I get migraines, seem to be hormonally triggered. They started getting really bad and regular this past year. I’d be pretty much guaranteed 2-3 days of straight pain a month (only time I was glad I was unemployed!). It got to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore so I finally went to the doctor. Got Maxalt first but it didn’t work, now on a daily beta blocker. I still get headaches but they are SO much less severe. And I think I finally figured out a “hint” that I’m getting a headache - I get insanely tired to the point where I can’t stay awake even though I wasn’t tired before/slept fine the night before. So now when that happens I also try to drink caffeine to help prevent the headache from coming on because that can often help if I catch it early. I still wish I didn’t have all these headaches but the meds I am on make them more tolerable but I also get more headaches now, so I am in minor/moderate pain probably 20-30% of the time. But it could be so much worse.
I used to get migraines…the sort that start unexpectedly with glowing lights around the edge of things, and a feeling of floating about a foot off the ground…then about 20 seconds later, wham, a sharp stabbing pain in the head.
This started with puberty, and was most frequent around age 20. The frequency has dropped, and I haven’t had one in a couple of years.
All I could do is lay in a dark room and cringe at noises. Not fun.
I currently might be on the verge of another set of clusters starting up. I blame this thread!
I am very lucky as I only get one or two headaches a year, my guess it would be like any other conditon you eventually learn to cope with it.
I used to work with a guy with epilepsy. He would shake, a few times an hour he’d stop and shake for 30 seconds. He said “it didn’t hurt or anything,” but like anything eventually he learned to cope with the problem.
I’m not saying that is easy but just the way it is
Two things I’ve learned from 40+ years of migraines: talking about them summons them and mentioning to anyone that a preventative therapy might be working assures that it will immediately fail.
Um, …ow. Dumb, stupid, foolish post.
anyone else find that sometimes the day before a migraine you are really, REALLY clumsy - like have trouble negotiating corners of desks and walls and dropping stuff?
Also, last week I was in LA for a vacation - Had one afternoon of migraine - SD Zoo - felt it coming but had to just tough it out for a while and not ruin my daughter’s good time…
And then two days of hovering pain and nausea…
Nice.
I have had migraines with aura since I was 6. When I was little I got about 4 a week, they decrease in frequency every year (I am 24 now), thank goodness. I also get tension headaches, which sometimes turn into migraines.
Tension headaches just hurt. My neck will start hurting, then my scalp, then my whole head, with the worst pain being in one eye and temple. I count it as a migraine when the pain gets terrible, I am nauseous, and sensitive to light and sound.
Migraines are much cooler. They begin with visual disturbances (floaters, blurring of vision, a feeling of my eyes ‘not being able to keep up’ when I turn my head, blindness in one eye), and when I was little I had numbness and tingling on one side of my body, slurring of speech, and loss of coordination and cognitive ability (felt like I was retarded, basically). Then an intense pain takes over one side of my head, the worst behind one eye, followed by nausea, sometimes vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound. Whee!
Since changing my diet to one very low in carbohydrates I have been getting hardly any headaches, unless I don’t get my daily caffiene. I now think most of my headaches throughout my life have been blood-sugar related.