To be pissed off to my friends reaction to my migraines

[RoastingYourChestnutsHurtsAlot]

And consider ditching her?

I have a very severe form of migraine that frequently put me in hospital.

It's meant I have had to cancel many a night out, many a catch up, take days off work etc etc. however I have one 'friend' whose response to these is 'you're over reacting they're only headaches surely they should be under control by now?' Along with 'lets go out and forget we're sick it'll do you good' and the classic 'it's not like they're that bad is it'

This is a person who claims she has migraines but then gets in her car and drives for an hour to a big shopping outlet centre, shops for 4 hours and drives home again during one.

I freely admit I don't know what's possible with a mild migraine so ^ may well be more than possible but to me if she had a genuine migraine, a genuine neurological debilitating life long condition, she wouldn't be so quick to tell me how to manage mine? So AIBU to be pissed off with her?

I don't think yabu. I have had a few migraines in my life and they have been really horrible so I can only imagine how awful having severe migraines must be.

YANBU

A lot of people don't understand how debilitating migraines can be.

Migraine has somehow become a byword for "bad headache" which isn't the same thing at all

These same people probably claim to have flu when they actually have a cold.

Of course! Get rid!

I (very rarely thankfully) get optical migraines so you have my sympathies.

She's an eejit.

Very pissed off indeed. I have migraines and they do vary in severity depending how quickly I get drugs down me. If I'm full on having an attack I'm very sick. I have had one bad enough where I felt I needed to go to hospital. However if I catch them early enough I can get in with my life .

I get one a month. The day my period starts. Nothing gets rid of it, I just have to ride it out.

I can do nothing that day.

I totally sympathise. Ditch the friend.

If she thinks her migraines are what everyone who has migraines experiences then she won't understand at all.

I also get migraines, but I'm extremely fortunate that mine are like your friend experiences at the moment. I drove for 3 hours once with a migraine. Once the visual disturbances have passed it's just a bad headache.

I know people who have to lie down in a dark room for a week, and then need a further week off work to fully recover.

I get migraines ranging in intensity of pain from mildly painful to lying in bed hoping for death and could definitely go shopping with a mild one if I took some basic painkillers. But I'd have to have had a complete common sense and empathy bypass not to realise that someone who has to be admitted with their migraines is suffering a level of pain far beyond any that I could imagine.

I agree. I have migraines, occasionally, and if I don't catch them in time I have to go to bed and hopefully sleep the most of it off but it ruins my day and has an effect on the following day. I have 3 kids and ds works abroad so it can be tricky. A friend has migraines....for "days at a time" apparently, but comes to playgroup . Not a kind of migraine I've ever experienced and I'm not sure she actually understands what I experience when I tell her I have had a migraine. It's frustrating when people think they're just a bad headache, I tell people they are just not in a headache category at all really, they are a completely different thing. Sympathies to you.

YANBU. I get a particular type of migraines & it massively annoys me when people compare them with regular headaches. They are in no way comparable! Anyone who saw me with a migraine, who didn't know me, would ring an ambulance as it looks exactly like I'm having a stroke.

As a fellowigraine sufferer, anyone who can function during one clearly isn't suffering a migraine but in fact a headache. They are totally different and are debilitating and exhausting for days afterwards. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy. They can also be quite frightening.

Ditch her.

Sorry - fellow migraine!

The interesting thing that has happened as a consequence of "migraine" being used to mean a bad headache, as a previous poster mentioned, is that I sometimes get snotty comments from people when I tell them I have a migraine but then cheerfully go about my business - some people seem to think that if the pain is only mild, it can't be a migraine, and you're drama-queening

Yup you're right to be. But if that's a migraine for her, she's coearly not up on the fact that they CAN be so much worse if severe. Not a very sympathetic, caring type of friend. Mor of a good day friend. Do you need her?

bingbong sounds like you have the same type as me! FHM or SHM?

I have had a hemi-pleagic migraine and i thought i had had a stroke. I was driving the car when it suddenly came on and fortunately was able to pull over. I was in and out of consciousness for 15 minutes or so and really unwell for nearly a week. It was utterly terrifying! Real migraines are dreadful and i have had ones linger for days, despite drugs.

That person is not a friend. give her the push

Thanks all Id definitely put her in the fair weather friend category

YANBU. Migraines can be horrendous. A couple of years ago I was rushed to A&E with a suspected stroke. Turned out to be a rare type of migraine and I ended up having to be signed off work for 2 weeks. Have had quite a few other episodes since then. They can be seriously scary and debilitating and may not involve a headache at all. Your friend needs to understand what migraines actually are and not assume that her experience is the same as everyone else's.

I feel for you. I used to have migraines that lasted for a week. I was in bed the whole time, would have a couple of days off from it and then I would get another one. It ruined my life at the time and I'm still living with the consequences now, no career etc. One day a friend gently suggested I was inventing them. When I got cross and said I wished she could have one and see what it feels like, she was all hurt and said, that's not very nice! What did she think I was gaining in inventing them? Who would want to live like that? Some people don't know they're born. Does she think you go to hospital for a fun day out?!

Quite a lot of the "real migraines are always horrendous" misconception on this thread, too - this is actually unhelpful as it means people with mild to moderate headache pain assume they can't be migraines and don't get the migraine treatment that could help.

Not as unhelpful as OP's ridiculously unsympathetic and unimaginable friend, though

unimaginable unimaginative

Compared to you I'm probably on the mild end of the migraine spectrum.
I could drive once the visual disturbances has gone, but only If I had to. I wouldn't choose to.
drbonnieblossom i actually took my English GCE with a migraine so its possible to function with one. I didn't think I had a choice.

Ditch her.

My mum has had severe migraines her whole life. They are the worst thing you can imagine.

YANBU. I've been getting headaches recently in the last couple of years that are awful. I cant think clearly, head aches, and I sometime feel shivery and nauseous. Nurofen takes the edge off them but they are still there (think mine might be hormonal).

Today I had a bad headache/felt nauseous and lay on the couch for most of the day as regular nurofen didn't help, BUT I still wouldn't call them a migraine because if it was a work day I would still be able to drive in and attempt some work. I really do hope they don't develop as time goes on into proper migraines as I had a work colleague once who had them and they really were debilitating.

Your friend is very unsympathetic, she obviously doesn't know (and doesn't care enough to find out) what a real migraine really is like.