A question of debilitating migraines

I've been getting migraines (without aura) since I was a child. I have several triggers--stress, hormones, weather, alcohol (not often) and just sleeping in an awkward position can cause a migraine.

They are entirely different from regular headaches. With migraines, everything is amplified...lights, sounds, smells. My brain gets foggy and concentrating is impossible. I'm nauseated and can't eat. As for the pain, I always describe it as a fist squeezing inside my head. Or a screw nail in my skull, tightening without letting up. If I do manage to sleep, I have strange dreams. I've missed many things due to migraines. Sometimes, I can function on a basic level, but it's hard.

Before I found a medication that worked for me, they'd last about three days. Then I found my godsend, Relpax. It works very well for me. After taking one, it's like that screw nail tightening in my head finally starts to loosen. There are side affects from the drug, but they're so, so worth it in exchange for getting rid of the debilitating pain.

Migraines are hell and I wouldn't wish them on anyone.

PS. My eyes are fine aside from severe nearsightedness.

I get both the migraine aura and migraine headache but not at the same time. The aura starts as a patch of brightness on the right of my visual field and then expands into a scintillating arc that moves right to left and then disappears. The whole thing lasts about 15-20 minutes. During this time I lose central vision and depth perception, and my colour vision is distorted. Afterwards there's a feeling of dissociation and things look odd, being outlined with their own aura and over-saturated colours. This lasts a couple of hours. I get the aura much less often than the headache.

The headache is by far the worst part. I tend to get them every couple of weeks. It's a right-sided pain that feels as if a knitting needle is being stabbed repeatedly through my temple and eye. It's accompanied by nausea and vomiting, and a complete intolerance of light and noise. Any light is too bright. I can't function at all at such times so take to my bed, shutters closed, cold flannel across my face, and wait for it to be over. They last 1-3 days. Regular over-the-counter painkillers (paracetamol or ibuprofen) don't help, even if I can keep them down. After the migraine pain is over I feel completely washed out and exhausted for a day or so. I have recently been prescribed various different triptans, which do help. These are combined with anti-emetics. The triptans don't cure the migraine but they do damp it down to the point I can still be up and about. The ones which work most effectively do make me awfully drowsy, though, so I don't drive if I've taken them. My GP and I are still working out which one suits me best.

I've missed various things due to migraines, including a family wedding. I used to have to take time off work but the triptans have helped a lot there. My migraines can induced by travelling - I rearranged my life to avoid long-haul flights at one point because one can't avoid noise and light in airports or on 'planes. Train travel is also bad. There are other triggers, bright sunlight being a major one (so I usually wear sunglasses if there's even a hint of sun), flashing lights and repeated noise (so I try to avoid films full of gunshots and explosions; I've had to walk out of films several times), and some food additives. But none of these will always trigger a migraine. I wish it were so simple!

I am also severely myopic. This seems to be associated with migraine but no one knows why.

Thecla said:

I am also severely myopic. This seems to be associated with migraine but no one knows why.

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No, it really isn't.

eta: To clarify, high myopia has many known associations. But in all my reading of ophthalmological studies and journals and in all of the many conferences I've attended, no one has ever put forward migraine as one of them.

be frank said:

No, it really isn't.

eta: To clarify, high myopia has many known associations. But in all my reading of ophthalmological studies and journals and in all of the many conferences I've attended, no one has ever put forward migraine as one of them.

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Apologies: I'll stand corrected. I was told that by my GP. As he's the only medic I've found who has been helpful in treating my migraines I took his word for it.

be frank said:

If memory serves, the first listed potential side effect for Immigran is "headache", which always struck me as kinda funny, considering what it's prescribed for.

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Wut?

Heh. No need to apologize!

People with high myopia are certainly prone to migraines, but so are high hypermetropes, and emmetropes, and everyone in between.

I started to get migraine auras a few years ago, but without the migraines. They're painless, but annoying as I can't read or drive for about half an hour. It appears to be triggered by bright lights, such as driving on a sunny day. (I've learned to always start out with sunglasses now.)

I have for many years gotten what I call "mini-migraines." They affect one side of my head, like a proper migraine should, but they are more unpleasant than horrific, and will usually respond to ibuprofen. I do have other mild symptoms, like a bit of photophobia, but they don't usually interfere with me doing important stuff. I'm incredibly lucky.

