The Migraine Thread

I’ve had this blasted headache for two weeks now. Previously, in my opinion, a migraine was one one of those headaches that had you curled up in a fetal ball whimpering, not able to stand any kind of sensory input without extreme pain. Nausea, of course. This headache wasn’t like that. It was intermitantly bad, sometimes bad enough to make me queasy, and some sensitivity to light and sound, but nowhere near the pain I’ve had in other cases. Finally, yesterday, after 12 days of this, I called my doctor. She saw me and tentatively diagnosed it as a migraine. I got a shot of Imitrex, which helped for about 10 hours, then it was back. I got an MRI today and she wrote a scrip for amitriptylin, which I’m to start tonight.

What other dopers suffer from migraines, and are yours of different types?

StG

Imitrex and Zomig, migraine abortives (triptan drugs) are great. They can stop the headache in its tracks, but they do wear off. They come in pill form too and you should be able to repeat the dose. There are also longer acting triptans (Frova & Amerge, for example), but from what I understand, they don’t work as well when the headache is well underway.

I didn’t have much luck with amitriptyline as a preventative, but many migarineurs do. It’s been around forever and a lot of docs try it first. It notoriously causes drowsiness and weight gain. I am trying Topamax, with some success.

For more information on migraine, try Brain Talk Neurology Forums, hosted by Massachusetts General Hospital. Best of luck.

One hour before the migrane hits, my vision is disturbed by what is called an aura. This is a speckled form the starts near the centre of the feild of vision which broadens and arcs out to the periphery. The aura is like a big shimmering blind spot, taking about one hand-span of visual feild at its widest. It is very disturbing but disappears after about 1 hour. There is no headache at this time and acts as a cue to take some ibuprofen.

The migrane usually lasts for a whole day. Then I just want to get away from light and sleep.

After the migrane it is like having a hangover for the next day or two. Not a lot of fun.

Fortunately I only experience this 2-3 times a year.

I get them - not as bad as some (no ER visits for me), but they leave me pretty much unable to function at all when they get full-blown. When they’re at their worst, I have to lie in a dark room with two ice packs (forehead and back of the neck). If I stand up, I instantly vomit - no warning whatsoever. I can’t even have my dog in the bed with me - I can FEEL her breathing.

Luckily, after about 8 failed attempts, I have found a medicine that works if I catch it early enough. 90% of the time I get the “spots” in my eyes, about a half hour before the pain (on preview, it’s what antechinus describes. If I take a dose of medicine and drink a can of coke the first instant that I see spots, the pain is kept at a tolerable level (sometimes it doesn’t even hit).

Sometimes, though, the spots don’t happen, and WHAM! - a migraine will somehow instantly hit - full pain. And those migraines aren’t treatable with meds - I just get more nauseated when I take a dose. Those are the killers, and luckily I’ve had just a handful of those in the past few years.

The two things that have helped me:

  1. Knowing my triggers. That took awhile, but I finally narrowed it down to bright light (such as bright summer sunlight glinting off a car bumper into my eyes), rain or high humidity (that one’s pretty constant), and going for too long without eating (once I eat, the migraine hits, and it’s usually the one with no warning).

  2. Having my medicine with me. Everywhere. At all times. I have it at home, in my desk at the office, in my briefcase, in the glove compartment of my car, and in my purse. That may sound like overkill, but trust me - I have been able to prevent hours and hours of torture just by being able to take a dose of medicine as soon as I know a migraine is coming on.

So - I feel your pain. I don’t want to, but I do! Best of luck to you and I hope it goes away soon.

Well, I have two things that cause my migranes. The kind of migrane for me depends on which cause it had.

For one kind, it’s caused by me eating too many bananas. (Thankfully, I really don’t like bananas, except for banana bread. I dunno why I like 'em in bread but hate them otherwise.) This kind gets me even more light-sensitive eyes, sensitivity to sound, and a ‘large gold brick wrapped in lemon’ and settling itself behind the eyes pain. No pounding or throbbing, it’s just there like that fruitcake that’s been sitting around the house since who knows when.

