Is It Hereditary?

United States
November 11, 2009 11:06pm CST
When I was 15 or 16, I started getting serious migraines. They were fairly infrequent, but very painful when they did come up. At first, chocolate helped ease the pain, but after a while that wore off. They started in the middle of summer before my junior year in high school, during vacation in the most relaxing place I've ever been. At that point I ruled out stress as the main cause. After coming home from vacation, they became more and more frequent. Soon I was getting them almost every other day and they were still as bad as before. To clarify, that bad was so bad that I could barely see, I couldn't go into any kind of light, I couldn't deal with more than whispers and tiny noises, I could barely eat and I was stuck in bed most of the day. Finally I got to go to the doctor and had tons of tests done: blood tests, MRI's and CT scans etc. All of my tests came up negative. There was nothing wrong with me. They sent me to a psychologist and she said there was nothing wrong with me mentally either (although we later found out that I am bipolar). I missed almost an entire semester of my junior year. My friends started getting mad at me because I kept asking for my homework and they stopped believing that I was honestly sick about a week into my absences. A couple of them even turned against me and tried to rally the others into doing the same by spreading rumors around the school about me. I got past that but it definitely didn't make me feel any better. My parents found me a better doctor and he was much better than the others I'd seen. While he never actually told me what was wrong with me, he did take some more tests and gave me some medication to help prevent them as well as some to make them go away while I had them. Now I'm 18 and am still getting my headaches. They aren't near as frequent and for a time I didn't even need my preventative medicine anymore. After I moved halfway across the country, my migraines became worse, and I had to get back on my preventatives again. Here's my problem. My pain killers are narcotics, obviously. Before I moved, despite the fact that I've been old enough (for a while) to hold on to my own medicines, my parents held on to my pain killers and only gave me five at a time. I found out that my dad was keeping them because he was addicted to them. They were stealing my medication. He did get help and now he can't take any kind of pain killers. I still wasn't able to hold on to my own medicine though. Not long after I found out about my dad, I found out that my mom was addicted to my pills even worse than my dad was. When I found out, I found the hiding place of my meds and took them for myself, but she still kept finding them and was taking them from right under my nose. Now that I'm on my own and my headaches keep coming back, I'm afraid to take my painkillers because of the fact that both of my parents were addicted to them. I'm afraid that I'm going to get addicted to them too. I hate seeing the bottle empty even if it does so slowly. Is my anxiety warranted? Is what my parents did going to happen to me? What are you r thoughts on the situation?
3 responses
@mrfdg1972 (3237)
• Philippines
12 Nov 09
I have vascular migraines, what type of migraine do you have.
• United States
13 Nov 09
I have no idea what kind of migraines I have. Like I said in my discussion, none of the doctors I saw actually found anything wrong with me, so all I know is that I get really painful migraines.
@mrfdg1972 (3237)
• Philippines
13 Nov 09
You will notice that migraine starts with an aura, before it kicks in, you will be experience mild pain, before it gets worse, i use cold and warm cloth/towel to rinse my head, use it interchangeably, It droves the migraine away and i dont have to take my medicine. I'd like to add that migraines are invisible MRI SCan, ctscan. For me i believe migraines are caused by blood vessels not functioning in rhythm,and for this it affects our brain nerves that produces the headaches, so the hot and cold compress should do the trick. Dilation and exciting our blood circulation in the head and shoulders with result in rhythmic blood flow in the head thus preventing migraine, i encourage you to try my technique cause i have been in medicine for 5 years and i found this this was all i needed.
• United States
13 Nov 09
That's awesome, thank you! I'll try that next time I feel a headache come on.
• India
12 Nov 09
hi dear friend i think yes migraines are hereditary and me too have it and my father too have so it nearly matches any way have a nice day thank you
• United States
12 Nov 09
I was wondering more if addiction was hereditary. No one else in my family had migraines so I'm either the one who's going to start that line or it's something else entirely. The addiction was what I was wondering about
@mspitot (3824)
• Philippines
14 Apr 10
i think so. my mom and my two cousins have it too like me.