medicine is advancing so quickly, who knows what treatment for M will be like in 10-20 years!

I do worry about pregnancy, migraine and the accompanying hormonal changes.

fullon: have you heard of Amerge? It is generic so it doesn't cost nearly as much as the other Triptans. Also, my dr/insurance lets me fill multiple triptans at once, so I usually have enough.

Di: Great words. The best thing I ever did for myself was to stop living up to others' expectations and to do things for me, and me alone. While in terrible M phases I've had opportunities to reflect, and a couple points become so clear. 1. Nothing is worth sacrificing your health for. 2. family/a support network is really important

I have more to say on kids but it is going in another thread because that is most definitely a conversation of it's own.  

ConcordGrape wrote:
Am i a selfish, bad person if I decide not to have kids?

No you are not.

I do not have any children (never wanted any), and I am somewhere between middle-age and senior citizen in age.

WitsEnd wrote:I do not have children (but I still have plenty time!) and I have considered the possibility of me passing migraine on to any potential children. I think I've decided I wouldn't let it stop me if I decide I do want children.

However, I am one of the "lucky" ones who responds well to medication, so my situation isn't as bad as most of you on here.

Please don't think you would be selfish for not having children! It is a personal decision and it grates on me that people expect you to have them, just because society says you should. People have to do what is right for them and medical conditions can play a big part in that.

Forget what others think, do what's right for you. Just be as certain as you can that your decision is the right one for you

Oh the irony of this post, as I sit here 28 weeks pregnant  

I still stand by what I said though! Lol.

For what it's worth ladies, I've had only one migraine so far. And it was my own stupid fault!

Congratulations!!! That is amazing that you've only had one migraine, I hope that keeps up!

ConcordGrape wrote:Congratulations!!! That is amazing that you've only had one migraine, I hope that keeps up!

Thank you   

I've never been so free of migraine and headaches in my life. I'm dreading the other side though... Not getting enough sleep is a MAJOR trigger for me.