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General health

Migraine sufferers

43 replies

BF888 · 01/01/2020 02:11

Hi!

I get migraines infrequently and I am familiar with triggers, mainly foods, so I know what to avoid. Every now and then something new triggers me.

I’m just wondering what symptoms some of you who have migraines get? I get all the usual and some that are a little more unusual, like pain in my limbs, down my ears, can become very itchy. Just wanted to see if anyone else gets these symptoms too?

TIA x

OP posts:
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SecretWitch · 01/01/2020 02:13

My warning symptoms are jagged lights in the corner of my eyes and almost a sense of impending doom. I take my sumatriptans as soon as I can

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BAYouTFall · 01/01/2020 02:25

I get really hot to the point of sweating, I also get double vision and the room will start spinning and will also feel nauseous. Sad

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Skatesbythesea · 01/01/2020 04:52

Crinkly vision and blindspots. Sense of blankness/detached. Nausea.

Mostly mine are silent migraines - virtually symptom free save for the dull thumping headache when it arrives. Thankfully mine are not too severe.

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FaithInfinity · 01/01/2020 11:28

Mine have changed. They started 12 years ago (traumatic bereavement being the trigger). Back then I used to get aura - a sensation of feeling ‘weird’, disoriented, almost out of body. I’d get the flashing lights. Now I get a sudden onset of pain, usually one sided. I get altered sensation across my head and neck and numbness in my face). Sometimes I get nausea and vomiting. I was getting so many (often at least one a week) so I’ve been put on Amitriptyline with triptans if they do kick in. It’s worth asking about medications.

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KTyoupigeon · 01/01/2020 11:33

I get hormonal migraines for 4-5 days every cycle and use triptans. My initial symptoms are a very cold fizzy nose and feeling generally a bit weird and unsteady. If I take a triptan at this point I can normally manage to ‘carry on’. But I will sometimes have a migraine with sudden immense pain and they are hideous - my ears, jaw, teeth and neck all hurt alongside the head pain and the sensitivity to smell and sound/light so I have to double dose triptans, double dose ibuprofen and take anti sickness tablets and just go to bed and hope I sleep it off. I also know my triggers other than hormones so no idea why I get a sudden migraine :/

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greathat · 01/01/2020 11:34

I feel really great and full of energy for a bit. Then get visual auras of various types. Then the pain kicks in, I lose the ability to string a sentence together, and I start throwing up. Usually wiped out for a couple of days. I have preventative pills and melt in the mouth triptans as I just threw the other types up

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greathat · 01/01/2020 11:35

Also need to stay in the dark, light makes everything much worse

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iklboo · 01/01/2020 11:38

When one is coming on one side of my face goes numb, then I start slurring when I talk. I get black 'blooms' rather than flashing lights. If I take medicine then it can sometimes stop one developing. Most seem to come on in the night though.

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Lougle · 01/01/2020 11:45

I get many migraines. I often carry on through them because of our sickness policy at work, but then colleagues notice mistakes I've made like missing out sections of data, or using the wrong data, transposing stuff Sad

I tend to get a mask of pain down one side of my face, into my nose, jaw, teeth and back of my neck. I feel slightly disorientated and become very noise sensitive.

I feel sick sometimes, but extremely rare for me to be sick. However, I suffer from gastric stasis during a migraine, so pills don't absorb, and taking prochlorperazine allows them to absorb.

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RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 01/01/2020 11:48

I get the thing where I smell burning. It's horrible.

I also get absolutely raging hunger, which is very odd.

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Teachermaths · 01/01/2020 11:53

I get zig zag eyes, raging hunger and sickness. Then I sleep and I feel OK.

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thedevilinablackdress · 01/01/2020 11:53

Very similar to greathat above.
Weird energy before, visual aura, loss of coherent speech. Feels like my head is being split open by a rusty axe. Day or so post-drome spacey-ness

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cattaxi · 01/01/2020 11:55

Visual aura, a funny smell, stiff neck, nausea and vomiting. I’m lucky that triptans deal with them well. I feel off the next day too - stiff and tired.

