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Getting diagnosed with episodic migraine turned my life upside down, this is a glimpse into my life and struggles with the same.
Getting diagnosed with episodic migraine turned my life upside down, this is a glimpse into my life and struggles with the same
Imagine, being a 7-year-old chubby child who loves chocolate and cheese and is suddenly put on a strict diet, with further restrictions on playing video games and hearing loud music. But that’s how I grew up, unfortunately.
Sixteen years later, till today, I am used to maintaining restrictions in case of food and sound and my other daily activities. I cannot go to a concert or eat fast food frequently. I have to make sure that I maintain a schedule as well and manage my eight hours of sleep wisely. There is no fun this way but I am restrained by the chains of episodic migraine.
When I was a little girl, I was told that the migraine would eventually disappear as I grow up. Some people had the audacity to say that I was pretentious about my headache until I actually got diagnosed with acute migraine in a well-recognized hospital. The doctor put a restriction on all my favorite meals. “Chocolates, too?” I cried.
I felt that it would fade away as my imaginary childhood friend, but my migraine still shows up at the most unpredictable times!
For a long time, migraines were believed to be a psychosomatic condition created by people who are not able to deal with stress. “It was a disorder that most obviously affected women and so wasn’t taken as seriously, and it’s a pain disorder. Pain is subjective: we don’t have any way of measuring it, which can make it very hard for people to believe it’s real. Plus, on top of all of that, it’s episodic, so between attacks, sufferers may look perfectly well,” says Elizabeth Loder, professor of neurology at Harvard medical school.
Living day-to-day being uncertain of tomorrows, my mind seems to have gathered and cramped countless pages of contemplation. When now I’m in the lock-down, stuck home with a migraine, it’s not like I can spend my time watching Netflix or scrolling through Instagram. The slightest ray of light hurts my eyes, the littlest volume of noise troubles my brain. What I can do is to close my eyes, shut the drapes of the room, turn my music off, and pretend to be dead-asleep in a dark, silent room. It sounds more like a coffin within a cabin, doesn’t it?
Picture Credits: Pexels
23 | Filling the blank pages with contemplation. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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