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.'

I've luckily only had 2 in my 50-year life, thankfully not as bad as many described above, but nevertheless horrendous ... A migraine is not even similar to a 'normal' headache, you just want to rip your own head off. The second one started as I was leading a school trip back on the train from London. The sudden nausea, leading me to throw up into a plastic bag, emptied my carriage of poor weary commuters (sorry). Trauma doll didn't touch it because I couldn't even keep water down :( Your friend is being v v U, although the term 'migraine' is vastly over-used.

Evans...it was. I seem to have had every migraine going...ordinary headache turning into migraine (ie no aura)...ones at period times..ones caused by sudden stress...ones coming out of the blue...during pregnancy I had about 15...some 'mild', others 3 day jobs with Dr giving injections...I asked to be euthanized once!! I also had one once that completely disappeared when I had been sick....I started beta-blockers about 5 years ago as the menopause was causing me to have weekly migraines...they took about 6 months to work but then I didn't have one for 4 1/2 years....even started drinking orange juice again...but last month I had 2 'mild' ones. Even the mild migraines take a few days to recover from...I even started getting panic attacks about getting migraines...you know, camera flash or a flash of reflected sunlight would start a panic until I'd worked out who would care for the kids...or who could pick me up...(I did once drive home almost completely blind...stupid I know) I have also had some incredibly understanding people help me...at an adventure park I sat with my head in my hands silently crying...wondering what the hell I was going to do with my DCs (all quite young) when a migraine struck....the manager was called...he lay me down in his dark office with water and ice pack, whilst he got a young girl to care for my DCs, called my DH....luckily I was able to function after a short sleep...they laid on a golf buggie thing to get me to the gates...I will never forget his kindness.. Yes...unless you have had migraines you can't possibly understand....it is not a headache and yes some friends do not 'get it'. But most of my friends have had to help me, rescue me and seen me in the throws of a migraine and do understand now.....My poor DD started getting them now and I so feel for her.....

Tramadol, not 'Trauma doll' (iPad sp !)

I get ordinary headaches quite a lot, but I know if from very early on if it is going to turn into a migraine. It just feels different, but I don't know how exactly to explain it. I just know!

For me a migraine feel like a balloon bursting in my head

Very annoying - your friend clearly has a headache but nothing more p.s. After 25+ years of migraine that would last 3 days a time I was put on beta blockers. Have had maybe 2-3 in about 4 years.

evansoval aha! That's two of us, that proves....something...possibly....

Yy ididntseeitsoitdidnthappen, I haven't been able to take hormonal contraception annoying as I suffered with terrible period pain too. Plus I keep having these damn kids.

For some reason an ice pack held at the base of the skull is a good treatment. It really helps my severe headaches

YANBU. The only time I've ever been hospitalised was due to a migraine (unable to stop vomiting and ended up severely dehydrated so had to be put on a drip). The first time I ever had one I honestly thought I was going to die from a brain haemorrhage, the pain in my head was so bad and my vision was so badly affected.

YANBU. I get very mid migraines and a headache is a long way down the list of what happens. Sometimes I have an aura, sometimes I have crippling gut cramps and only sometimes do I have a headache, normally when the gut cramps have affected my sleep. I always have about 24 hours of brain fog and word finding difficulties, afterwards. I can carry on as normal, so long as I don't have the gut cramps, but don't expect me to sound anything other than drunk.

YANBU. I have a work colleague who staggers into work 'with a migraine.' No, it's a headache. Maybe a bad headache, granted, but a headache nonetheless.
Thankfully i have migraines very rarely, but when i do i just want to die. The pain is indescribable and again i am very lucky that they only last a few hours. The poor souls on here who suffer regularly or who have three-day ones, have all my sympathy

I think You are a bit unreasonable actually. I get migraines a couple of times a year. They start with an aura which lasts up to an hour. If I take paracetamol when this first starts I generally avoid a really bad headache and can carry on life. If I don't take paracetamol then bed is the only option. Your friend may experience migraines but not quite to the level you do so. I would just explain to her what happens when you get a migraine and maybe she will be more empathetic long term.

My husband gets migraines and I don't. I know the difference! Your friend clearly knows what a headache is like - not a migraine.

Yanbu.

I get severe headaches, not sure they are migraines as I'm never sick or have visual disturbances but I get light and sound sensitivity and horrifically intense throbbing pain above my right eye. Nothing gives me any relief apart from lying down in a dark room. They last for up to 3 days and then I have a 'hangover' type feeling for a day, it's shit.

Syndol used to help a bit, nothing else does really. I do use co-codamol over the counter strength when I'm in bed and just muddle through as best I can. They are almost certainly stress related and seem to come and go. I had nothing for 6 months then 2 in a few weeks.

I continue to work if I can but do nothing else, just lay down in the dark. I work nights and it's hard to cover the shifts so it's a difficult decision to phone in sick.

I find that I get really giggley and light headed before a migraine. If I take two paracetemol and two ibuprofen when I stop being giggley then it stops the worst of the pain and I can carry on with my day, keeping the pain relief topped up regularly.
Of course this doesnt stop the rest of the symptoms and I would prefer to be in bed.
If I miss the window for pain relief then I cannot function.
I also find that regardless of pain relief, my memory is shot for about three days after.

