To think my friend has never had a proper migraine and has no idea what she's talking about?

[Sleepswithbutterflies]

I had to cancel on a friend last week due to migraine. Friend was a bit snippy about which I get - it's annoying when plans are cancelled at short notice. She said when she has a migraine she just takes a couple of paracetamol and carries on as normal.

Ha ha ha. The migraine I experienced last week affected my vision, speech, balance and caused loss of feeling in one side of my body. I was sick over and over and over again and at one point dh contemplated phoning an ambulance. Paracetamol? Ha ha ha. I don't get them often but when I do they're a force to be reckoned with. Even now my head still feels bruised and I'm sensitive to the light. No way could I have gone anywhere, driving would have been a bad idea. At one point I couldn't remember my own house number.

Aibu to think she actually has never experienced a real migraine because if she had she would have a bit more sympathy than 'take a couple of paracetamol and carry on as usual.'

YANBU but I have known people that fairly early into a new job establish themselves as 'a migraine sufferer' so they can have days off if necessary. If they are used this way quite commonly as an excuse this may explain your friends reaction. They also fall into the headache/migraine, cold/flu zone of hypochondria.

I remember being ashamed a long time after the event when a lady at work, known for being a bit of a hypochondriac, had morning sickness and took time off. I had been pregnant early in my 20s and experienced it 'normally'; it always pissed me off that she didn't just work through it and go and vomit in the toilet occasionally like anyone else would. Only when a more sober 30-something pregnant mother did I know about things like HG, and remember that she'd been carrying twin girls, and so quite possibly had that, or at least a much stronger form of morning sickness.

So that was just to illustrate that there are times when you can have a mild - or at least not very severe - form of an illness and then think you can speak or apply it with authority to everyone else...

Some people can carry on with migraines - I once asked my GP about worrying stroke-like symptoms only to be told that what I had was a pain-free migraine. However only a twat would fail to realise that they come in all strengths from mild to totally incapacitating.

My mum has had frequent migraines since she was a teenager. She has very strong painkillers for them but has always worked through them, looked after children, been out and about. She rather prides herself on her masochism though.

People experience things differently, what one can manage with a migraine another can't. Doesn't mean it's not real. I would question the couple of paracetamol though.

YANBU

I used to get migraines on an almost weekly basis. Couldn't read, couldn't sit working at a screen, had to go and lie in a darkened room with a bucket. My eyes felt as though they'd been doused in sand and burning coals. The inside of my head felt as though someone was trying to polish it using a paint scraper. I couldn't stand up. Could barely keep water down.

Paracetamol didn't touch the sides.

Interestingly after having a thyroid issue sorted out five years ago I have only had one migraine, and it was nowhere near as severe (although it still necessitated a dark room, industrial-strength painkillers and utter silence).

Your friend was definitely being unreasonable, but like several other posters, I tend to get very mild migraines. I've had a couple of bad ones, but nowadays the headache is very mild, and I just get very very sleepy and sensitive to light, sound and touch and start slurring my words and being clumsy. And it's queasiness rather than proper nausea. So not unlike being extremely drunk at 3am, only I'm trying to do school pick up and worrying that people will assume I have an alcohol problem.

I've a friend who says she has a migraine but then goes about her day, driving etc.
dd literally crawls along to the toilet to be sick when she gets them!!

I have to keep going through migraine -3 children. I know it's migraine because my neurologist said so and it only responds to triptans. I am, thankfully, almost never sick, but I get focal pain with a sensation of tightness above my right eye, nausea and a range of other symptoms varying from numbness down the right side of my face, pain into the neck or upper arm, tingling in my hands, a sense of floating, etc. Curiously, DH says that sometimes my face goes bright red with a white edge to the redness.

I have the Cefaly machine which is brilliant at taking the pain away until the triptans kick in. The only thing that truly knocks it out is being able to go to sleep with a scarf or a pair of tights tied tightly around my eyes and head.

Having had horrendous head-splitting migraines with visual disturbances, speech problems and severe vomiting (30+ times per migraine, I counted once) since primary school, your friend is BVVU.

