MyGraine Hope

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MyGraine Hope

Encouraging & connecting with people with chronic pain and those who love us! Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. Flowers make me smile!

Written by Peggy Stumhofer, who lives with chronic migraine & an autoimmune disease. I am slowly learning that life is not all good or all bad. It is a messy mix of both joy and pain mingled together. I had my first migraine attack at age 18 during my freshman year of college at Mercer University. Just over a decade later, this monster disease turned chronic. I have had migraine pain at some level every day since 2009. Treatments from from Botox to inpatient hospital stays have not done the trick. These days, I wear ice packs nearly 24-hours a day to get any comfort at all. After years of unrelenting pain, I had to end my promising career as a trial attorney due to the disability of migraine. Migraine - the barrage of nausea, sensitivity to light, sound and smell, brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, along with throbbing head pain. In late 2019, I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that is attacking my eyesight. This has brought a new set of scary health challenges. For years, chronic illness left me feeling insecure and vulnerable. But I am learning that it is also a strength. Through it, I have gained skills and abilities I would not otherwise have. It has taught me perseverance and shown me how to ask for help. It has drawn me closer to God, taught me to depend on Him and given me a deeper understanding of myself. It has proven that life does not have to be perfect to be good. I have started to embrace my illnesses as a part of me and to accept all of me, both my weaknesses and my strengths. I am thankful for God’s love that sustains me each day. I am thankful for my dear husband of 10 years, who walks through this with me, cooks and keeps me laughing. I recently started advocating with the US Pain Foundation and the Global Healthy Living Foundation. I share my story and educate to increase research funding for better treatments with the hope that we all will improve — and that I will be able to return to work as an attorney one day. I am also active with Bible Study Fellowship; I enjoy studying Scripture and connecting with other women. I could not make it without the friends and family who support me! I love listening to audiobooks, write and have started gardening. Incorporating gentle exercise, yoga and mindfulness into my daily routine also helps me. The pain can be overwhelming. But I am trying to receive both the joys and sorrows of life and to live in its fullness. I am writing to share the grains of hope I have found on this journey.

- Peggy

16/02/2023

We’re feeling the love! Thank you to the offices of Sen. Ossoff, Sen. Warnock, Rep. Ferguson, Rep. Allen & Rep. McCormick for taking the time to meet with the GA delegation on Feb. 14 at the Alliance for Headache Disorder Advocacy’s . With your support, we can reduce stigma, find new treatments and improve the lives of the countless Americans like me living with headache disorders.

04/04/2022

was a blast! So fun connecting with friends and learning together! Means so much to know I’m not alone.

22/06/2021

Happy Day! Wearing our shades in honor of the 1 billion people worldwide with . It was a rainy day here today, so here’s a pic from last month when we traveled to South Florida to see my family for the first time in more than a year. Always needing my trusty shades!

17/04/2021

When you have , light hurts. Every piercing ray is too bright. The glowing sun. Evil fluorescent lights. Inescapable electronic screens. Even ordinary lights around the house. Lights leave us reaching for the off switch and pulling the shades closed tight.

We are often stuck in a dark room for hours or days. Our time is lost, disappearing into the black hole of migraine. After ten years of , I know this routine all too well. And with a new condition affecting my retinas as well, my is heightened.

Given all this, I am intrigued by recent research regarding green light and its effect on photosensitivity. The research shows that migraine is intensified by certain colors of light, particularly red and blue wavelengths. However, green light is thought to calm the brain and reduce migraine pain by about 20 to 25%.

Intrigued like me? Read more and check out my experience with the on my latest blog post! See how it’s helping my and as well.

https://mygrainehope.com/blog/green-light-therapy-for-migraine-relief

04/04/2021

It is not well with my body. But because Christ lives, it is well with my soul. Happy Easter, friends!

“He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!” Luke 24:6

20/03/2021

These flowers made it through the winter. So did you. Happy spring! 🌸🌺

15/03/2021

Dear God, we look at our lives and see impossibility. We see the impossibilities with our health, careers, finances, relationships, within ourselves and in our broken world. But with You all things are possible. There is hope and healing and wholeness. Forgive our unbelief and help us to trust You to take what is impossible and make it possible today, in Jesus’ name.

I wrote this prayer years ago. Now, as I fight (and it is a f-i-g-h-t) to get an insurance approval, waiting for a treatment I desperately need, I pray these words again. I try to cling to their truth while anxiety elbows its way in.

What battle are you facing today? What feels impossible for you? These days there are so many uncertainties, so many impossibilities. How hard life is. Let’s invite God into the impossibility, the anxiety, the tension of today. God’s “possibility” usually doesn’t mean an instant fix, but he will draw near and meet us wherever we are.

“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” Matthew 19:26

28/02/2021

Today is ! Like some 30 million Americans, I live with a rare disease. Mine is a rare eye disease. Diagnosis & treatment are tough journeys. They have been rough and uncertain roads for me. Research funding and trials can be nonexistent. People with rare diseases are called “zebras“ because we are rare and unique! for the zebras in your life!

22/06/2020

Happy Father’s Day and Happy Shades for Migraine Day! In celebration of both, here’s a throwback pic of me and my dad. 💜

Today, June 21, is the longest day of the year and first day of summer. It’s Shades for Migraine day. The day we wear sunglasses in honor of so many of us with migraine. With migraine comes light-sensitivity. We regularly have to stay out of the sun and wear sunglasses even on cloudy days and shield our eyes indoors. This is a pic of me and my dad from a few years ago when life was simpler!

25/01/2020

By Peggy – Once upon a time, television was my distraction of choice. Through many long days of chronic migraine pain, it hypnotized and help numb. I could keep the volume low and park myself…

25/01/2020

“It could always be worse,” someone said to me yesterday. True, I suppose. But I like to believe something can matter even if it’s not the worst possible scenario.

“I shouldn’t feel this way.” Said to me on Tuesday by someone feeling sad because sad things were happening.

I’m wondering why I hear these messages so often. That we should just be grateful when life is hard. That we shouldn’t feel sad when life is sad. It causes so much shame for feeling normal feelings, which just adds pain on top of pain.

So, this morning I’d just like to say... It’s ok to be sad. Your pain matters. Be gentle with yourself today.

21/11/2019

Last Sunday, I rallied against to help babysit my nephews! Rallying for our families is rallying at its best. It’d been a long weekend in bed with my migraine monster. I climbed out of the covers on Sunday to hang out with these two. They inspired me to rally & gave me an infusion of joy. I’m thankful God gives us strength to rally & do so much more than we’re able to on our own. 💜❤️

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