Hildegarde of Bingen

Hildegarde of Bingen and I have something in common. You may be curious what a modern day atheist and a Catholic nun famous for her visions (and her infamous description of the female orgasm) might have in common. 
We both suffer from migraines. Hildegarde is widely regarded as a migraine sufferer, that her so-called visions were actually the effects of migraine. 
I was wondering yesterday, as I sat drugged and stoic, what it would be like to have migraines without modern medication. My migraine medication is expensive (about $30 a pill), but it is so completely necessary to me. 
I had two migraines in my life before I discovered what was happening. The first time it happened during a period when I didn't have health insurance, (which I do now), so I didn't go visit a doctor. 
I thought I really wanted to die. I felt like someone was beating me, mashing my soft tissue, pummeling the inside of my skull. I took a shower, something that has always lessened the effects of a headache for me. I took ridiculous amounts of painkillers, hoping for the pain to abate. It did, after about twelve hours of agony. 
It began at work, with numbness in my fingers, an inability to speak, and spots of light in my vision. Now I can recognize these symptoms and take my medication before the really bad part begins, but back then I had no idea what had happened to me. No one in my family suffers from migraines, so I really didn't even think of it until I had the second one. Now, when I see the little circles of light, I run for the medicine cabinet. I carry one pill with me all the time. I spend about six hours not able to complete a simple sentence- the medication is that powerful. I can only sit, staring at nothing in particular, sensitive still to light and sound. 
After experiencing a fair number of these, (I seem to have more than one "trigger"), I wonder about poor Hildegarde, attributing that intense pain to her god. After the medication wore off yesterday, I sat, thinking about what kind of faith she had, what kind of person she was. Who would choose to love a god that could do that to you, then claim that the pain were visions from that same god, a gift? 
This is the kind of thing that comes to my mind after the euphoria (from dodging a migraine) begins to ebb...