When I was young I had headaches. They weren’t usually terrible but bothersome. Then, I reached my twenties and POW‼️ I realised that these weren’t just headaches, they were something else, entirely. They were headaches but with a ‘sick’ feeling at the same time and a feeling of fatigue. After a few of these, I realised they were migraines.

Two of them stick out in my mind. The first was an evening when I went to a gathering with my friend, Keith. He was an actor whom I had met at the Players Theatre in London where I worked as a sort of usher. (A story for another time). This party was somewhere in west London, possibly Kensington, and seemed to be in someone’s bed sit, as there was a huge four poster bed dominating the large room. At one end was a fireplace with a real fire and easy chairs. There was also a dining table with a few chairs. The lighting in the room that night was, thankfully, very dim because I had a bit of a headache. As the evening wore on I began to feel more and more ill and soooo tired! I lay down on the bed, leaving the others to sit and chat. Finally, Keith drove me home. It didn’t take long to get myself to bed where I fell into a deep sleep.

The other migraine which I remember from those early days was on a Saturday in, I believe June or July. My mother had a friend whose daughter was getting married and she and I were invited to the reception afterwards. The event was being held at the golf club which was a couple of miles or so from West Malling. I wasn’t feeling very well but I had promised to go there with Patty so got dressed up and drove to the golf club. The reception was lovely as were the surroundings. I, on the other hand, was not lovely at all – I felt like I was going to die or at least pass out. The headache was worse and worse, the sick feeling was constant and all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep away the day – but, I had to stay there, not eating the gorgeous foods on offer and not even having a drink, in case it came straight back up! I wonder what all those other, joyous people thought of this silent, unsmiling, apparition, that day!

Strangely, I never had a migraine on a work day. My body obviously wouldn’t let me miss work. (It was the same in my forties when I used to get bronchitis after school was finished for the term!) The one time I did have a bad headache at school was on the day after a get-together of the staff at Jean’s house. I sat most of the evening of the staff ‘do’ near to the gas fire in Jean’s living room and, in the morning, blamed my headache on possible fumes. I drove to school and arrived feeling very poorly but determined to face my class of 3rd year juniors. I must have looked very rough. At playtime, Tony, the Deputy Head told me to go home. I wasn’t actually certain I could drive the three miles safely and Tony decided to drive me in his car. I was so thankful and, again, fell into bed when I reached home. How I got my car back for the following week, I have no memory.

The migraines of my twenties and thirties were, thankfully rare with months in between but, when I reached my forties, things took a strange turn! I would go for two or three months with not a hint of a migraine and then have two or three in a few weeks. It turned out that it was what is now familiarly called, the peri-menopause and, later, the menopause itself.

My hormones were to blame! (Not gas fumes or cheese or red wine.) When I worked all this out (being a brilliant diagnostician!), I went to my doctor and asked for HRT. He, blast him, turned around and said, no. Go home and take some evening primrose. I tried that; it had no effect.

Back I went back to Dr R——S——. “Please may I have HRT. These headaches are getting me down!” Again, he said no but this time he added, “Some women taking these hormones have strokes and if that happened to you, you would sue me, because you’re American and that’s what Americans do”‼️

All of the above took several years and I was fast approaching my fifties by the time he gave in. He prescribed an HRT patch which I changed every few days and I had them for several years and they worked very well! Minor headaches, yes, but no migraines. Then, my body said,” Ha ha, more trouble! From now on you will be allergic to plasters!” and I was and am.

I think I had changed doctors by that time. My new doctor, seeing the red marks on my hip, immediately gave me HRT tablets which I took for the next quite-a-few years. With all the warnings about HRT, I did try to stop taking them about seven years later but, straight away the hot flushes and migraines started again. Back to the tablets I went until I was in my early sixties when, at last, the migraines didn’t reappear several times a month when I stopped taking them – although the hot flushes still attack me occasionally, even at 80!

I almost never have a migraine nowadays. I do have headaches but they’re usually mild. And, what’s very strange, those migraine ‘auras’ that people talk about, which I had never had with a migraine, I have now.

I will be sitting, reading, eating, watching t.v., cuddling Lola and suddenly I see a small flashing light in one or other of my eyes. At first I’m not sure – is it? Isn’t it? Then, it starts to get bigger, is in both eyes, and gets in the way of anything I’m trying to see, then I realise it’s gone. It looks like the crenellations on a castle, sort of. When it’s small it’s just a couple of lines /\/\/\, then it gets bigger and, eventually turns into a circular but still crenellated shape and then just disappears! I wonder why?

I must say, though, that as bad as the migraines made me feel, I was lucky that they weren’t worse! I know that some people have them for days and can’t do anything but lie down in a darkened room until it’s gone. Mine usually came in the morning and lasted all day but the next day I would feel much better. The only thing that lasted was that words didn’t always come to me as quickly as they had before and I would say one word when meaning another. That still happens but now it’s old age!

(ADDENDUM

My father had migraines, my brother Alex has migraines, my daughter has migraines – they obviously can run in families!)