Ellee Seymour

A guest post by Kate, CEO of Headway Cambridgeshire, of which I am a trustee.

Kate suffered excruciating migraines for many years until she took part in a trial using a well known herb organised by the Migraine Action Association which has transformed her life. Her story is to be published in She magazine, but you can read it here first:

I started suffering from migraine when I was about 18 and for the following 7 or so years my life was not ruled, but considerably influenced, by the effects of my condition.  Migraines would mean 12 to 18 hours of excruciating pain and repeated vomiting – during which it was impossible for me to do anything but lie in bed, waiting for it to pass. 

My migraines were from the start stress or excitement related – with the sad consequence that I often missed big social occasions that I had really been looking forward to, and I have left more parties early, and cancelled more arrangements with my long-suffering friends than I care to remember. 

Because I vomited so much, none of the medications that are taken orally would work, so when one drug called Imigran was developed to be taken as an injection into the thigh, my life was revolutionised.  I didn’t stop getting migraines, but when I did, a jab of Imigran and a quick lie down meant I could be back up and running in an hour or two.  This continued until few years ago when I noticed that, whilst the Imigran injections were still working, my migraines were becoming more frequent and would ‘bounce back’ – leaving me taking more Imigran to get rid of an attack. 

 As well as a visit to a consultant at Addenbrooke’s who reassured me and prescribed a sophisticated new drug that melts on the tongue and so is absorbed through the lining of the mouth, I also embarked on a 3-month trial of a herb called Feverfew, organised by the Migraine Action Association, a migraine support group that I have long been a member of. 

I cannot explain the results – and am open to the suggestion that it is all mind over matter, who cares? – but from the day I started taking Feverfew the frequency of my migraine attacks has reduced more than I can quantify – I would almost say that I am no longer a migraine sufferer. 

Feverfew is a fairly well-known and commonplace herb as far as I know – it is certainly readily available in Boots – and has had no other side effects on me, apart from the very welcome one of almost eliminating my migraine attacks.  Before I started taking it in autumn 2005 I was having roughly one migraine every 10 days or so and probably using 2 or 3 Imigran injections to shift it, I was also probably making things worse for myself by desperately trying to ‘keep going’ at work and not taking the time off I needed to really recover.  To tell you when I last had a migraine I’ve just had to look in my diary to remind myself – it was 26 April – and before that ….. I can’t remember!

Every day from today, I am going to write a post about a missing person. I am doing it to remind us that this is a terrifying nightmare that happens to some families. How they continue their tormented lives, I cannot imagine, it must be a living hell.

I am doing it because of a comment posted by Tom Paine in my recent post about Madeleine, four today. He questioned whether the intense media attention about her disappearance was because she was blonde, and asked if similar coverage was given to missing boys.

He may well be right. So I am doing my little bit to remind everyone about the missing people in our world who have simply vanished without trace, perhaps in the clutches of evil people, their fate unknown. This is the cruellest agony for families to endure.

I shall start today with a Portuguese boy following reports about how Portuguese families are distraught about their lost children.

Rui Pedro Mendonca vanished in 1998, when he was 11 while walking home from school in the northern Portuguese town Lousada. A month later, hopes were raised when he was sighted with a middle-aged man in Disneyland in Paris. Then three years later, his mother’s worst fears were realised. Horrific images of Rui Pedro being sexually abused were reportedly uncovered during an international police operation that cracked a global paedophile network. More than 200 paedophiles in 13 countries had exchanged more than 750,000 images of children through a private internet club called Wonderland.

Rui Pedro has never been found, the trail has gone cold and investigators fear that may have been murdered to cover up the abuse.

Let’s hope, and pray, that is not the case. He was 20 in January.

Update 30 Aug, 2007: Although this post is now ocassional, I am still very dedicated to the cause and will continue to write these reports whenever possible. My heart is with families who have lost love ones without any real explanation, they have simply vanished.

A clever piece of marketing here by David Meerman Scott for his latest book The New Rules of Marketing & PR. He has mentioned in it a whole host of bloggers, including myself, and a copy is winging its way to me.

In his promotion, he has linked to us all on his site, it is a neat way to test out viral marketing as he knows we will all give it a plug. I am naturally delighted to be included and wish David every success.