The other kind is seemingly linked to my blood pressure, or lack thereof. If my blood pressure drops too much, then if I am doing anything other than lying down I get a blunt-feeling migrane. However, when this happens I’m in no real shape to pay much more attention to it than that… If I sit/stand up, the migrane sets in and I get dizzy. It’s a toss up between the migrane causing the nausea and the low blood pressure triggering the dizzyness which in turn tiggers my motion sickness and causesthe nausea, but either way I’ll be tossing up. I’m not about to sit up long enough to deterine anything more about my migrane other than I now have one. :wink:

Thankfully, the banana-caused one is easy to avoid, and I generally have enough warning that my blood pressure is dropping to avoid the second kind. With either one, all I have to do is curl up for awhile, and it’ll fade away.

Whew, more long winded than I intended. I hope that everything goes well for you, StGermain, and that other Dopers with migranes have effective remedies available for theirs!


<< Be moderate where pleasure is concerned, avoid fatigue. >>

Ugh. I can relate.

I have had a migraine almost every day for the past month. I’m a lifelong sufferer, and this is the longest time I’ve been sick almost every day that I can remember, though I’ve had more severe migraines many times that didn’t last as long. I’ve tried all the triptans (two Zomig today), but right now nothing is working for more than a couple of hours. I’ve been popping Vicodin ES like tic-tacs lately. The rebounding just won’t stop - I had an ER visit on Saturday - 4 doses of dilaudid, and the thing still came back several hours later. I’m easing into Topomax starting today for my daily meds, and if that starts to help, easing off the Neurontin. If that doesn’t work I don’t know what I’m going to do - I’m reaching the end of my rope - I’m rapidly reaching the point where I can’t cope and I can’t function.

StGermain, I definitely don’t want to put a damper on this thread, but you might want to have a peak at an IMHO thread I started a while back asking people what they took for their migraines. I hope things get better for you (and everyone else out there who suffers from these fucking things) and your MRI results are good.

I will post more to this thread when I am feeling less migrainey.

porcupine - have you been tested for cluster headaches?
What you describe sounds like what happens to my husband. At the moment, he is taking 1.5 mg of melatonin very night before bed, and this seems to help stave off the cycle (which can last 40 days.) IF he starts a cycle, his doctor puts him on a ridiculously large dose of prednisone to start, and then tapers the dose down over a period of several weeks. I would never recommend medication to someone else, but I would urge you to talk to a neurologist and mention these things to him/her. There’s also a website for cluster information - http://www.clusterheadaches.com

I am a migraine sufferer, my husband is a cluster headache sufferer. While they have similar characteristics, they are very different types of problems, and should not be treated as the same thing. I am quoting info from memory, but I can get some cites if needed - I’d just have to dig them all out of my old computer.

MOST migraine sufferers (something like 75%) are female, and of those a good proportion are linked to hormones - mine, for instance, almost always come with my periods. Migraines are also often linked to caffeine withdrawal… hence the addition of caffeine to aspirin in many OTC migraine meds.

Something like 90% of cluster victims are male. There is no known single cause, although they have been linked to allergic reactions and, believe it or not, the sleep cycle. Clusters are known informally, and unfortunately fairly accurately, as “suicide headaches.”

There are significant differences in the two kinds of headache. Migraine sufferers often need to sleep to beat the headache, whereas cluster sufferers are frequently WOKEN by their headaches. Auras are common with both kids, as are auditory hallucinations. Clusters, however, are often accompanied by olfactory hallucinations as well.

IIRC, Imitrex INJECTIONS are shown to be more effective in controlling clusters, while the same medication in pill form seems to be more effective for migraines.

More as I think of it, in the meantime, my sympathy to all of us headcases.

My SO suffers from migraines, and has for years. It took us a long time to find her trigger, but believe it or not, it’s MSG. She may have some kind of allergy to it, or at least a sensitivity. Regardless, 90% of her migraines can be traced to MSG. We’re talking light, noise, skin sensitivity…she wants to be in a cool, dark, quiet place when these things hit her.
As far as the MSG thing goes, I wasn’t really sure, so I did a nasty thing…slipped her a MSG “Mickey” one afternoon. Sure enough, a couple of hours later, BINGO, migraine. (Yes, I know it was horrible, but even she admitted later that it was worth it to prove that MSG was a primary trigger for her. Besides, I took VERY good care of her for the several hours she was suffering.)
So, you might wanna look into it…I think my SO read a book called “In Bad Taste” or something like that, which gave her the first inkling that MSG might’ve been a trigger.
Best of luck to all you migraine sufferers…

More sites/cites here on the difference between migraine and cluster headaches:

http://lib-sh.lsumc.edu/fammed/intern/clusmigr.html

http://neuroland.com/ha/cluster.htm

Eep, I get migraines occasionally (maybe once or twice a year although I haven’t had one for about two years now) but nothing so bad as the rest of you have described.

