If you've ever experienced a migraine before, you already know how debilitating they can be. Chronic Migraine is something that a great number of people across the world live with, including actress Kristin Chenoweth who is opening up about her own journey in an effort to help others.
Chenoweth appeared on the very first episode of "The Head Start: Embracing The Journey" podcast where she talked about her first experience with a terrible migraine while on stage at her first solo concert with the Virginia Symphony at 25 years old. Kristin described the bright lights beginning to bother her, and explained her head "feeling like a sledgehammer was on top of it," in addition to nausea.
In a conversation with iHeartRadio, the Tony Award winner expanded on her experience and said, "I'd never had one. And so I didn't know what was happening to me at first. It started with the bright spotlight, and then whatever I focused on, like if I looked at your face or the conductor's face, it would be a black hole and around it would be like kaleidoscope lights. So whatever I focused on, that's what was happening. And then I started getting really sick to my stomach and I thought, I think I'm gonna throw up. So at first I thought I had a bug. I was like, I must be literally getting a bug in the middle of the song. By the time intermission came, I had a headache, I can't even say a pounding headache, that's not even fair. It was a pound, like a sledgehammer, and a brain freeze from when you eat a Slurpee from 7-Eleven, [and] you eat it too fast. It was all that at once. And by intermission, I was throwing up. The curtain went down and I just threw up." She added, "I was young, I was 25, I didn't know what was going on and I thought maybe I'm having a brain tumor, but I knew my mom had migraines growing up. So I thought, I wonder if it's a migraine, but she didn't describe it like this, this is just hell on earth."
Kristin also recalled one of the worst migraines she ever had, and it happened during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a time when she was performing in Wicked on Broadway. She explained, "I was doing Wicked at the time and was not finding the right treatment for me. And it was the weekend of the Macy's Day parade, [and] 10,000 shows. You know, we're getting a ton of shows in for that holiday season. And, I'm young at that point, I'm thinking I'm just gonna have the best time ever. And I had to wake up at 4:30am for the Macy's Day Parade, and I thought I was getting it. So I downed a couple of Tylenol, I went to the parade. By the time we were on that float, we didn't have to ride the thing, but we were on the float, like singing at 34th Street, right there in front of Macy's. I was so sick. And that Thanksgiving, of course it was sunlight. It was like the most beautiful Thanksgiving day ever. Not a snow flurry, not a drip of rain, just beautiful sunshine. And normally I love that, but I couldn't. And I kept putting on my sunglasses and some of my costars were like, what's wrong with you? I'm like, I'm getting a migraine. And there's shame in that, you know, it's like they don't understand, they don't get it. I was sick. That migraine wiped me out for three days."
iHeartRadio also spoke with Dr. Larry Charleston, who shed light on just how many people suffer from Chronic Migraine — 3.3 million people in the United States. He said, "That would be about the third largest city in the United States. And it's very debilitating. That's what we've been discussing, very debilitating disease." Charleston added, "It's just really important as we raise awareness. It is an invisible disease, just like pain diseases really are, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And that is what is really, really important with the education. A lot of things we're finding out with the brain, and things that happen as far as the processes and the pathophysiology and all that type of stuff. But, it's an episodic chronic neurological disease."
In an effort to raise awareness about Chronic Migraine, Chenoweth is speaking out about her own experience, as well as what she is doing to help combat the painful condition for herself. Kristin has been using BOTOX as a preventative treatment measure, and as she explained, "I was gonna have to retire, but I didn't."
Kristin went on to share about treating Chronic Migraine with Botox, "It's preventative too, so it's helped a lot there. It's given me a sense of relief as I travel and do all the things I do for work. I'm not constantly worried like, oh, this thing that I'm gonna do without sleep, flying three, four times a week, I'm not gonna probably get it. It's given me a sense of safety." She added, "Just last week with the wildfire air in New York, I was like, I hope I don't get a migraine. Just to know that I'm up to date on my treatment and it's gonna be okay. It's really gonna be okay. That's really what I wanna share with people of how it's really made me feel like I can overcome. That's what the doctor said earlier. He said, don't think of it as living with it. Of course we are, but thinking about something you're overcoming, that's really resonated with me today."
To learn more about Kristin's story, head over to the Center Stage with Chronic Migraine program website.