--Hemiplegic Migraines--

My name is Kristina. I am 14 years old. In November 2007, when i was 12 years old, i had my first episode. It felt like my left arm and leg muscles were drawing up, but they weren't. When this feeling stopped, about 15 minutes later, the whole left side of my body was numb and tingly. It felt like half of my body was asleep. Then i got an excruciating migraine in the right half of my brain. My speech was slurred, i had no facial expressions, and I walked with a limp. At that time, my mom and grandma thought that i was having a stroke. I didn't know what to think because i was so scared. We went to the hospital that day. I was in the hospital room for almost 3 hours before a doctor saw me. He then released me because my symptoms were all gone. We went home and I slept for almost 4 hours. When i woke up from my nap, i felt completely fine. Like nothing had ever happened. I had another episode about a week later.  My mom took me to see a neurologist, and he first diagnosed me with minor epileptic seizures. We believed this diagnosis for almost 3 months. During this time, i had 4 or 5 episodes.  The next episode that i had lasted almost 24 hours, when the others only lasted 3 or 4 hours.  My mom took me to a hospital 3 hours away.  My neurologist ran many tests on me, including MRIs, CT scans, EEGs, Blood tests, and genetics tests. I spent the night in the hospital that night. The next morning, the doctors diagnosed me with HEMIPLEGIC MIGRAINES. They put me on verapamil 120mg, which is a blood pressure medicine. Since then, I have had about 15 migraines. None of which have put me into a coma.

I have also had another version of these migraines. These start with floaters in the eyes. If you don't know what floaters are, they are spots that you see, but they aren't really there. Floaters kinda look like the spots you see when you look at something bright and then look at something dark right after.  Then, after the floaters, i get a really bad migraine on the right half of my brain.  Sometimes i get numbness and tingling in the left half of my body, sometimes i don't. There have also been some cases when i have had the migraine on the left side of my brain and the numbness on the right side of my body.  
My neurologist still doesn't know what causes these migraines.  He thinks it could be from stress, too much caffeine, not enough sleep, or injury to my head. My hemiplegic migraines aren't inherited, because nobody else in any part of my family have these migraines. I am in the ninth grade, and my school doesn't believe that i have this disease because it is so rare. I have missed 3 days of school this year because of my migraines, and 8 or 9 days last year. If i miss any more than 9 days in one semester, they will kick me out of school. I am a straight A student, and the threats of them kicking me out of school is putting more stress on me.
To anybody who suffers from these Hemiplegic migraines, you are not alone. I know it might feel like it at first because there are not many people diagnosed with this disease. I thought i was the odd one out until i found this website. Now i kinda feel normal again. =]

--Kristina--