I have no idea what my trigger may be nor do I get any sort of warning that one’s about to hit… they just start out as a normal headache and just keep gaining in intensity (an usually taking up residence behind my eyes) until I’m unable to function.

After about ten or fifteen minutes of this pain, my mouth usually starts flooding with saliva and I have to fight my gorge rising. I usually also shiver like I’m in subzero temperatures while feeling fevered.

Not fun at all… I’ve never had to go to an emergency room for it nor do I take medication, I just go to bed and hope it’s over by the time I wake.

LifeOnWry, I haven’t been tested for cluster headaches. It’s a possibility, I suppose, but the reason I’m pretty sure this is just (well not “just” but you know what I mean…) a long and stubborn migraine attack is that the quality of the pain is the same as it’s always been; only the duration is an order of magnitude longer. From what I have read about clusters, they are even worse than migraines. My sympathies to your hub on the clusters, and to you on the migraines. I am seeing my neuro again in a few weeks and I will definitely bring the possibility of clusters up then.

Mine are also hormone-related to a degree (lots of other triggers, too) - my worst migraine week is generally the week I’m off the BC pill, so about two years ago my OB/GYN put me on BCP 9 weeks on/1 week off instead of 3 weeks on/1 week off, and that’s generally been really helpful. We originally tried 12 weeks on/1 week off but my body just didn’t like that. It has to be a monophasic BCP, not a triphasic. For many women, BCP aggravates the problem, but for me it is the opposite - I went off it for about a year a few years back and my headaches got worse. So if you’re like me in that regard, you might want to talk to your doctos(s) about being on BCP for more than 3 weeks at a time. My OB/GYN also gave me a very low dose estrogen patch to wear the week off, since one theory is that it’s the estrogen letdown that sets off the migraines. I haven’t had a week off in a while, so I don’t know yet if it will help or not.

And thanks for the email as well - I’ll respond in a bit.

antechinus, I also get “migraine hangover” - I know exactly what you mean.

DirkGntly, I definitely believe MSG as a trigger. I don’t get migraines per se from MSG, but I get this really weird sort of headache, and I have really weird dreams. I call it “salad headache” because some salad dressing have (or used to have) MSG, and that was the connection I made. Never noticed a connection to Chinese food, the classic MSG ingredient, but I’ve been ordering w/out MSG for many years.

More later, I’m sure… sorry if this is a bit disjointed - I’m on Vicodin #2 for the evening. Why am I not in bed? I need to finish my laundry. Like most of you chronic sufferers know, if I went to bed every single time I had a migraine, I’d be there so much I’d have been fired long ago.

Anyone out there ever have to go on disability (either long term or short term) due to migraines? I’m really afraid that might happen to me if I can’t get this cycle broken soon.

I don’t know of anyone who’s had to go on disability for migraines, but I would venture to say it’s likely. That kind of pain is disabling, and I know that when I get a migraine, I am completely non-functional.

Besides lack of caffeine, another of my triggers is aspartame (nutrasweet). They’re definitely not BCP related, since I’m not on them (the hub is snipped) but I have noticed an increase in frequency and duration of the headaches as I meander toward menopause.

All personal stories and advice aside, I would definitely urge anyone with intense or recurring headaches to see a neurologist - these things CAN be treated, and sometimes they indicate other problems as well, such as stroke or aneurysm. You shouldn’t try to self-diagnose, or self-medicate, unless you know exactly what you’re doing. I don’t mean to sound self-righteous or bossy, but I live in constant fear of my husband’s head exploding, because he was misdiagnosed for such a long time. I hate to hear others suffering from this.

