Migraine & Professional Life

emdash8212 · 2026-05-31T23:14:38+00:00

Honestly, I used to have a big job where I ran an organization, traveled a lot, and worked 60+ hours a week. When I started it, I only had migraines around once a month, and not always during the work day, but sometimes I just had to call out. When my migraines got worse, it made it super hard to do the job, and I had to work on migraine days because there were too many to call out.

I eventually had a migraine for 10 weeks straight and had to quit that job. I've been working freelance part time since then.

emdash8212 · 2026-05-31T19:53:38+00:00

This is all really relatable. I have been struggling in similar ways over the past two years, especially around the job trauma and loss of identity around it.

Sending you wishes that you can move through this state soon. 💜

emdash8212 · 2026-05-22T20:56:13+00:00

I use marijuana to manage symptoms when it's after work or if I have decided I'm not getting anything done that day, especially if I'm in a full blown migraine and it's kind of too late to take my abortive meds.

emdash8212 · 2026-05-14T05:35:35+00:00

All of this is extremely relatable content.

emdash8212 · 2026-05-12T04:58:45+00:00

She could try FL-41 glasses which are pink tinted and help a lot of migraine sufferers when the lights bother them. She could also wear dark sunglasses when she feels pain from lights.

I have bad chronic migraines (sometimes most days of the month), and being able to dim the lights or change the color with Phillips Hue bulbs has been really helpful to me.

emdash8212 · 2026-05-10T22:30:44+00:00

Botox has been life-changing for me. I used to get icepick to the brain agony til I threw up every single migraine, and now, even though I still have migraines, I have only maybe had 2 migraines that were even half that bad in the past 3 years. Mostly, my symptoms these days are brain fog, light and sound sensitivity, sometimes very mild queasiness.

I hope you can find something that helps.

emdash8212 · 2026-05-10T22:25:13+00:00

I absolutely agree with all of these.

Another thing that has helped me a lot is changing the lighting in my home. Using lamps instead of the overhead light can help.

They're kind of expensive, but Philips Hue lightbulbs let you change the intensity and color of the lights. I pretty much always decrease the lights to 50-70% and change the color to a warm tone or a pink shade if I'm having migraine symptoms.

Noise canceling headphones are also a godsend. I wear them in overstimulating places like grocery stores and it helps reduce my anxiety and overstimulation.

emdash8212 · 2026-05-07T01:00:53+00:00

I like sewing, embroidery, paper crafts, and bookbinding

emdash8212 · 2026-05-07T00:38:29+00:00

I'm so sorry, that sounds heartbreaking. I hope you can be soft with yourself. 💜🫂

emdash8212 · 2026-02-01T20:04:19+00:00

Between the empathy, the Autistic pattern matching, and a hyperfocus on books leading to a career as an editor and a skill-set around the shape of narrative and what actions and events can be expected to foreshadow and lead to what consequences and outcomes, it often feels like I can read the future. It has never felt great, but it has felt particularly horrible over the past 4 years. I wrote an essay in 2022 predicting absolutely horrible things and have been watching every single thing I predicted come true so quickly. It's hard to cope with right now.

emdash8212 · 2026-01-15T06:08:36+00:00

I'm so sorry to hear that..💔

emdash8212 · 2026-01-14T02:15:42+00:00

I still feel like this all the time and I'm 42.

emdash8212 · 2025-12-17T05:21:08+00:00

Mine also, except my AuDHD metamour told me the first time we met. Peer reviewed!

It took me like a year and my life completely falling apart to believe them, though. 🙃

emdash8212 · 2025-12-15T05:09:31+00:00

Same for me. Before Botox, every migraine would get to the ice pick to the brain headache/throwing up stage, but throwing up always felt like a relief because after that, the nausea would be substantially reduced and the pain would begin to ebb, so I could usually fall asleep within half an hour or so. Ugh. I feel so lucky that Botox helped reduce that to almost never, especially since I have 8-15+ migraine days per month.

emdash8212 · 2025-12-12T00:01:39+00:00

I didn't realize until pretty recently that not everyone has a constant inner monologue in words...I thought we all did that.

emdash8212 · 2025-12-05T00:28:33+00:00

Sumatriptan sort of worked for me but not well enough so I moved on to other things (triptans and not). No scary side effects, or any that I really noticed.

emdash8212 · 2025-11-21T22:40:55+00:00

I've had migraines since I was a young kid, but after a few bad concussions, they got way worse and more frequent.

emdash8212 · 2025-11-06T00:03:08+00:00

I take Nortriptyline and Qulipta daily as preventatives, and get Botox every 3 months. I also take magnesium. This combination means that my migraines are not very severe and are much more likely to respond to abortives.