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lynsey91 · 01/01/2020 12:01

My symptoms vary each time. Sometimes I get a terrible pain down one side of my face, in my ear, along my jaw, down my neck. I often get really hot and sweaty. I get brain fog and can't think of words and I slur my words a lot.

I often get a raging hunger but I also lose my sense of taste or things taste weird. I am a big tea drinker but often tea just tastes weird and horrible when I am going to have a migraine.

My hands often really hurt and even a drop of water on them hurts.

My DH says he can often see by my eyes that I am going to have a migraine.

When one actually hits the pain is unbelievable and often lasts 2 or 3 days. I am also usually constantly sick (every 15 or 20 mins is normal) and can't keep even a sip of water down. I then become dehydrated and DH has to call a Dr out to give me an injection to stop the sickness

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Obligatorync · 01/01/2020 12:02

I get 2 day migraines day 1 and 2 of every menstrual cycle. Unfortunately I can't use hormonal contraception or triptans so at the minute it's just co codamol but seeing neurology soon.
Mine are pretty typical - migraine headache, light aversion, nausea, enhanced sense of smell, seeing things out of the corner of my eye etc.

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Mummyoftwo91 · 01/01/2020 12:06

I've been having hemiplegic migrances since I was 15 but lucky to only get 1 a year, in the last month I've had one for almost 3 weeks solid, aura symptoms, slurred speech, left sided weakness, feeling very spaced out ect, scariest thing for me this time was the memory loss, I would loose hours at a time and not recall how I got somewhere or what had happened, tried triptans and they've not worked so not sure what to do next!

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AwdBovril · 01/01/2020 12:18

I get hemiplegic migraines, they are virtually indistinguishable from a stroke in that I get the classic one-sided facial droop, arm & leg weakness one the same side, can't speak properly etc. Often with really nasty nerve pain on that side. Sound aura - it sounds like I get " superman hearing" - everything gets really clear, loud, it seems like I can hear all the sounds; being in a public or noisy place with this is really unpleasant. Also I get a similar effect with textures - anything other than pure water or a sheet of glass feels horribly bumpy, gritty, unsettling. As well as the blinding headache, which is mercifully over fairly soon, only a couple of hours but the other symptoms can take several days to properly improve. I get a couple of severe attacks a month, & TBH I have low level migraine most of the time. Sometimes numb feet if I haven't managed to get somewhere to sit down before it starts, especially if it's just a mild one & I try to carry on. I always carry emergency taxi money now, as I've got stuck too many times.

Hormonal migraines (currently about 3-4 a month - ovulation, 2 days pre-period, mid period, & sometimes another onebut I can't identify the trigger point) - opposite side of my head to the hemiplegic migraines. Light is painful, nausea & vomiting, regardless of whether I've eaten. Unless I've managed to drink lots of water beforehand, I get heartburn from repeatedly vomiting bile. Sometimes I breathe it in, which is horrid, & makes me cough for days. Dreadful pain in my head, sinus, neck, shoulder, teeth, ear - all on the one side. Numb fingers. Warmth directly on my head helps, albeit for an hour at most, but it's a blessed relief. Sometimes when I can tolerate moving without it triggering vomiting, I stand in the shower just for the pain relief.

I sometimes get a weird migraine ish headache, quite short, followed by partial loss of sight in one eye. It's always the same eye. It doesn't happen very often but it is getting more frequent. I've noticed I often feel very faint afterwards.

I can't be medicated for the hormonal migraines as the standard treatment, triptans, is linked with incidence of strokes in people with hemiplegic migraines. I am on other medication, including botox (unpleasant), & I avoid a lot of foods, including some very common things such as artificial sweeteners, caffeine & most sweets - especially things like haribo - I don't know what is in them but one of my worst ever attacks was from 5 of the sours. Also licorice (which is in a lot of herbal teas), msg (in a surprising number of foods, under various names), I don't eat much red meat, don't eat blue cheese, or very sugary foods as sugar spikes (or crashes - I'm not sure) can trigger them. I drink a lot of water, when I can, & herbal tea etc. I'm considering trying extended fasting to regulate my blood sugar in the hope that it might improve things.

www.migrainetrust.org

Check out the link above. There's also one called Migraine Action (UK based, I think) but I can't find them right now, for some reason. Both very helpful when I looked into identifying my triggers.

