For years, I never thought of what I had as migraine, since the pain is not very bad–I get worse sinus headaches–and everyone else I know who has migraines seems to have much more horrible, nauseating, even debilitating pain. I put the auras down as eye-strain, until I described them to my doctor, who told me that this was a “classic” symptom.
I get cold, too. And I lose peripheral vision on my right side, and then my right eye starts twitching.
I haven’t had a full blown migraine in about two years, thanks to Zomig. It really changed my life. I was terrified of these headaches, because they’d knock me out for two days at a time, with excruciating pain. I really wanted to die when I had those headaches. Then when they went away, I’d experience a very heady euphoria. I got them about twice a month.
Every time one of my friends talks about their horrible headaches, I start to sound like a fanatic…“go see your neurologist!!”. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I don’t have any weird migraine symptoms, just the standard symptoms of common (non-aura) migraine. I guess one of the strange thing is they often don’t respond to painkillers at all. Vicodin does almost nothing - barely takes the edge off. And it’s not because I’ve built up a tolerance - it’s never been a good drug. Neither has Stadol, Fiorocet, Fioronal… So if my Imitrex doesn’t work, I’m sometimes SOL for hours or days. Even the heavy duty ER drugs (Demerol, Dilaudid) aren’t that effective for me. I suspect at some point they may have to break out the morphine for me.
I used to have the type that, once they got bad enough that I would vomit, I would feel better almost instantly. Now, if I get to that point, they never get better on their own, and I know it’s time for an ER visit.
And you know what’s funny? I never went to a doctor, either, to figure out I had migraines. After my first migraine about 2 years ago, I figured out what I had by reading health-related sites on the internet. After forming a strong suspicion that I was having migraines, I happened to mention it to other family members. It turns out that the condition is hereditary. My father’s reaction to my description was, “oh, yeah: that. I get those, too.” And it turned out we had quite similar symptoms.
Of course, I wouldn’t recommend this sort of self-diagnosis for everyone or every condition. I may see a doctor at some point about my migraines if they worsen beyond what I get now. But in any case, isn’t the internet sometimes a godsend? Where would someone like me have found out about all this information 10 years ago without even seeing a doctor? Maybe at the local library, certainly, but not as conveniently or even a tenth as thoroughly as today.
I can’t prove what I get are migranes but they’re definately weird. Sensitivity to light and sound out of nowhere, and I can’t decide on anything. I usually go take a nap if/when I can, and I’m fine, but since it doesn’t hurt (too bad) pain relievers don’t help. I don’t know, but it seems like a funky migrane…
Damn straight. I’ve only been on board here a short time and have learned a LOT. I just don’t have a wide base of friends to ask around, “Hey, do you ever feel real wierd and see sqiggledy lines? No? Oh, nevermind.”
Slight hijack, I know…but I have also learned about tolerance, cultural diversity, cooking tips, computer help, trivia, you name it.
So thanks again!
I figured out what I had when my husband had one, too. He’s an optician, and had one at work, and the optometrist there told him he was having an ocular migraine. He told me what happened, and I was like, heeyyyyy, wait a minute, I had one of those too! (Kinda weird that we both get them, huh?) I had no idea what it was the first time it happened, and while it was nice to know that the auras weren’t a symptom of a brain tumor or something, I was still kind of freaked out about my hand going numb. The second time I had one, I did some research on the internet and found that the numbness was a typical symptom, which was reassuring. The third time I had one, I got the lovely icepick headache, which made me understand the motivation behind trepanation. If someone had offered to drill a hole in my skull and let the demon out, I would have taken them up on it in a heartbeat. That was my last one–forever, one hopes. If I get another headache like that, I’m calling a doctor.
When the very rare migraine is about to come, light levels seem to change…getting brighter and then darker. There is a sense of euphoria, and of floating just above the ground. Then in about 2 minutes, the euphoria goes away, and the (ACK!) pain begins.
Dark room, no noise, lying down, and that magic pill will maybe limit the duration of the migraine to 4-6 hours.
Mine seem to be spaced out from 3 to 5 years apart, and when I do have them, there will be several a week or so apart.
Very strange.
Migraine is the one condition that I actually did diagnose myself. I researched it fairly extensively in my college library in the mid 80s, and it was good to finally put a name to it. I didn’t really see a doctor about it until a few years later, and I didn’t start seeing a neurologist until 8 years ago I started taking preventatives - I was about 30. I remember having them when I was 3 years old, so I’ve probably had them my entire life - mom always thought it was something like 24 hour flu. And I always just assumed that everyone got blinding pain one one side of their head from running around in the hot sun. When I was a bit older, when someone said “I have a headache,” I assumed it was the same thing I was experiencing.
That’s how it was for me – having my first optical migraine at 38 scared the heck out of me. I was blind for half an hour and had no idea why.
Since doctors aren’t usually accessible on a moments notice, and I honestly wasn’t sure how to describe what had happened, I instead read a zillion web pages and found a name for what I’d experienced: “Oh, OK: I had a migraine!”
Which hardly made it all better, but quite a lot less scary – I hadn’t had a stroke, a brain tumor or whatever, and wasn’t going to die, or at least not yet. And, sez Google, “Between sixteen and eighteen million people suffer from migraines” – this is a known problem that many people live with, apparently successfully. There’s some measure of comfort in that.
Thank God for the internet.
I feel so sorry for you people. What a nightmare.