I think this would fall under the heading (no pun intended) of “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Yes, there are a lot of people who think a migraine is simply a bad headache, and sometimes I would swear I’ve met them all.
I’ve spent a lot of time explaining the difference between the two. I explain that I’m under the care of a neurologist and that I take a daily prescription medication to prevent them and that I have another prescription for when I do get a full-blown migraine. I have to explain that migraines don’t go away with an aspirin. Some people are receptive to learning what a migraine really is and others just seem to blow it off, like they know better than me.
There’s a thread in here or in IMHO about what to do when someone tries to correct you, but they’re wrong and you’re actually right - I read it with a familiar feeling, since there have been times I’ve mentioned having a migraine and someone will say, “Why didn’t you just take a couple aspirin? I get migraines all the time and an aspirin always gets rid of it!” I try to be tactful and polite and explain that no, what you had was not a migraine. They’ll usually suggest a certain brand of aspirin or pain reliver - “Oh, you should try Tylenol, that gets rid of my migraines! Just one works!”
Like I said, most people are receptive to learning about the difference, but there are still a lot of people who think the words ‘headache’ and ‘migraine’ are interchangeable.
I have infrequent, head-splitting-nausea-accompanied-put-me-in-bed-with-NO-light-for-hours headaches that I have always called migraines, since that was my understanding of the symptoms of a migraine. However, my own personal treatment is a couple of Advil. It doesn’t always work, but it does help more often than not, and since I only get these headaches at most a couple of times a year (and then only if I’m stupid enough not to avoid their triggers), I’ve never found the need to seek further medical attention.
The first time I had an ocular migraine, though, I was home alone with my two young children. I had a serious eye injury many years ago as a child, and the affected eye has had a fragile retina since then. Since a fragile retina can remain attached for years and years and never cause any problems, the doctors just keep telling me not to worry about it unless I get a flood of floaters in the eye, at which point I should immediately see attention so that the retina can be re-attached as soon as possible.
When the ocular migraine hit, I was worried that it was my retina collapsing, even though I was seeing a “kaleidoscope” effect more than a flood of floaters zooming toward the top of my eye. The worst part, though, was the fact that I was home alone with our kids, and my husband was on his way home from work, so I couldn’t reach him by phone. I couldn’t see at all, so I couldn’t use the phonebook to find a doctor’s office to call, and neither of the kids was old enough to read well enough to find a phone number. By the time my husband came home, I was virtually blind. He placed the call to the doctor’s office, and a kind nurse there explained what was going on. She did advise me to take some ibuprofen just in case I was one of those people who gets a headache after the ocular migraine. It was over within about a half-hour, I guess.
It’s only happened one other time since then–about a year later. I was home with the kids again, but when I recognized it, I just went back to the bedroom to lie down until it was over.