I looked at the cluster vs migraine sites you give, LifeOnWry, and based on that I’m pretty sure they are indeed migraines. “Patient prefers hibernation.” That’s me for sure - moving aggravates things. Also, usually sleep helps, and of course I have the good old nausea and vomiting (they had to give me anti-nausea drugs at the ER on Saturday). I will discuss with my neuro nonetheless, since he’s the expert. I have what’s known as “common migraine” which is basically like “classic migraine” except I don’t get a visual aura. I get the throbbing on one side (though the side changes frequently), nausea, hypersensitivity to light and sound (and smell as well). It’s like my entire nervous system is on overload.

Here’s some migraine sites I like:
http://www.migraines.org/
http://www.ama-assn.org/special/migraine/migraine.htm

Not sure about disability but I know it’s covered under FMLA. A few people at work use it.
I prefer to use my FMLA for my son when he is ill rather than my migraines.
I’m taking the amytryptiline 50mg a night but I can’t take it like I am supposed to since I work 11 hour shifts Friday evening into early Monday morning and it would do to fall asleep on the job and fall into the bologna.
The side effects I’ve had are cravings for sweets (chocolate, not a bad one except possible weight gain), and some hair loss.
When they get way bad it’s off to the ER for me. That every other month anymore it seems.
Got a shot of Imitrex the last time and helped wonderfully!
So, the doctor started me off at home with the pills with no effect, and then the nose spray which made me sick and didn’t really seem to help much. Next is self injections which I’m not kicked up for. But seven seconds of sting is better than vomitting and praying your head will fall off the next time you heave.

My migraines come on the left side and I have terrible sight in my left eye from them.
I usually get them every month before my cycle and can last for days. I’ve also noticed they get triggered by sinus headaches and turn into wicked migraines.
MSG is another known trigger as well as severely cold weather, or bright reflections of light as mentioned earlier by another poster.

I occasionally get ocular migraines - the weird visual disturbance, but no pain. Then it’s almost as though I’m drunk, half my vocabulary is no longer forthcoming, and sometimes I get emotional and weepy. Then the side of my face and mouth goes numb, and after an hour or two it’s usually over. Odd things. I haven’t worked out what the triggers are, since the attacks are so infrequent, but they seemed to get worse on birth control tablets.

I get horrible migraines that come on very suddenly, leave me in pain, weak, dizzy, very nauseous and sometimes unable to function at all, and then just stop dead. January 1, 2003 one minute I had my head in the toilet urpping up water, the next I was heating up veggies, mac and cheese. I can’t eat when I have them, and then binge when they are over.

I usually take about 3 to 6 Tylenol and asprin to keep them from totally stopping me.

I feel so sorry for you people! I get the occasional “regular headache” and I can barely function. The migrane is a very scary creature, and not one I want to meet. I hope you all find the drug that works.

After several months on BCP I started getting migraines during my periods. I only get a few a year under normal circumstances, and while they’re excruciatingly painful I’ve never needed to go to the ER yet. But when for three months in a row I got them starting when my period really hit and ending the moment it did (thank God I only had two to three day periods on BCP) I figured there must be a connection.

As an experiment, and since I’m no longer in the relationship that caused me to get BCPs in the first place, I’ve quit taking them, and will see what happens over the next couple of months. If the migraine situation doesn’t change, I’m going back on, three months on and one week off. I’d already been told I could do that, but I thought since I wasn’t having sex right now anyway I might as well see what happens if I stop taking them for a while.

Mine feel like there’s an icepick being driven into my head over either eye, and I want to throw up, and if I move it hurts SO BAD. Fortunately they go away if I can get to sleep for a while, though the period migraines were a whole lot more stubborn than my usual former ones.

I have two different kinds of migraines.

I have really bad ones that come on suddenly and cause me to run to bed and put a pillow over my head. Those usually go away and never come back with one Imitrex.

I have another kind that starts slowly. I get very sensitive to light and noise. I am also easily confused. These can last for up to three days. They never get so bad that I can’t function but they do make me miserable. Imitrex will make it go away for awhile but it will come back.

My triggers are my period, going too long with out eating and stress. Being on BC actually helps. But, I have to adjust my pills every few years or they start getting worse again.

Well, I took the amitriptylin last night, and woke up with the same headache. Back to the Imitrex. If I could just make it go away permanantly, I could probably manage the next headache. The problem is, this is the same headache, over and over again. I’m getting pretty frustrated.

StG