Amanda Barrilleaux said she has lived with headaches her entire life.
They have always been manageable, but in the last five to seven years they have become debilitating.
"It's usually always on my right side and the back of my right eye," Barrilleaux said. "Sometimes it's right here but feels like a pole is coming through my head and through my right eye. I get really nauseated, sounds, and light affect it so much."
The mother of three young boys has to put her life on hold every time a migraine starts because she cannot get out of bed.
"feels like a pole is coming through my head and through my right eye."
She said she feels as though she is missing out on them growing up.
"It's difficult when you're hurting so much--my husband takes over," Barrilleaux said. "I go to bed, shut the door, turn out the light....it's all I can do. My poor kids--they're so used to it, it's so normal to them. Poor babies come up to me and hug me and ask if I'm, OK? Poor babies, it breaks my heart."
Barrilleaux is not alone in this journey, statistics show that 18 to 25 percent of women suffer with migraines.
Most of the people that I see with migraines are women," Dr. Steven Snatic, neurologist with Our Lady of Lourdes Women and Children's Hospital, said. "People don't have tension headaches when they're nine years old, and barely have sinuses when you're nine years old. If you started having headaches early in the life and you're a woman you probably have migraines."
Snatic added that there are ways to manage the pain, along with medication.
"If missing meals triggers your migraines, eat something three times a day and don't get hypoglycemic," Snatic said. "If you think sunlight triggers the headaches. go and find blue blockers. Doctors are much more efficient in diagnosing migraines these days and there are very effective medicines available."
"I pay $400 to $500 a month just to be able to live normal."
Those medications have proven to be effective to help control Amanda's migraines--the issue, however, is making sure insurance will cover them.
"It becomes very expensive," Barrilleaux said. "I pay $400 to $500 a month just to be able to live normal. When you're in pain it's so hard because I'm not a person who sits still. I'm always doing something. These make me just lay down and go to bed. It kills me to stop my life for this pain. It's horrible."
As Barrilleaux continues her fight to keep this debilitating condition under control, she hopes that by sharing her story she can help someone else out there who things they are fighting a losing battle.
