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Have you had a Migraine? Have you had a pain so intense that you want to give up? A pain so bad that it keeps you from doing anything? You can’t leave your bedroom with no light or sound. Do you feel like you have no life? That is what it’s like for my wife Heather.
We have been married for 17 years and have 2 boys. Life was great until 8 years ago when Heather started to experience Migraines. They started off sporadic lasting a short time, once or twice a month. Over the last 6 years they have gotten much worse and more frequent. In fact, she now has pain 24 hours a day 7 days a week. On a scale of 1-10, she averages a 7 daily. When she is lucky to only experience pain of a 5, she considers it a good day. A pain level of 10 occurs once to twice every week. Heather has visited the ER 7 times in the last 3 years because the pain was so bad she needed someone to give her something that would knock her out and put her to sleep for 2 days. Heather experiences throbbing/pounding pain behind each eye and temples, nausea/vomiting & fatigue. Most days she pushes thru the pain and tries to work, but with little success. We can’t make plans to have a family night or to attend one of our kids’ school/sporting events. Countless events have been missed over the years and she is tired of missing the time of them growing up.
We have seen specialist in Jeff City, Columbia, St. Louis, Chicago & Rochester MN. Countless Neurologist with lots of testing. There typical suggestion is pain meds. Heather has tried more than a dozen medications, acupuncture, 2 separate treatments of Botox, a Cefaly device, biofeedback, special diet, CBD oil & DHE. While some of these treatments have worked for people with migraines, they have NOT helped her. We started off seeing specialist close to home and then extending out to a 3-hour drive before we decided to visit Chicago. We spent 9 days in Chicago at Diamond Headache Clinic where Heather had to stay in the hospital hooked up to an IV for 7 days. While there they had classes on how to manage the pain, diets & group therapy. No success from that treatment. The next step was to travel 8 hours to Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. We spent 10 days there, having them run MRI’s, blood work and more test after test. The started off stating that she had a bowl issue and had to resolve that first to rule it out for causing migraines. Issue resolved but that didn’t help the migraine. We spent the last 2.5 years visiting Mayo Clinic two to four times a year tying different medicines or device (Cefaly) but no luck. So, after 8 trips to Mayo Clinic we have discovered a new procedure to resolve and not just manage migraines.
Migraine Surgery Specialty Center in Santa Barbara California. This is where our research has led us to. We have done a lot of research and talked with several patients of theirs and we feel like we Finally Have A Solution to Heathers Migraines. Dr. Lowenstein says “Migraine headache surgery is an effective and long-term solution for chronic migraine headaches that are inadequately treated by more conservative means. Patients who are candidates (like Heather) for migraine headache surgery have frequent and/or continuous headache symptoms, ranging from pain to lightheadedness to photosensitivity or nausea. Migraine headache surgery can be a life changing experience. Over 90% of patients who undergo surgery for their migraine headaches experience significant improvement in the frequency and/or symptoms of their headaches. 30% of patients experience a complete resolution of their symptoms following migraine headache surgery.”
Heather will need to fly out to Santa Barbara California from Missouri to have this surgery. The first day is testing followed by surgery on day two. For the next 5 days she will need to rest in a hotel before going back for follow up and then fly home. As you can imagine this surgery is not cheap and of course not covered by insurance. The surgery cost $18,000. All donations will go toward the surgery and the expenses of flying to California, hotel and food. Any donations raised above our goal will go towards Heather’s current medical bills that have unfortunately added up from testing and procedures that have not worked.
Heather finally feels like there is Hope to return to normal life activities. Finally, able to attend our boys’ events and have a date night just to name a few things she has missed out on. The simple things that some take for granted. Hope for a normal life is in reach but needs your help to make it happen.
Thank you for reading. Please donate, and spread the word to a few people you’d like to share my story with.
Tim Ochs
We have been married for 17 years and have 2 boys. Life was great until 8 years ago when Heather started to experience Migraines. They started off sporadic lasting a short time, once or twice a month. Over the last 6 years they have gotten much worse and more frequent. In fact, she now has pain 24 hours a day 7 days a week. On a scale of 1-10, she averages a 7 daily. When she is lucky to only experience pain of a 5, she considers it a good day. A pain level of 10 occurs once to twice every week. Heather has visited the ER 7 times in the last 3 years because the pain was so bad she needed someone to give her something that would knock her out and put her to sleep for 2 days. Heather experiences throbbing/pounding pain behind each eye and temples, nausea/vomiting & fatigue. Most days she pushes thru the pain and tries to work, but with little success. We can’t make plans to have a family night or to attend one of our kids’ school/sporting events. Countless events have been missed over the years and she is tired of missing the time of them growing up.
We have seen specialist in Jeff City, Columbia, St. Louis, Chicago & Rochester MN. Countless Neurologist with lots of testing. There typical suggestion is pain meds. Heather has tried more than a dozen medications, acupuncture, 2 separate treatments of Botox, a Cefaly device, biofeedback, special diet, CBD oil & DHE. While some of these treatments have worked for people with migraines, they have NOT helped her. We started off seeing specialist close to home and then extending out to a 3-hour drive before we decided to visit Chicago. We spent 9 days in Chicago at Diamond Headache Clinic where Heather had to stay in the hospital hooked up to an IV for 7 days. While there they had classes on how to manage the pain, diets & group therapy. No success from that treatment. The next step was to travel 8 hours to Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. We spent 10 days there, having them run MRI’s, blood work and more test after test. The started off stating that she had a bowl issue and had to resolve that first to rule it out for causing migraines. Issue resolved but that didn’t help the migraine. We spent the last 2.5 years visiting Mayo Clinic two to four times a year tying different medicines or device (Cefaly) but no luck. So, after 8 trips to Mayo Clinic we have discovered a new procedure to resolve and not just manage migraines.
Migraine Surgery Specialty Center in Santa Barbara California. This is where our research has led us to. We have done a lot of research and talked with several patients of theirs and we feel like we Finally Have A Solution to Heathers Migraines. Dr. Lowenstein says “Migraine headache surgery is an effective and long-term solution for chronic migraine headaches that are inadequately treated by more conservative means. Patients who are candidates (like Heather) for migraine headache surgery have frequent and/or continuous headache symptoms, ranging from pain to lightheadedness to photosensitivity or nausea. Migraine headache surgery can be a life changing experience. Over 90% of patients who undergo surgery for their migraine headaches experience significant improvement in the frequency and/or symptoms of their headaches. 30% of patients experience a complete resolution of their symptoms following migraine headache surgery.”
Heather will need to fly out to Santa Barbara California from Missouri to have this surgery. The first day is testing followed by surgery on day two. For the next 5 days she will need to rest in a hotel before going back for follow up and then fly home. As you can imagine this surgery is not cheap and of course not covered by insurance. The surgery cost $18,000. All donations will go toward the surgery and the expenses of flying to California, hotel and food. Any donations raised above our goal will go towards Heather’s current medical bills that have unfortunately added up from testing and procedures that have not worked.
Heather finally feels like there is Hope to return to normal life activities. Finally, able to attend our boys’ events and have a date night just to name a few things she has missed out on. The simple things that some take for granted. Hope for a normal life is in reach but needs your help to make it happen.
Thank you for reading. Please donate, and spread the word to a few people you’d like to share my story with.
Tim Ochs