Are migraines a disability?

vlad

my mum when she was younger suffered from migraines under no circumstances could she do anything but lie in a darkened room for at least 3 days,this sounds hard but many people confuse "bad headaches"with migraine,one of my neighbours told me she'd had 2 migraines on monday i just laughed

Topcat1982

Have you raised this with HR? I have seen, in an office, someone is allergic to nuts it becomes a nut free environment. Maybe they would do the same for you

forgotmyname

I suffer from Migraines, with me its chocolate products and not eating often enough. If i go too long between meals then that can trigger them.

I can eat white chocolate but cannot touch dark chocolate.

It can be odd sometimes, because i go too long between meals and then have supper and wake up in the middle of the night when you can hear the blood being pumped around your head.

Many times the wife has woken to find me on the bathroom floor, the cold floor seems to help?
Thankfully i dont get them that often.

The worst ones were when i had a long gap between means and ate a chocolate bar. Those migraines were really bad.

kimberleyt2289

Thank you all for taking the time to answer my thread. Yes my manager knows about my condition as it excludes me from the office politics of who gets the next round of brews. I frequent the early retirement threads hoping that one day I can take a pay cut and do something else or start my own business but I don't have the courage to do that without a financial safety net behind me. I have tried to find work that has no coffee exposure but so far other than working from home, which most employers won't let allow, I'm a bit stuck on that one.
A big concern or complication was that I was hoping to start a family. I really do not wish to be on beta blockers whilst pregnant. It would slow the babies heart rate and that is too great of a risk, yet without them I would not be able to work. I guess I was hoping that if I did get pregnant (which I can't yet until I can afford to leave my job for 1-2 years) that I might have help with the government but I think it was always going to be a long shot.
I am going to go to the doctors in a few months to see if they can put me on something different, just waiting as we are just buying a house and if I lost my job due to illness I didn't want us to lose it.

Thanks for your comments, you've given me a lot to think about

kimberleyt2289

Hi forgot my name. I have it with dark chocolate also. GwymlinT it looks like you have the same triggers as me, red wine, berries etc. We seem to all have an allergy/migraine trigger of tannins. It's what gives berries and grapes their pigment, also apples and they add more tannins to apple juice to give it it's tart flavour. Wine is a big one as tannins are also in bark and they age the wine in barrels, whiskey would be bad as well but I don't like the taste. It is in tea, coffee and green tea, though coffee is the only trigger that gets me just from a faint smell of it.
Before the tablets I couldn't walk down the stret (past the coffee shops) and now that all the supermarkets have coffee shops I struggle going in there now. A few places I've worked now have coffee shops in the lobby. I feel I can't ever get away from it, so I shall try to get my tablets changed and hope that there isn't a lot of time between tablets for me to be ill and hopefully not fired.

tomtontom

Given the impact they are having on your life I would be asking for a referral to a Migraine Clinic. If there is not one in your area, or the GP is unwilling to refer, you can self refer to the National Migraine Centre.

http://www.migrainetrust.org/migraine-clinics

soolin

Strangely enough for me coffee could help stave off a migraine to allow me time to get home safely. Also a lot of the over the counter pills contain caffeine which I found helped. A cup of coffee or pills as soon as I started with the aura (usually visual hallucinations) could buy me an hour or so to crawl home and into a dark room.

too much citrus fruit could trigger me as could Brazil nuts and chocolate.

Rosemary7391

Topcat1982 wrote: »

Have you raised this with HR? I have seen, in an office, someone is allergic to nuts it becomes a nut free environment. Maybe they would do the same for you

I doubt I would stay working at an employer long if they banned coffee altogether! However I would be sympathetic - OP, would moving desks next to confirmed tea drinkers help, or asking folk to use those covered travel mugs you can get? Those would both be pretty reasonable things to ask, and may help you avoid the smell while you're working?

Loanranger

Why not just ask your employer to give you your own office to work in? Close the door and your problem disappears. It is not difficult for a small part of an open plan office to be partitioned off totally. This would amount to a "reasonable adjustment" .
Why would the government pay you when you are capable of doing a different kind of work or just having your employer make the adjustment you need?
BTW, I am not denying the debilitating effect of migraines.

Soot2006

Some accommodations should be made. Own office, or as far away from coffee people as possible. Don't know if such requests can be enforced but it would be nice of the employer if they value you!

I was recently invited to a meeting in a new venue. The invitation stated that no perfume or scented deodorants were allowed to be worn on site due to a "scent accommodation" ... I figured allergy but could also be migraine trigger.