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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to want to slay people who claim they have a migraine when it's just a sore head?

115 replies

cfc · 31/10/2011 06:21

Even more irritating than those who have a cold and claim it's a touch of 'flu (my MIL). As if you could get a touch of 'flu!

But those who say 'oh, I've got a migraine' when they blatantly haven't. I want to say to them oh, is your sight gone? Has your stomach closed? Are you being sick or having the runs? Is the pain bad enough to warrant a doctor's visit to give you a shot of effing MORPHINE?

No?

Then it's not a migraine, fool.

And relax.

OP posts:

Morloth · 04/11/2011 07:28

I get migraines - the works, auras, vomiting, sensitivity to light etc.

I also have two kids and no family nearby, so I have to suck it up and function.

So I take a battery of non drowsy drugs and put my wrap around sunnies on and get on with it. The minute DH is in the door I hit the real drugs and go to bed.

Just because someone is functioning doesn't mean they are not having a migraine.

mummymccar · 04/11/2011 07:51

I get basilar artery migraines quite regularly. They affect the speech, co-ordination, movement, etc and mimic the signs of a stroke. I've also had seizures. I've been admitted to A&E 4 times (including last night) because they thought I was having a stroke. Last year I was getting them every two weeks. Had an MRI and saw neurologist. Mine are caused by the weather.
The after effects of my migraines last for days and are debilitating but only respond to migraleve.
It doesn't bother me if people with a headache say they have a migraine because I don't know how they are feeling. They may well have one.

Andrewofgg · 04/11/2011 07:52

Mercifully I have been spared migraines, but I understand that anyone well enough to make a call probably hasn't got one!

SoupDragon · 04/11/2011 07:55

YABU because you think everyone has to suffer in the same way you do.

sayithowitis · 04/11/2011 19:02

Actually, I think YABU. just because you suffer with thse symptoms, doesn't mean every other migraine sufferer will. I have migraines. I used to get them almost weekly. They were incredibly debilitating. I would be off work, lying in a darkened and silent room for several days. Eventually I had in-patient tests, lasting about four days, at a major London hospital. They thought I had something much more serious wrong ( think tumours etc) because other than the pain, I had no other 'classic' symptoms at all. However, they were sure by the end that I was indeed suffering migraines. I had my prescription and was taught a set of exercises to do at the first indications of one and haven't had a major migraine for several years now.

DH also gets migraines. But 'all' he gets is the visual problems. He very quickly goes from normal sight to none in one or both eyes, accompanied by the 'flashing lights etc. He has absolutely no pain whatsoever. The first time it happened, I rushed him to hospital as the symptoms are so similar to those of a detached retina. But, after lots of tests at the eye clinic, they were able to determine that in fact, he is having a migraine. It has happened a few times since then. He cannot work when he has one because of the eye problems. It usually lasts a couple of hours, and then gradually returns to normal. But according to your set of criteria, if he were to call in sik and speak to you, you would consider him a fool. Nice.

sayithowitis · 04/11/2011 19:03

*sick

spugglers · 04/11/2011 19:18

Yabu. Not all migraines are as bad as yours, my migraine starts with a dizzy spell and loss of balance then flashing lights followed by a dull headache. It isn't actually that bad but it's still a migraine.

GraduallyGoingInsane · 04/11/2011 19:28

YANBU - I have the full aura, blurred vision, pins and needles in my arms, cannot bear the smell of just about everything...followed my headache of all headaches and cumulating in my vomiting everywhere. Had it since I was 11 years old.

So no, I can't take a paracetomol and carry on very easily, thanks.

I've also only had flu once, also when I was 11. Must have been a bad year.

eaglewings · 04/11/2011 19:37

I have migraine without aura

First sign is feeling tired and hungry and losing words

As they occur up ton3 times a week I sometimes have to get on with life, sometimes they are so bad I can't (missed meeting Chris Evans because of one :(

They have been diagnosed by Headache clinic in London

I can sometimes use the phone and be on MN with one, other times not

Would hate to accuse someone of making it up

spugglers · 04/11/2011 20:48

I don't really understand why it has to be a competition. I can work through my migraine because they are mild, when I lose my balance it is a bit scary but if I just sit down for 10 minutes I'm okay but that doesn't mean that I don't have sympathy with people who have terrible painful debilitating migraines. I understand that there are different types of migraines.

It's like periods, when I was young my periods were so painful that i would pass out with the pain and accidentally took an overdose because i was struggling to cope with the pain. Since having children i barely even notice that I am having my period.

babybythesea · 04/11/2011 21:11

I have lots of sympathy.
I think the problem is because it can feel as though the word migraine is over-used, so that when you do have one, certain people decide it's because you are trying to get out of something, or making it sound worse than it is because you want a day off.

It's not necessarily that I want a pain threshold before you are allowed to call it a migraine, but more that I want people to be honest about whether they think they have a migraine or a headache, so that when my migraine hits and I have to retreat for a day or so, no-one looks sideways at me because they had a hangover, called it a migraine and still managed to come in to work.

My most scary one was when I was pregnant - ended up hospitalised while they tried to stop me dehydrating through vomiting, and to add insult to it all, I couldn't even lie on my stomach (favoured migraine position) because the bump was too big. On the other hand, it gave me a chance to find out that my local maternity ward was lovely, bringing round hot chocolate and biscuits every evening before bed, so by the time it came to go in I was looking forward to another stay there (like a favoured hotel) and not so worried about what had to come first before I could receive my room service!!!