Even the GP can only medicate against the vomiting, no meds ever helped with the pain (voltarol suppositories now take the edge off if taken early enough).

Amitriptyline daily dose really helped me.

Now in my forties, I am sometimes "fortunate" enough to get the aura (visuals/speech problems) followed by a dull ache. This would technically be a migraine I suppose but I wouldn't class it as one.

Let's hope (for your friend's sake) that she never gets a full-blown migraine although it would stop her ever saying anything like this again.

I have had just one migraine in my life, years and years ago, but I remember it far too clearly. I literally could not move my head. Since then I have been careful never to call a bad headache anything other than a bad headache. Ditto with flu. It's a bad cold: flu is something else entirely.

I have a colleague who liked to announce, in work, "ooh I've got a terrible migraine, I need a cup of tea". It's ridiculous.

I usually challenge people on it when they claim to have migraine but obviously just have a headache, it's totally different.

Lougle I can tell when mum's got a migraine by her face.

"I've a friend who says she has a migraine but then goes about her day, driving etc."

I do too. Would I prefer to be in bed? Yes! Do I have that choice? Not often.

It's awful but when you've got no choice you just get on with it by doing the bare minimum you have to and praying your DH will be home soon to take over.

Migraines and the flu do come in varying strengths though, and with or without every single symptom every time. Ocular migraines are my personal favourite, especially as they generally only last a few minutes.

Having said that - and, indeed, for that reason - if you're lucky enough to not get them at their worst, it's ridiculously inconsiderate to think that everybody else can deal with them in the same way you do.

Migraines arent just a headache fixed by a tablet. When dad has one he cant see, is sick and has to lay in a dark room. I think your friend might need informing of the difference between a headache and a migraine.

I feel like this about people who say a cold is 'flu'. Even a stinking cold isn't flu. Flu can kill people.
My mum had regular migraines during her menopause and became a shadow of herself, quietly whimpering in a dark room. They're horrible.

Slightly loose bowel movement = dirorea (can't spell it!)

Doesn't It Always Run Really Horribly Over Each Ankle

Diarrhoea. I can't take the credit for this, I learnt it (and so much more) on MN! I used to write 'frequent loose stools' in patients notes prior to this revelation.

YANBU, your friend has no idea at all. She's confusing a bog standard headache with a migraine. I was admitted to hospital with a migraine once as I lost all the feeling down one side and the ability to talk. It was one of the most scariest times of my life, I have suffered migraines since I was 5 and never had a one as bad as that. Mine also knock me sick for days.

At the moment I can't take anything for them as I'm 17 weeks pregnant, it's hell! Sending as it's certainly not fun and your friend sounds insensitive to say the least!

Yanbu. It's because people always use something very serious to describe something that's minor in comparison. For example when people have a bad day they say they're 'depressed' and in this case when people have a headache they say it's a migraine. So the actual condition which is horrific is downplayed so often people don't have an understanding of what it actually means to be depressed or to have a migraine iykwim.

Although as others have pointed out migraines aren't always as horrid as yours are, sounds like you have the worst possible form. I doubt paracetemol would help anyone's migraine though, don't even touch the sides.

Yanbu. I used to suffer migraines (initially triggered by the Pill, carried on for a while but not had one for several years now) and all I could do was lie down in a dark room feeling sorry for myself. The following day was also a washout as I generally felt like i was hungover.

It's far removed from a common or garden headache.

YANBU OP. Your migraines sound just like mine. Your friend has a headache, not a migraine.

Haha thanks mamma!

When I have a migraine I generally convince myself I have a brain tumour

Yanbu people who have never had a migraine do not understand.
I used to get the headache. Now I just get the aura, disorientation, affected speech and nausea.

I have never had a migraine. I have had a severe headache, but having seen my dm suffer the symptoms you described in the op, I wouldn't dream of comparing the two.

YANBU.

YANBU I've had 2 in my entire life and it was unbelievably awful. The second time DH had to carry me to bed and feed me tramadol then take the DC's out of the house for most of the day because I was in such a bad way. He gets them quite a bit, it starts with the aura and if he can he'll head straight to bed and try to sleep before it hits properly. Poor sod gets them badly