I get ordinary headaches quite a lot, but I know if from very early on if it is going to turn into a migraine. It just feels different, but I don't know how exactly to explain it. I just know!

Yes, same here. Migraines feel different, the pain is very different. Even my eyes ache. But then the pain is the last thing in a line of other symptoms

I've had a headache for the last 3 days, and while it hurts and is getting right on my wick, it's not a migraine.

If I get paracetamol/ibuprofen down me when the symptoms of migraine first start, then I can stave off the blinding pain, however, I still have the aura and clumsiness, etc, but I can generally muddle through. I wouldn't go out with a friend, or drive, but I can manage to pick the kids up from school or cook dinner. You won't get any sense out of me, I find it quite difficult to string a coherent sentence together - I find I forget words, or use the wrong, completely random, word - last time I had one I remember I was trying to tell DH the window cleaner had been that day, except I couldn't remember the words "window cleaner", and then once I had remembered the words, I couldn't actually say them, but I can do what I need to do. If I don't get painkillers in time then the only thing I can do it go to bed. I can't watch TV, or stand any noise or light.

My nearly 13 year old DD has been suffering with migraine recently too, unfortunately she doesn't get much notice of an impending one - I can get up to an hour with disturbed vision before the pain hits, she gets a few minutes of aura before violently throwing up immediately followed by the blinding headache.

Oh the forgetting words is horrible!!

I was at DD1's school earlier this week at a coffee morning, when a migraine started approaching. I am a governor, so I know the deputy head very well. I needed to say something to her, but I couldn't for the life of me remember her name. I was thinking 'lady....deputy head...teacher....' but coming up blank. Eventually I had to whisper to an ex-governor and she told me her name.

Yanbu at all.iv suffered since a child :-( had to cancel on people all the time. Amount of people who say i should just get up to get out the house or take some painkillers etc painkillers don't work! I felt sick, i couldn't lift my head off the pillow let alone get up!i was dizzy and the pain i can't even describe.
Even my migraine tablets didn't always work!
Mine used to last 3 days or more but i'm now on two epilepsy tablets so i don't suffer very often with them. If i do my migraine usually goes with a tablet or will only last a day and they're not as severe.
People who don't suffer with them have no idea. I'v had to go to the er a few times with the because the pain has been too much.
I wouldn't wish them on anybody.

I have the double joy of epilepsy and migraine and on the whole, I find migraine more debilitating.

I am prescribed Maxalt Melt. The active ingredient is Rizatriptan and they melt on the tongue. Good for anyone who vomit given water. They are extremely strong but take them early enough, they kill a migraine in 20 minutes. Down side is they knock me out and I have to sleep it off. Although when I said this to my neurologist he questioned whether the sleeping was caused by the medication or the migraine.

That's interesting, Ninja, because I was told to give up caffeine!
It depends on your triggers, obviously. I knew I should have added that bit.
Apparently, from what I've been told, a 'typical' migraine is caused by the constriction of blood vessels in the brain, and caffeine reverses this. Or it's the other way around, I can't remember. I certainly know people that it works for, but I tend to forget until it's too late.

Also, am I being unreasonable to be a bit jealous of people who can lay down during a migraine? When mine are bad, laying down seems to make them worse.

I suffer from migraines have to take medication

I get vomiting so times to can't see and often have to just lie in bed get well pissed of when people compare them to headaches

Is it wrong that I'm finding it slightly comforting that others have suffered similar symptoms to me? I don't know anyone else irl that has trouble with speech and forgets words. I remember once looking at the clock and being unable to formulate the time. I knew there was a 2 and a 4 but I couldn't get my brain to work out what that meant.

It's absolutely terrifying. I'm a type 1 diabetic but if given a choice between giving up the diabetes or the migraines id choose the migraines and I don't even suffer from them very often!

Ceelo - I do go into work when I have a migraine. Mine always start in the early hours of the morning and the pain is excruciating. Sumatriptan has really helped to stop the pain for me, but I feel wiped out afterwards. I can't do lying in a darkened room because then the migraine is the only thing going on for me and I certainly can't sleep when the pain is there.

There is evidence that migraine is hereditary - my DF suffers and his mother did too. I sometimes have an aura the evening before I get one, but not always.

No two migraine sufferers seem to experience exactly the same things and there are various types of migraine. It's horrible and ordinary headache tablets do not work, although if I am desperate I take them and they can take the edge off for a bit, making things more bearable.

I find people who have never had a migraine generally have no idea what it is like and some idiots think a bad headache is a migraine.

wow You're right in that no two people seem to experience migraine in the same way. i have no choice BUT to lie in a darkened room; i physically can't do anything else and can barely even formulate the words when i have to call work.

my work colleague, however, appears to come in and continue with work. however, she does, as someone observed wryly, seem to enjoy ill health, in that there is ALWAYS something wrong (a cold, migraine etc).

I had dark chocolate the other day 85% in a tiny bar, but a few hours afterwards, I couldn't move my face, it had a burning, stinging pain up and down it, had a numb arm, and a Blinding headache. I felt dizzy, like throwing up and couldn't talk, and wanted to be quiet and in the dark.

Thank goodness I could flop under my duvet, where I completely zonked out for two hours. I took a Ponstan before I got in, and woke to feel much better, but even I would just call this a headache.

My aunty had migraine and she used to be bed bound in a dark room for days, vomiting.

Yanbu, your friend is a pain in the ass!