Now, I did use to get what I called "skull crackers," which were headaches at the very back of my head and were probably muscular spasms. These could be pretty debilitating - my father had the same thing, and he occasionally would end up getting codeine shots in the ER for them. Unfortunately, in my generation, doctors are less likely to hand out high-powered painkillers, so I just suffered through them. These have disappeared as I got older.

I've had migraines my entire life. Literally, since I was a baby. (We know this because I would act a certain way when I had a migraine, and when I got old enough to talk, I was able to complain about the pain.) I get regular migraines, silent migraines, and tension migraines. I've never had auras, but I get light and sound sensitivity, nausea/vomiting, trouble talking, trouble thinking straight, and one-sided pain. Not much helps. Imitrix (a popular migraine medicine) actually makes my migraines worse. (And makes me pass out.) Nothing works, except Pamprin (a PMS medicine containing a muscle relaxer and Tylenol), but I'm allergic to Tylenol, so I have to take Benadryl along with it. My migraines used to come every week and last for several days, especially around my period, but my current neurologist gives me nerve blocks that have DRASTICALLY reduced the frequency of my migraines. Now I can go weeks without one, which is amazing!

As far as how they impacted my life, they basically ruined my childhood. I couldn't do anything fun without triggering a migraine. Sleepover? Migraine. Amusement park? Migraine. Party? Migraine. It's still like that today. I recently went to see The Phantom of the Opera, and on the way there, I developed a bad migraine. My health coach says it's a stress reaction. Even good stress, like anticipation for seeing my favorite show, can trigger a migraine.

My husband also gets migraines, but his are exertion triggered, only when he plays hockey, and he can prevent them by taking a couple of aspirin beforehand. One time, before he knew what was going on, he was bending over to unlace his skates and suddenly went blind in one eye! It scared the crap out of him, so he went to a neurologist, who did an MRI and all that. Fortunately, as it turns out, it was just a symptom of the migraine.

Oh, and migraines can be genetic. My mother has them, my grandmother had them, and my great-grandmother had them, too.

be frank said:

People with high myopia are certainly prone to migraines, but so are high hypermetropes, and emmetropes, and everyone in between.

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You eye peeps (see what I did there?) must get tired of all those tropes. *coughs* I'm severely myopic (-13) and see an ophthalmologist regularly to make sure my retinas don't go twang and snap off the backs of my eyeballs. Never heard of an association between myopia and migraines -- might make for an interesting study! *pokes the alien zebra*

Wow, I'm so sorry for the misery some of you go through with migraines. Mine are more of an annoyance -- a one-sided ache that persists for three days, during which I'm crankyier. They're not debilitating like some of the horror stories above, and sometimes I can derail them by mainlining caffeine.

I get auras, too, but at different times than the migraines (my auras aren't a prelude to pain). They start as a blind spot that expands outward (usually towards the right -- my migraines are usually on the left), and develop into this:


The whole thing scintillates and shimmers with transparent colour (which is kind of a mind fuck) and after about twenty minutes it expands outside my field of vision and disappears. Is this what other people's auras look like? I'm curious if everybody sees the same thing, or something different.

Yes. That's what my aura's like. I could only look at that pic for the briefest time, because I felt sick at the image!

Yeah, the exact same zigzags of doom.

I get the visual auras just like in PastyAlien's image, but not the pain, just a bit of light-headedness. The first time I experienced it, I thought something was seriously wrong with my eye, but the ophthalmologist assured me it was just a "silent migraine". I realize I'm very lucky to avoid the horrible experiences others have with migraines.

I have heard that migraines can be associated with the menstrual cycle in women, but I tracked mine on my phone calendar and didn't find any correlation (yes I am a nerd). I've also heard that some women get migraines during pregnancy, even if they haven't experienced them before.

PastyAlien said:

I get auras, too, but at different times than the migraines (my auras aren't a prelude to pain). They start as a blind spot that expands outward (usually towards the right -- my migraines are usually on the left), and develop into this:

The whole thing scintillates and shimmers with transparent colour (which is kind of a mind fuck) and after about twenty minutes it expands outside my field of vision and disappears. Is this what other people's auras look like? I'm curious if everybody sees the same thing, or something different.

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Yes, that's pretty much what I see. It starts small in the centre of my visual field, then grows in a crescent shape filled with flashing zigzag colours. The lines inside the crescent are always straight, not curved. Eventually the crescent expands into the limits of my peripheral vision, leaving me able to see fairly well, then disappears.