Blatherskite · 04/11/2011 21:16

I know it's a bit backwards to this thread but I've been having what I've been calling 'really bad headaches' but reading this thread, I'm now wondering if they're migraines.

Last weekend for example, I started off feeling really dizzy and unsteady. Later on I got really hot and felt really nauseous and couldn't face lunch and I got really snappy and felt really anxious - then the headache started and I was in tears at the pain and had to go to bed for the rest of the day. The day after, although I didn't have a headache as such, the inside of my skull felt bruised and I was really sluggish.

Could that have been a migraine?

It's only the 2nd time I've had something like that but both have been in the past few months.

adamschic · 04/11/2011 21:25

I have had migraines with the aura a few times. You know when you have it as everything flickers, it's like looking through glass then the blinding headache. Classic migraine lasts an afternoon and flaws you.

However I also suffer from other migraines, without the aura, but lasts 2 and a half days. Horrible one sided headache that is worse lying down and at night, you also feel sick throughout, but can just about function with it. I'm on meds for it, naratriptain which is a godsend. Sometimes when it happened without the meds I felt so depressed.

A headache is cured by paracetomol and is very different so yanbu.

topknob · 04/11/2011 21:26

I get daily headaches and I get migraines once every two months or so. I either have the ones which wake you in the night, with a thobbing pain in your head, eye and face which do not lessen at all, or the ones where you get tunnel vision, extreme pain, vomiting and extreme tiredness. Nothing helps with the last two, Nothing at all...you just have to ride through it and both last for about 3 days. A headache is NOT the same so YANBU !

adamschic · 04/11/2011 21:28

My meds are called Naramig and on prescriptions in case it can help anyone else.

adamschic · 04/11/2011 21:29

topknob please ask for my meds, honestly I call them magic pills .

judyjudyjones · 04/11/2011 21:32

I feel for all of you migraine sufferers. I had my last one (touch everything that is wooden that I can reach!) November 1998. I had a couple a year from 1985-1998. I simply could not tolerate any light whatsoever. I did have a visit from a doctor who thought it might be menegitis, but it didn't fit the pattern of symptoms. I do not know if this was what helped me (and I feel so bloody lucky since 1997) but I gave up anything with monosodiumglutimate. I used to have to lie in a (not even dark) blacked out room with wet towels wrapped round my head.

Does anyone else sense a msg connection? I am not sure but reading this thread makes me weep with joy that that version of hell is no longer in my life.

judyjudyjones · 04/11/2011 21:38

lOh, sorry, the answer should be that people with a headache who claim a migraine have no idea what they are talking about. My experience of migraines is that I was dishabilitated and had no choice in the matter.

gomummygo · 04/11/2011 21:39

YANBU!!! I've had terrible migraines since early childhood and suffered horribly with them all my life. This really annoys me.

Ismeyes · 04/11/2011 21:53

I didn't know you could get migraines without the excrutiating headache! I get migraines with auras in which I get numb, lose speech and get flashing lights and poor peripheral vision then nausea, headache like no other and tiredness that lasts. However, there are occasions when I get the numbness and my vision goes strange (its very hard to describe). I battle through this because I feel like its all in my head because I don't get the headache to go with it. Can anyone tell me more about these types of migraine?

judyjudyjones · 04/11/2011 22:17

Has anyone cut out msg, which seemed toi work for me, or maybe I just grew out of them?

Thumbwitch · 04/11/2011 22:26

Blatherskite - sounds like you have migraines, yes.

judyjudy - I had a client who was sensitive to aspartame and MSG - she cut them both out and her migraines all but disappeared (but then she was also having treatment for her serious neck and shoulder tension at the same time). What was interesting was that the medication she was on for the migraines from the doctor also contained aspartame! So she went back and asked for it to be changed to one without aspartame - just in case. Aspartame and MSG both trigger the same neuron receptors so if you're sensitive to one, you might need to look at aspartame as well.

DartsAgain · 04/11/2011 22:41

DP gets the migrains without aura, but his vision can be affected at times, so he sometimes has to come home early before he can't drive his car.

He needs to lie down in a dark room, and takes sumatriptan. I've seen him almost crying with pain, and he does have to go and vomit during the worst of it. I gets the pain down one side of his face, and I get him a cold compress, which can help sometimes.

In the recovery period, he usually craves sugary food.

His mum, one sister, and that sister's two older children all get migraines. I'm told that some children can be diagnosed with migraines if they are having stomach pains, and our DD (aged 11) is currently complaining about stomach pains on a regular basis, so I'm hoping she won't go on the develop the full blown problem. DS (aged nearly 8) has compained of headaches at times but they've not seemed to be serious, and I've wondered if he's copying his dad.

DartsAgain · 04/11/2011 22:42

He gets the pain down one side, not me, thank goodness I only get the odd tension headache.

missfairlie · 04/11/2011 22:49

I know what you mean, but YABU. Some migraines are worse than others. Some people get silent migraine - aura without the pain (still very disorientating). Not all migraines are preceded by aura. It's not for you to decide what is and isn't a migraine I'm afraid based on severe ones you may have suffered. Mine have been rarely very painful, and I have only once felt sick, but because I get aura I know it is a migraine. it still makes life difficult for a few hours but not as awful as I know others have suffered - but still a migraine.
Thankfully, if I religiously drink plenty of water I seem to be able to avoid them.

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