- So there's something about
"So Far [It's All Right]" from the 1975
or the main theme from "The Notebook"
or "Same Drugs" by Chance the Rapper...
Something about those songs that really just helped me
with my migraines.
And I don't know why, but I'm glad that they exist.
Hi, my name is Kate.
I am an actress, a singer/songwriter,
and currently a student,
and I deal with moderate to severe migraines.
So today, we're gonna go through every single way,
in detail, that migraines affect my daily life.
[lo-fi music]
Every single person has their own way
that they deal with migraines.
But today, we're gonna go through how I deal with migraines
section by section.
My diagnosis: social life, diet, beauty,
light exposure, and sleep.
[eerie music]
The first time I ever experienced a migraine,
I would say it was around four years ago.
I did not know what migraines were at this point.
I didn't have the sort of language
to articulate what was happening to me in the moment.
And then I had this splitting, just feeling in my head.
It was just blinding, and this was the first time I ever...
It ever happened to me.
I didn't really know what to do.
I thought I was just having a very
just out-of-this-world headache at the time.
I just kind of curled up into a ball in my bedroom
and waited for it to pass, but it was a very rough night.
So a migraine is a severe neurological condition
that can cause sensitivity to light, sound, smell,
and even movement.
So for me, I experienced the aura first.
There's not really a word to articulate it,
but there's this sort of feeling,
this inexplicable feeling, that kind of overcomes my body.
I call it "heat," but it heat's not the best word,
but we'll just call it "heat."
That kind of accumulates in my temples.
And then from there,
my migraine is just this sort of all encompassing pain.
There's the sort of throbbing
at the crown of my head, this tightness in my temples.
The slightest light, the slightest sound,
I cannot be around that.
It's all just too much.
It's as if the world stops.
The only thing that really exists is this pain.
My migraines could sometimes last between two to five hours,
depending on how bad it was.
It was getting to a point where I was having migraines
like almost every day.
I was just looking online,
like going through like certain websites or social media.
I'm like, "Is anybody else kind of experiencing this?"
Because it happened one day,
and then it just didn't stop happening.
So what's going on?
So I decided, "Yeah, it's time.
I need to go to a doctor because nothing is helping.
And this is kind of becoming a consistent thing."
I went into the neurologist's office,
and she made it very clear
that she wanted to work with me
to find the best solution that would be...
That would work for me.
So right off the bat, she was like,
"The first step that we're going to take together
is really documenting what's already happening."
I would write down immediately how many hours
that I slept the night before,
if I ate breakfast, yes or no,
what I had for lunch and dinner,
how much water I drank, caffeine or no caffeine,
and whether or not I had migraine that day
and how bad it was for me.
And I kind of kept a log of that for a while.
In sort of this collaborative process,
we noticed that the more I slept, the more I drank water,
completely cutting out caffeine
and certain things from my diet,
all of these things like...
We noticed there was a trend, like, when I did more of this,
like, I was also likely to have a migraine or I...
My migraines were a little less intense consistently.
Within the first two months,
my life was just kind of changed, I would say.
[bright music]
Before I was diagnosed and kind of got the treatment plan
that I'm on now,
migraines sort of severely limited
what I was willing to do socially.
There were a few instances where I would kind of
just leave without an explanation if I was in public.
Let's say, if I was talking to someone...
Like Blaire, I'm talking to you.
You would just be having a conversation,
and I would literally just stop and leave.
I had to spend a lot of money on rideshares at certain times
because I was just really afraid of having
a migraine on the subway.
Just being in a crowded underground space.
Like there's light, there's so much noise, like...
And not really being able to escape.
Think about that, that was very...
That sort of idea was very frightening to me.
My biggest thing before was just, "Get home,
get home, get home because I'm in danger."
So when I feel the aura, you know,
of a migraine coming on when I'm in public,
I need to excuse myself and get myself
to sort of a quieter or just a separate location
where I can kind of go through my plan and, you know,
do whatever I need to do to deal with it.
So I have a really big hoodie
that I still sometimes will bring with me now,
but essentially it has a really big hood,
and I'll just like put it over my eyes.
And that will kind of give me the makeshift
sort of thing of like being in a darker kind of space.
But I also realized over time that there's certain songs,
and I can't explain it, but they have like a...
Typically a note on the piano,
and something about those songs will really calm me down
and really kind of focus my thoughts into one place.
So I always bring, like, my phone,
a portable charger, and headphones as well
to sort of kind of bring up this playlist that I have.
I called my playlist "Headspace Case."
The main theme of "The Notebook,"
like the main film score thing, it just...
It calms me down.
It sort of gets me in the right head space.
From The 1975, there's a song
called "So Far [It's All Right]."
"Same Drugs," Chance the Rapper is also on there as well.
That's very important that I added him too.
So now when this happens
and I've kind of done my little routine,
I can kind of just come out and go about my day
for the most part.
I can pretty much go back into whatever I was doing
before it.
Which has been really helpful
and kind of life changing for me.
[calm music]
It might seem like a no brainer,
but you do need food to function for the most part.
And when you're a student,
your schedule can sometimes just be insane,
like staying up all night to study
and not really taking care of yourself.
I would notice that those days when I didn't eat,
when I didn't really care about water,
I was just kind of trying to check off whatever box I had,
those would kind of be the worst, like, for migraines.