I remember once seeing a dress in a store and going "It's a migraine dress! That's exactly the pattern I see!"

Twick said:

I remember once seeing a dress in a store and going "It's a migraine dress! That's exactly the pattern I see!"

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Yep. My daughter has a migraine skirt.

That image depicts the angled lines/zigzags really well, but the shape of the crescent isn't quite right. It's more distorted, pretty much like the one in this National Geographic article. If those two images were combined and overlaid with prism-like transparent colours, then that would pretty much nail it (for me, anyway).

I have experienced a different kind of aura on three occasions. This one moves quickly across the top left of my field of vision (within ten seconds), blocking out about one-fifth of my vision, and it sparks, like a sparkler birthday candle. The first time I saw it, I was all: What in the fresh hell is THIS? My ophthalmologist reassured me that is was likely just a different type of migraine aura. Brains are weird.

PastyAlien said:

I get auras, too, but at different times than the migraines (my auras aren't a prelude to pain). They start as a blind spot that expands outward (usually towards the right -- my migraines are usually on the left), and develop into this:

The whole thing scintillates and shimmers with transparent colour (which is kind of a mind fuck) and after about twenty minutes it expands outside my field of vision and disappears. Is this what other people's auras look like? I'm curious if everybody sees the same thing, or something different.

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Yes! Same here. For me, they usually start at the lower right corner of my right eye (and only my right eye!), arch across the top, and end down at the left corner. Sunday night, however, the aura started dead center, as if it were following the shape of my iris, and grew larger outward. This was one of the worst I've experienced; I was more sensitive to light than usual and wound up shading my eyes with my hand as I was talking to my partner to block one of the ceiling lights. That barely helped so I just closed my eyes. (Another "one of the worst" happened during the bus ride to work and another when I was a kid when we were at the mall on the day after Christmas 1975 [I know it was then because I got the first four Narnia books that year and I bought the remaining three with my Christmas money!]. Both bouts involved nausea; luckily, when I was at work, I was able to get to a restroom in time.)

(Semi-) funny story: I once got a migraine in the middle of the night when I was asleep. I could still see the <garbled in transmission>ing aura, which appeared and vanished in seconds. Thankfully, it happened during one of the things that helps me when I get one: lots and lots of sleep.

You know, my mom gets silent migraines and I always suspected her of making them up. A migraine without the pain? Pffft! Can't possibly be real. But then I read about them online, and apparently doctors have known about them since the 1800s. Color me surprised! (Sorry for doubting you, Mom!)

Still seems weird that you can have a full-blown migraine with nausea, vision trouble, etc., but without the pain, and it's still considered a migraine, but I do believe in them now.

When I'm getting a migraine, I will get a visual aura. The first sign is very subtle and more of a - things just look a bit off - type of thing. Then it progresses to blind spots. i.e. if I am looking at someone, half their face just won't be there sort of thing. Then I get 'sparkles' on top of the blind spots. Once the visual stuff goes away, the pain starts. If I haven't taken anything by that stage all I can do is go to bed in a dark room - and try not to throw up. BUT, if I can take the painkiller at the beginning of my aura I can usually avoid the pain. The sooner I take the pain meds, the less paid I'll have. The painkiller I take is just paracetamol with codeine. The pain is one-sided, usually the left side and often feels like I have a spike driven into my eyebrow.

As for being able to function during a migraine (assuming I woke up with it or was not able to take any sort of pain relief), people talking normally will sound like shouting, lights will be too bright, and my skin will be ultra-sensitive to touch. My ears 'flinch' from any sound at all. If I had to make decisions at that time, I would probably make a decision for whatever was easiest, not necessarily the wisest decision. I could move around, but it wouldn't be terribly fast.

The day after a migraine ends I will have a fog in which I feel sort of one step removed from the world. Don't expect too much coherence out of me in that state. That usually lasts for a couple of hours.

My migraines are usually caused by stress or strong smells. Also, you know how they say lavender is good for headaches? Well, it's beaut. Ten minutes after getting just a whiff of lavender, I'll get a migraine. I will also get a migraine if I smell mould or mildew (I'm allergic to mould).

My sympathies to my fellow migraine suffers. Migraines are just a nasty horrible thing.