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Mummyoftwo91 · 01/01/2020 12:31

@AwdBovril I get all the same hemiplegic symptoms you described and I've had them solid for 3 weeks but no headache has come, in a way I wish the headache would come to so it would all be over

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Pilcrow · 01/01/2020 12:35

I used to have the classic one-sided migraine with agonising pain, sickness leading to vomiting, extreme sensitivity to light and noise, and complete inability to do anything other than crawl into bed in a darkened room. I’d wake up and feel completely better with an amazing sense of well-being. This was my reality probably once a week or so from very young childhood to my late teens/early 20s.

The migraines then miraculously lessened and I had them very infrequently (once or twice a year) till peri-menopause. They came back quite differently and now they’re low-level but seemingly endless at times - lasting days or even over a week.

I often get a horribly stiff neck, find myself yawning a lot, feel the urge to eat despite feeling nauseous, and shy away from bright or flashing lights and noise. The top of my head feels as though it’s levitating, weirdly enough. Sleeping doesn’t make it go away and neither does medication, sometimes, but I can ‘keep going’ in the sense that I’m not knocked flat.

It’s horrible though, and I often find myself wishing I could just go back to the simpler ‘suffer and be done with it’ type of migraine. DH still can’t get used to seeing me stumbling round like a zombie for days and I have to keep telling him this is ‘normal’ for me.

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MissRabbitNeedsAHoliday · 01/01/2020 12:39

I used to have the classic one-sided migraine with agonising pain, sickness leading to vomiting, extreme sensitivity to light and noise, and complete inability to do anything other than crawl into bed in a darkened room

This is also like the migraines I have, although the pain is generally on one side behind my eye. I know I'm going to get one because the eye starts twitching for a while before the migraine. I take Pitziofen each night to prevent them & sumatriptan when I have one.

They are truly awful, I have to admit I was one of those people who thought a migraine was a sore head until I started getting them.

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MoonlightMistletoe · 01/01/2020 12:41

My vision is blurry for hours before I get the headache and I loose my appetite, sometimes they are mild and other times they are scary, tingling in my head, blind spots , one sided numbness , trying to talk but random words come out instead.

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AwdBovril · 01/01/2020 12:46

@Mummyoftwo91 - TBH if I was in your position, I'd be trying to get a GP's appointment. Any significant changes in your migraine pattern should at least be checked. At the very least, if you suddenly deteriorate, & have a longer than usual HM attack, it would be useful to have it on record what has been going on recently. I always do this if there's anything significant that's new or different.

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AwdBovril · 01/01/2020 12:58

When I got shingles a few years ago, I didn't realise for several weeks that anything was wrong, despite the unpleasant & increasing nerve pain. It was only when started to develop the blisters that I went to the GP, who pointed out it was shingles & not just my usual nerve pain. I assumed it was just a migraine/nerve thing. It didn't help that I have a numb patch on my back, side effect from my medication, it was still itchy though, & I'd scratched a great big wound that turned into an ulcer as I didn't see it. I assumed the blood was from a spot or something.

These days I get DH to check my back regularly as I still have a massive numb patch.

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Mummyoftwo91 · 01/01/2020 16:14

I have been to the gps twice and due to go back Friday so hopefully they can suggest something as I haven't felt like myself for weeks and it's really getting me down

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Easilyflattered · 03/01/2020 18:53

I feel wired, hyper, not hungry and then the visual aura starts. Blue sparks in the periphery of my vision but sometimes a zigzaggy vibrating thing. Then I get dizziness, an off balance sensation, nausea and throbbing pain from the back of my neck up over one ear and on one temple. Always right sided. Sometimes my pupils are uneven. This lasts about 6 hours.

Afterwards I feel tired, depressed and tearful for a day or so.

I have sumatriptan from the GP but I don't like taking it. It makes me feel heavy chested. I've been having some success with topiramate as a preventative, I seem to be only getting the PMT migraine now and avoiding the others.

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