And I was a lot more likely to have one of those
really bad migraine days
if I was just not taking care of any of these things.
So my diet, actually...
I would say it's a piece of the larger puzzle
that directly impacts my migraines.
Skipping meals is not a thing for me.
Like, I need to make sure that I eat
at least three times a day and eat nutritious meals.
That's point blank.
The second thing I noticed was I am just a lot better
when I have very protein-heavy meals.
So now my diet really looks like
eating protein in the morning,
so I would usually have like eggs.
I would also have oatmeal.
For lunch, I'll have, like, I'll say a chicken salad,
but I use the word salad very loosely here
because it's really mostly just chicken
and maybe like kale and like lettuce on the side.
And then like for dinner, maybe like seafood on top of it.
Just making sure that I'm eating,
that I'm not in a position where I'm hungry,
which can make me more easily stressed.
Like all of that has really helped me with my journey
and dealing with my migraines.
So water is very important.
I typically, for the bare minimum,
I'm gonna drink 2.5 liters,
but I typically drink a gallon a day.
So I'll kind of do, not the bulk of it,
but a lot of it in the morning,
and that kind of refreshment from being hydrated,
it's just really helpful to me and my mood.
[bright music]
So I am very sensitive to anything
that kind of deals with tension on my head.
And that in itself has really affected
how I approach beauty.
So for example, with hairstyles, a lot of Black women
really love to incorporate protective styles.
I do, like, as well.
But I have noticed that I have to really be particular
in the protective styles that I use.
So right off the bat, with my braids,
like the hair that I am sort of rocking right now,
I solely go for knotless braids.
So I cannot do, like, certain box braids
or any sort of style that involves tension on my head
because that can be very detrimental
and kind of lead to migraines
and that sort of uncomfortable feeling that comes with them.
For knotless braids, it's sort of your regular hair,
and then the extension is fed into the braid,
so there's not that tension
of putting them together at the root.
The extension is fed into my hair that's already braided,
and it's really a painless process.
It can sometimes be a little bit frustrating sometimes
because a lot of really cool protective styles
that I like seeing on other Black women, you know,
involve tightness.
And it kinda can be a little bit like frustrating
to not necessarily be able to do
the same thing all the time.
But I am very fortunate
that I have found a style and a method
that kind of works for me.
For like, detangling my hair, I use a wide tooth comb,
and I kind of...
I'm very gentle with my hair from, like, ends to roots,
taking my time on that aspect.
I like to keep my scalp, like, healthy and breathable,
so I use certain, like, oils for my hair as well
to kind of help it with staying clean
and just staying like breathable as well.
But essentially my entire hair routine
really revolves around keeping things free of tension
and just keeping the space well.
[bright music]
[calm music]
In general, I love sunlight.
I love being outside.
I love the summertime.
I love that kind of aspect of it,
but light can make a migraine so much worse for me
and be very detrimental to that sort of experience.
If I'm at home and I'm experiencing the aura,
I've already kind of set up my place
to make things super easy for me.
I took out the bulb for, like, the main light in my room.
My window already has that sort of protective dark sheet
as well on top of my blind.
So my room is already jam packed
with everything that I need right off the bat at all times.
So another thing that I'm really conscious of
are just sort of the light from my devices,
so my phone, my laptop.
Right off the bat, I am always on dark mode.
The brightness is on the very lowest setting.
And then on my computer,
there's a certain plugin that I have on my computer
that kind of makes every website that I go on darker.
So transition lenses are actually really helpful for me
because they get darker if I'm directly, like,
in the sun and can just really helpful for me
when I'm in a really sunny environment.
[lo-fi music]
I noticed that, you know, in my journey and my process,
when I was documenting what I was going through,
that I was a lot more likely to have a migraine in itself,
but then also to have a really bad migraine
if I didn't really sleep well.
So I kind of wanted to go forward and make sleep
a really important part of my treatment plan and my process.
So in general, seven hours of sleep is my minimum,
and that is come hell or high water, rain or shine.
I am getting seven hours of sleep the night before
because it's very serious to me.
So a weighted blanket...
People have different weights that they like.
I believe mine is about 20 pounds.
15, 20, I'm pretty sure.
And it just kind of feels like...
Some people call it "a warm hug,"
and a weighted blanket kind of just centers you.
It's like you can't really...
You can't really toss and turn for the most part.
You kind of just have to be still
and have to come into yourself.
I sleep with a sound machine, and it's typically for babies,
but it works fine for me.
It kind of creates this low hum that fills up the space.
That sound in itself kind of just forces me
to not go into my own like loop of, again,
things that I might have to do to the next day,
and just really creates this space where I can just relax.
[pop music]
I am not someone that plays about this.
Like, I make sure that I'm taking my 30 day medication,
like, diligently.
Like, I make sure that I always have
the as-needed medication, like, on me.
And again, I'm really fortunate to kind of be able
to do things,
but it would be cool if maybe there was a day,
one day in the future,
where I didn't have to do anything.
I do know that the cumulative experience of having migraines
has made me someone that is very likely
to stand up for myself,
very likely to put my foot down for certain things.
I know what to prioritize, what's really important for me.
And I just...
I can advocate the heck out of...
The heck out of myself.
Like, I really can for myself.
And that's a really important thing to have.
So, you know, there definitely was some negative parts
of that journey,
but I'm really happy to be here on the other side of it.
[pop music]