Jaymz Connelly said:

When I'm getting a migraine, I will get a visual aura. The first sign is very subtle and more of a - things just look a bit off - type of thing. Then it progresses to blind spots. i.e. if I am looking at someone, half their face just won't be there sort of thing. Then I get 'sparkles' on top of the blind spots. Once the visual stuff goes away, the pain starts. If I haven't taken anything by that stage all I can do is go to bed in a dark room - and try not to throw up.

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Exactly my progression, back when I had them in my late teens and early 20s. Thankfully the syndrome proved transitory, and I haven't had a full-blown migraine for many years now. Once in a great while, maybe every two or three years, I get a passing hour or two of the visual aura symptoms, but it no longer proceeds further. The visual thing is bothersome enough that I don't want to drive, for example, but nothing worse.

Migraines are a complexity of related syndromes, it seems, with varying effects and degrees of effect on individuals, but the overall progression you describe seems to be pretty common among sufferers.

And I like PastyAllen's posted artful depiction of the aura. Very accurate, in my experience.

caw

Orianna2000 said:

You know, my mom gets silent migraines and I always suspected her of making them up. A migraine without the pain? Pffft! Can't possibly be real. But then I read about them online, and apparently doctors have known about them since the 1800s. Color me surprised! (Sorry for doubting you, Mom!)

Still seems weird that you can have a full-blown migraine with nausea, vision trouble, etc., but without the pain, and it's still considered a migraine, but I do believe in them now.

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Kind of wish they were more well-known. I thought I was having a stroke the first time I realized I could barely see.

Speaking of which, I understand that some people have been misdiagnosed with stroke due to severe migraine causing them to have trouble speaking.

I have had migraines on and off since my teens. I would have them regularly for several years then be migraine-free for a couple of years. Weather pressure systems are generally the cause for me, although if I am having stress from several different areas for an extended period of time, I have one more often than not. Mine usually begin very quickly. Sound begins to feel like an electric current running throughout my body, both light and dark cause me pain, I have horrific nausea but cannot vomit due to greater internal pressure, my thought processes are ruined throughout and then for at least a day afterword, my body is very cold, my depth perception is all askew and my body cannot obey direct commands.
Not every migraine lasts the same duration nor carries the same level of pain/issues, although most are debilitating and generally last for at least a couple of days.
There have been times I would be required to answer the door or the phone and have bruised myself falling or running into walls, so trying to do anything is dangerous to say the least.
I have found that there are times when I feel it coming on early enough that I can put heat on my neck and cold on the crown of my head to alleviate some of the misery. I love my chiropractor! He can loosen up my shoulders and pop my neck which puts me into a deep sleep and relieves my pain earlier.

Migraine is on my list of ailments that people would associate with demon possession & vampirism.

Alterations in perception and function, combined with the urge to pull one's skull open with bare hands To.Let.It.OUT. while predicting the weather has to be very Woo to witness.

SWest said:

Migraine is on my list of ailments that people would associate with demon possession & vampirism.

Alterations in perception and function, combined with the urge to pull one's skull open with bare hands To.Let.It.OUT. while predicting the weather has to be very Woo to witness.

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I strongly suspect that they're one of the prime reasons for trepanation, which is not common but does turn up fairly frequently in early Medieval and late Classical Europe.

If I thought that might work...
The phrase 'like a hole in my head' suggests it probably lacks efficacy.


Perhaps the weirdest thing to me, though, is the certainty that I can't possibly survive a bad episode.

Then I wake up in Actual Reality. All alive, and stuff, and equally certain that I can't ever endure it again.

Still feels that way after fifty years of repetitions.

AW Admin said:

I strongly suspect that they're one of the prime reasons for trepanation, which is not common but does turn up fairly frequently in early Medieval and late Classical Europe.

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I've wondered about this.

PastyAlien said:

I get auras, too, but at different times than the migraines (my auras aren't a prelude to pain). They start as a blind spot that expands outward (usually towards the right -- my migraines are usually on the left), and develop into this:

The whole thing scintillates and shimmers with transparent colour (which is kind of a mind fuck) and after about twenty minutes it expands outside my field of vision and disappears. Is this what other people's auras look like? I'm curious if everybody sees the same thing, or something different.

Click to expand...

This is similar, though mine are less curved and sometimes look like little chains of diamonds flickering at the periphery of my vision too. They tend to be white, though sometimes light and dark patterns alternate. My eyes tend to water too.