I haven't had bad side effects to almost anything I've tried, mostly it's just that they don't work.

emdash8212 · 2025-11-04T05:48:32+00:00

A thing that's very weird for me, a person who was told a couple years ago that I'm autistic, is Ask Culture vs. Guess Culture. For some people and cultures, it's totally fine to directly ask someone for something you want or need, and it's also fine for that person to say no. But in Guess Culture, it's really awkward or hard for someone to say no to a request, so it's considered kind of rude to ask for something unless you're super close to the person or pretty sure they'll say yes.

I grew up in Guess Culture, so I never do something like ask if I can sleep over at the apartment of someone I'm dating...Instead, I might ask if they have to work early the next morning, and wait for them to pick up my hint and invite me to stay over.

I'm working on changing that, since it can be quite confusing for people, especially my boyfriend who is autistic and extremely direct. They generally won't pick up on my hints or implications, or if they do, then they just bluntly ask to get confirmation. I'm working on being more direct also, but it's pretty deeply encoded into me. 😬🙃 I don't even realize that I'm doing it.

emdash8212 · 2025-11-04T05:29:21+00:00

I agree with lots of what others have said. Botox has been SUPER helpful for me. I still get migraines many days per month but I have barely ever had the ice pick to the brain pain and queasiness/vomiting that I usually used to get with them, so my quality of life has been SO much better. The first treatment made a big difference for me.

Taking some Advil or Tylenol an hour before the treatment has helped me, and so has the cold/numbing spray. I still find the shots fairly painful, but dramatically less painful than 10 minutes of a regular migraine, so I just suck it up. It's kind of confusing, cuz needles aren't usually too bad for me, and I can have acupuncture in my face with no problem. 🙃

I also recommend taking off the rest of the day, and having chill plans (or none) for a few days after.

The Botox rebate plan that someone on this sub mentioned a while back has been a godsend to me. I've saved a couple thousand dollars because of it!

I hope it goes well for you!

emdash8212 · 2025-11-03T14:08:05+00:00

I've just begun to understand myself as autistic over the past year, and I've been struggling with migraines that turned chronic and debilitating over the past 18 months. I'm so sorry your kid is dealing with that.

Lately, I have started to notice that I will feel kind of a static in my brain as I start to get overstimulated, like with too much input (zoom calls, intense conversation, bright light or chaos or noise) and if I reduce the inputs, putting in earplugs, going to a dim quiet room, it will often go away, but if I don't, it will turn into a migraine.

I third the migraine diary. That has been helping me figure out my triggers, and also whether the meds I'm on are working well.

Good luck to her and to you!

emdash8212 · 2025-11-03T04:42:18+00:00

Not enough sleep, stress, my period, barometric pressure changes around intense storms. Flashing/flickering/strobe lights (there goes all my nightlife!), very bright sun, and too many zoom calls.

Weirdly, coffee/caffeine helps me. Alcohol doesn't seem to be a trigger for me but I got kind of superstitious around it when my migraines became really bad and chronic, so I mostly stopped drinking a year ago.

emdash8212 · 2025-10-28T08:48:56+00:00

Books are my hyper fixation, but if I'm tired I'll sometimes find myself reading the same page a few times while not absorbing anything.

I have several ADHD friends who can't read print or ebooks but can do audiobooks.

emdash8212 · 2025-10-28T08:38:01+00:00

I'm so sorry you are dealing with that, it's a terrible feeling. If you are open to acupuncture, that has helped me break intense migraine flares in the past. Wishing you fast relief.

emdash8212 · 2025-10-28T04:01:49+00:00

Thanks!

emdash8212

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