I have been suffering from Chronic Migraines since 2009…
I have a rare brain condition and the up shot of that is I suffer with migraines… mine are chronic more than 15 a month…
To help me cope with the pain over the years I have been drawing and photographing my migraine experience during the experience of the migraine…
These have now developing into MASKS and now that we are in Self Isolation due to Covid-19 I have developed these into my “Self – Isolation – Masks”
Developed through stages –
I have been working on some pen sketches while I have been having a migraine, they have been quite a revelation to me, discovering my face and the sensations I feel while I have a migraine. Also how I react to the intense pain.
I am going to present these to my neurology consultant when I see him next, it’s better than keeping a written diary and explains what is happening where and when to my head.
It has also got me thinking about when you are in hospital and the doctors ask you “…on a scale to 1-10, and 10 being the most painful, how severe is the pain?”
I am always saying 11, on the measurement of pain homage to ‘This is Spinal Tap’.
Then they say “…describe the pain?” ‘…hot poker in the eye’ (how do I know what that feels like? – I can only imagine, so must they.
So I use colours, and the feel of objects; colours; like white being intense pain, red very painful, as too orange, then blue and green getting a solid pain. Re: objects for the type of pain; I like cold steel, water, white noise is random radio frequencies, and an untuned TV (old school!), sharp wire and glass to describe the levels and types of pain for my migraines. I hope then they (doctors) can get a sense of how I am feeling.
I have the ability to show how the pain is effecting me and the level of pain I am having through my art – it will be interesting to see the response I get from my doctors when I present my sketches to him when I see him in a couple of months.
There is some really inspiring work by the photographer Lorie Novak a fellow migraine suffer, that you should definitely check out, which I just came across today, one of her projects is the Migraine Register.
roz moreton 