Victoria's Five-Year Migraine Comes to an End

Victoria lay on the floor in excruciating pain, her baby by her side. It was as if every nerve in her head was being crushed. She could hardly move. Every movement was an unwelcome intrusion into this all-consuming pain. It was totally incomprehensible how bad this felt. Surely this pain was unendurable. Surely this was dying. This MUST be what dying feels like. If someone had put Victoria's head in a vice and was slowly crushing it, it would feel like this. If her head had been about to explode, it would feel like this. If her brain had swollen up to five times its normal size, it would have felt like this.

But Victoria's brain was not swelling or going to explode. Logically Victoria knew all of this, because it had happened before. In fact, it happened three or four times a week. It was migraine. On some days of the week, Victoria's migraine wasn't so bad. Victoria could get around just a little bit better. However, whether the migraine was relatively good or bad, by ten o'clock every morning, Victoria would not be able to do anything that involved any concentration.

For the past five years, Victoria lived her life like this. When she had been at work, she used to hope that her migraine would stay manageable until she got home at six. Victoria's ambition was to be able to stay a whole week at work without going home early.

When she became pregnant, Victoria thought that the change in lifestyle would probably see an end to her migraine. However, Victoria had only a short gap without migraine during her pregnancy, and after her baby was born, Victoria's migraine came back with a vengeance.

Victoria tried to have as many chores done by mid-morning as possible. Victoria's home was always untidy, as there was never enough time to put things away. It was all she could do to get the shopping and the washing done in the early part of the day.

Three or four times every week, Victoria's migraine went right off the scale, to the point where there was no room for even thought. Victoria laid her baby down beside her on the floor, and waited for help to arrive. It was difficult for Victoria's husband to leave work half way through the day, but this is what he had to do unless Victoria's father or a friend could help.

Holidays, even in the U.K. were out of the question. As a couple they missed out on so many of their friends' weddings, birthday parties and barbecues.

Victoria's migraine had not always been as bad as this. Victoria remembered having migraine rarely, perhaps just once a year, when she was a child. However, by the time Victoria was in her early twenties in her first job, her migraine attacks had become much more frequent.

Through the years, Victoria tried everything to see if her migraines could be reduced. Nothing made any difference except for triptans. These are quite strong drugs that are only used for migraine attacks. At first, these enabled Victoria to have a normal day. However, they did not take the migraine away, and had less effect as time went on. Victoria took triptans more and more often, hoping to reduce the attacks as much as she could. In the meantime, Victoria also tried absolutely everything that came to her attention to see if she could find a way of ending these migraines. She tried acupuncture, reflexology, supplements and vitamins.

Nothing helped.


Occasionally, Victoria surfed the Internet to see if she could find anything else to try. Victoria discovered the Resolution website in this way, and began the program in June 2005.

I had not met a more difficult case, and neither of us knew what would happen. Victoria knew that in order for the programme to work, she would have to be consistent, and continue with the programme routine even though the migraine might appear not to improve in the early days. Diligently, Victoria began to run through her sequence several times every day. Day after day, there were only small changes. Victoria still depended upon her triptans to get her through. However, after a few weeks, Victoria's husband was home for a week, so Victoria decided that she was going to do without triptans that week, and concentrate even more on the program.

The first day that Victoria did not take her early morning triptan, she was surprised that her migraine did not reach the insane levels that it used to. Even though the migraine began, she was still able to function. Victoria was able to think, and to get on with things around the house.

As the week went on, her migraine remained at these tolerable levels. Victoria was so pleased. She could see an improvement. Much encouraged, Victoria did not feel as though she would have to go back to taking triptans when she was on her own after her husband went back to work. Victoria kept a careful record of the intensity, duration and frequency of her migraine, and she could see on her chart how her migraine intensity was reducing.

During the following weeks there were still some days when her migraine went out of control. I telephoned every week to see how Victoria was getting on; listening to every word to give me an insight into how the migraine was behaving, and how Victoria was feeling. "I don't think this is going to work", Victoria often said, "but I am going to do it anyway. I have nothing left to try, so I might as well."
When Victoria said, quite truthfully that she didn't think the program would work for her, she also said that she would "just do it anyway". This then became the instruction for many future clients. I often hear myself saying, "You don't have to believe it, just do it anyway".

With the aim of lifting Victoria's morale, I made a second appointment to see her. At this appointment, I repeated the essential parts of the program.

After the second session, Victoria continued with fresh vigor, and she began to notice an even more marked improvement. Three months after beginning the program, the gaps between Victoria's migraine attacks began to widen. Victoria had her first whole 'day off'. This was cause to celebrate. What a relief. Whatever she was doing, it was working, and all she had to do now, was to continue and things would get better and better.
There was a stage where we thought Victoria might never be free from her migraine, when Victoria began a long period when she had two days with, and two days without her migraine. I became concerned that Victoria might spend the rest of her life like this, and then suddenly Victoria had five days off! The relief was tangible. After this, Victoria began to widen gap considerably, until the whole month was clear, except for period time.

There was one time of the months when Victoria did not ever expect to be free from her migraine, the four days around her menstruation. These days had always coincided with the worst of Victoria's migraines in the bad old days. However, once the migraine had gone from the other days in the month, Victoria decided that she would try to do without her triptans during her period. The first time, Victoria was relieved to find her migraine reached only a medium level. As Victoria kept recording her progress on her chart, Victoria was able to see that she was steadily reducing even the most feared monthly migraines.

Now that almost every day is migraine and headache free, Victoria's life has changed so much. Her husband no longer expects that telephone call while he is at work. Victoria's baby has a Mum who can take her to all the noisy children's clubs, and take her swimming, and have friends invited home to play. Victoria has the freedom to drive long distances to see her family and friends. And the family can plan holidays and days out.



Olivia Roberts is a registered hypnotherapist/master NLP, practicing in many areas of the UK. She is a trainer in advanced hypnotherapy techniques, including Resolution. Visit the web sites http://www.resolutionmagic.com

This post was written by: Franklin Manuel

Franklin Manuel is a professional blogger, web designer and front end web developer. Follow him on Twitter