{"id":45542,"date":"2025-07-07T08:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T08:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/45542\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T08:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T08:44:09","slug":"tracis-paws-founder-back-after-struggles-with-migraines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/45542\/","title":{"rendered":"Traci’s Paws founder back after struggles with migraines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Traci Wilkerson Steckel at the Unleash the Holiday Cheer event for Traci\u2019s Paws. (Photo courtesy of Traci Wilkerson Steckel)<\/p>\n

Traci Wilkerson Steckel, the founder of Traci\u2019s Paws<\/a>, is back after taking a more passive role in the nonprofit due to her struggle with migraines.<\/p>\n

Steckel started Traci\u2019s Paws in 2013. She was inspired by her Texas childhood, when she said she was always taking in unwanted animals. That didn\u2019t stop when Steckel grew up. As a teacher, she took in plenty of class pets too, but didn\u2019t feel she was doing right by them.<\/p>\n

She considered starting her own venture, but talked to shelters and rescues and heard they needed help with food, volunteers and the business side of things. So Traci\u2019s Paws was born.<\/p>\n

But Steckel had to take a step back from her nonprofit passion project due to migraines. After dealing with them for almost 30 years, she had reached a tipping point, but luckily, she found a medication that worked for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy life is much happier now because I\u2019m having so many fewer days with migraines,\u201d Steckel said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much more to Steckel than her battle with migraine disease and Traci\u2019s Paws, though. She is the founder and CEO of her own firm, Wilkerson Consulting Agency<\/a>. She was a teacher for almost eight years and is an ally for the LGBTQ community, participating in protests and advocating for others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also quite the jazz enthusiast and a musician herself. Unfortunately for Steckel, her migraines barred her from playing her baritone saxophone. But now that Steckel has found some relief, she is back to playing her sax and is especially happy at the chance to make music again.<\/p>\n

Steckel has found some respite from migraines, but only after she became her own health care advocate, she said. Migraines aren\u2019t merely headaches; for Steckel, they were debilitating. She tried to persevere as much as possible, but she said, \u201c\u200b\u200bThere are a lot of days that are lost because sometimes you just cannot function.\u201d<\/p>\n

The neurological disease<\/a> causes headaches, but also nausea and vomiting. According to Dr. Jessica Ailani, director of the MedStar Georgetown Headache Center, migraine disease is essentially having a sensitive brain that can be easily irritated by scent, light and sound.<\/p>\n

Steckel herself said she is sensitive to smells \u2014 even a nice-smelling perfume can trigger a migraine for her. And despite being a seasoned vet when it comes to migraines, she eventually had to press pause on her nonprofit and community involvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to put a hold, you know, kind of slam the brakes. It\u2019s not fun, because life is still spinning around on the outside,\u201d she said. \u201cBut you kind of feel like the world\u2019s kind of stopped because you\u2019re in so much pain, you really can\u2019t function, and a lot of times you do it anyway, but there are times when you just can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ailani said it\u2019s common for people who suffer from migraines to push through life. But pushing through the pain can come at a cost, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this burden that they carry from pushing through. They get through work, but then they\u2019re not really being there for friends and family. So it\u2019s extremely isolating,\u201d Ailani said.<\/p>\n

Steckel believes encouraging casual migraine conversations and normalizing the disease is key in spreading awareness. To both Steckel and Ailani, it\u2019s important to be your own healthcare advocate and talk about the disease with friends, family and health care providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I would say to encourage you is, you know, find that right provider. Search for that right treatment. It is not instantaneous,\u201d Ailani said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take time, but it\u2019s worth it in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traci Wilkerson Steckel at the Unleash the Holiday Cheer event for Traci\u2019s Paws. (Photo courtesy of Traci Wilkerson…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,35353,8622,3549,7264,35354,35355,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,35356],"class_list":{"0":"post-45542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-migraines","12":"tag-nonprofit","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-traci-wilkerson-steckel","16":"tag-tracis-paws","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-wilkerson-consulting-agency"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114811074493516068","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}