Mirte van der Kammen (25) from Veldhoven has had a heavy migraine for years. Working as a teacher in primary school is no longer going. At the age of 24 she was completely rejected. “Now I’m at home. That is very intense. ” Her hope is located on an implant developed in Eindhoven. On Monday, a test version was implanted to a patient for the first time in the Netherlands. Mirte follows the developments closely, because she sees it. “I certainly want to have that.”
“I suffer from headaches day and night,” says Mirte in her living room, a place where she is forced to stay because of the migraine often. “I have very little energy because of the migraine. I really have to make choices in what I do or don’t do. ”
Mirte is only 25. She has chronic migraine. “The attacks really merge with me. So I always have pain and a whole range of other symptoms. ”
In addition to a headache, Mirte suffers a lot from fatigue, dizziness and nausea. According to her, it cannot be compared with a heavy headache. “All my body is hit by the migraine.” She cannot tolerate light and sound. “Sometimes I don’t get out of my words well. Then I can’t concentrate. “
The ‘migraine covers’ is already ready in the freezer. The hat consists of an Icepack, a gel that becomes ice cold. She can pull this over her eyes. She does that especially on hot days, if the pain becomes too much. She is also regularly on the couch with the curtains closed.
How different she had imagined her future. She followed the teacher training course in Helmond and worked at a primary school in Veldhoven. First group five and then the toddlers. As a child she already dreamed of this, but once in front of the class, it didn’t work.
Mirte had to go through a grieving process to process that she will never work again. “I have had therapy for more than a year to really give that a place. You don’t process something like that in a few months. At first I found it very emotional and very intense. And at the moment I am about to do something for society in other ways. I have recently started volunteering instead of paid work. “
“I have been suffering from headaches since childhood. From group 7 my parents really started working with it because it started to stand out. ” They took Mirte to the doctor and to the children’s hospital. “They couldn’t find what it was exactly then.”
Later she went to two other hospitals on her own. At the age of nineteen she was diagnosed with ‘migraine’. “Which was not super surprising, because my mother also has migraine. It is hereditary. Because I have such a high frequency, they could not see the patterns and phases that you normally have in a migraine attack in my childhood. ”
“It feels like tingling or like ants that run over my head.”
The migraine is therefore hereditary and that is why Mirte could ever pass it on again. “They can’t stick a percentage on it, but there is a chance. That is something that I will take with me. But now I also have the knowledge that I have deepened myself in Migraine, that at least I will be on time, if it is. ”
Also read: This implant must become the drug against migraine
The Eindhoven company Salvia Bioelectronics is developing a therapy against migraine. The first patient in the Netherlands received two comics under her scalp on Monday: one just above the eyes and one at the back of the head. The therapy is started with the push of a button. These strips must send electrical signals two hours a day and then the migraine should decrease.
Mirte is enthusiastic: “This is interesting. I now use an external neurostimulator myself. You stick it on your forehead with an electrode. It feels like tingling or like ants that run over my head. It cannot prevent attacks, but it relieves the pain. I hope that an implant, which is deeper in your head, works even better. That attacking can occur or that it gives even more pain relief. I would certainly be open to having him put in my head. “
