To wonder how Migraines can be harmless?

[FranksBank]

I know they are, and don't cause damage. But the mind boggles as to how when it must impact my brain in such a huge way.

My face drops to one side, one side of my body goes numb. I cannot read and make of sense; my speech slurs. I can't recognise faces and lose my eyesight in one eye

These are just a type of migraine (confirmed by a Dr) and they're horrible. I am baffled now they can have no lasting impact on the brain

Anyone else find it shocking that you can't seen any physically evidence for them on an MRI? I'm not medical. So I'm just talking nonsense really - but it is true they cannot be 'proven'

I the post drome symptoms are nasty too.

Argh! Be grateful if someone could join me in moaning

My migraines have been triggered by different things. Hormones definitely linked (more likely to get them when pre-menstrual), but I’ve identified too much caffeine, red wine, not eating enough, dehydration and even impending thunderstorms as triggers in the past.

@HillsNValleys yep all of those on my list. Thunder storms = atmospheric pressure, certainly a trigger in my book.

Like there's a storm brewing inside your head. Two of us at work were sensitive like this.

Mine have ramped up in the last 2 years. I'll be seeing a neurologist soon but not optimistic following everyone's posts. Though I seem to get off lightly compared to all of you, they had to bring it under control quickly because the vomiting was causing me to faint and I cracked my head open.

Mine appear if I am stressed, low blood sugar, dehydrated, overtired

They start as a tiny pinprick of flashing light in my peripheral vision which gradually spreads so my whole outlook is a shimmering, zigzagging, flashing vista

If I can lie down in a quiet room they will pass in approx 30 mins with no after effects. If not, the crashing headache will last all day until I sleep it off

The only other time I got pain that bad was after an epidural when I developed a spinal leak. If someone had offered to shoot me, I would have agreed

Yep, I had one really bad one when I had flu and was breast feeding so I could only have paracetamol. I remember mum being on the phone to the 111 person and I was saying I wanted someone to cut my head off! I did come through it, obviously. But at the time the pain fills up every bit of you and its unbearable.

DS wouldn't have any truck with bottles or formula and my breasts not that happy about expressing, hence I didn't have many options!
Ooh the sacrifices we make.

@Alltheyearround do you mean amitriptiline? As that is a different drug altogether. Which is normally used as a preventative for migraine.

I didn't know this. Is it a third factor increased risk, like high blood pressure increases your chance of migraine AND stroke?

This is making me reevaluate my choices. I usually take as many pills as I'm allowed and try to plough through until 7pm. But I know that if I just went to bed within 20 minutes of feeling it start I'd fall asleep instantly, and probably for most of the day, I'd avoid the worst symptoms, and I wouldn't need any drugs.

But it would mean chucking all my professional ambitions out the window, and possibly even losing my current job. It's spectacularly frustrating when you actually want to work hard, but you just can't.

That's a shame, a you can take sumatriptain while breastfeeding. It's the only triptain they will give although you may have to argue with some GP'S for it. The main reason being the larger molecular which makes it poor digest by the stomach also makes it low cross over in breastfeeding as well.

The only time I've used sumatriptain was when breastfeeding DS. It was better then no triptain but certainly the worst one I've used in 26 years.

Exactly the same.

You summed up my thoughts!!I have been wondering the same.I have thought maybe I might have a tumour but it is only Migranes.

I do agree it is hormones.I used to suffer from them before my period was due and thought that now I have had hysterectomy,that is the end of it.Alas,no!!I have my ovaries so I am not in the clear.

I get you, I get them on and off and they are debilitating and also worse since I had covid. They were horrendous when I had Covid. I feel like a trigger for me is cured meat, like chorizo, which is annoying as I love it but I always seem to get one after I eat it x

Yes. I have CFS so amiltriptiline is prescribed for sleep, sumatriptin for migraines but both work for a bad head.

Mine is exactly the same as yours, and I also have hardly any now because of the menopause which is great. My migraine usually were the day before my period started.

and you are so right, they are different, just read packets!

I've found lately that I just can't sleep when a migraine is in full force. I used to take some painkillers and sleep it off but I can't seem to do that now. I still lie in a dark room with an ice pack on the back of my head but rarely manage to sleep.

It’s spreading cortical depression. A wave of electrochemical depolarisation that spreads slowly across the brain. No evidence of irreversible damage in healthy brains.
It does seem to slightly increase the risk of stroke.

I get the migraine: aura no headache version. No headache (or v minor) but I can’t see or talk or even think straight for at least 2 hours! I sometimes can’t work out where I am or what I’m doing when I’m getting it 😂 It is scary.

Afaik sumatriptan doesn’t work on the aura part, just can stop the pain phase 🥲

I’ve been prescribed Candesartan for migraines and it’s been life changing. I barely get ordinary headaches anymore. I do still get a very occasional migraine but nothing like before. Sumatriptan didn’t suit me at all.

Sumatriptan packet leaflet says blood vessels expanding cause pain.

It is extraordinary how many more women get them than men, even when they are not triggered by hormones.

Mine come on at night, 99 percent of the time. So i cannot take any preventatives (and anyway, triptans have awful side effects for me). At the neurology clinic it is always stuffed with women. Poor us! Call me a cynic, but I feel a lot more research into the now ground-breaking jabs and drugs would have been done earlier if men had suffered as terribly as us too!

Like most others I have painstakingly tried to identify triggers and cut out alcohol, chocolate etc etc. But my god I have mad cravings for a Coke, a whole bag of jelly babies and Monster Munch - and then I know for sure that the weekly torture session is on its way.

I usually take as many pills as I'm allowed, me too @CabbagesAndCeilingWax. My Neurologist told me to go hard on the painkillers when I need to, then take a day or two off, then go hard on them again.

@friskybivalves you are right on all those points!

I had chronic migraine for so many years. They’ve all been awful but a few really stand out - sobbing on the bathroom floor and having a panic attack because I genuinely couldn’t deal with the pain.

Went through 3 or 4 neurologists but nobody could actually tell me why nothing was working in terms of preventatives. Did Botox, sort of helped.

While I was ill with something else entirely I saw a recommendation for a book called ‘heal your headache’ ( I know….but it is about migraine). Had a read as nothing else was working. Did a 4 month removal of all migraine trigger foods and triptans, and felt immediately better. Also felt like a first class idiot for not putting 2 and 2 together before. Found out when I started reintroducing trigger foods one at once that caffeine, cheese, chocolate and leavened fresh yeast products are off the table, basically forever.

I’m down to one episode a month now which usually spills into 2-3 days of headache rather than a migraine. The difference is unreal, and what headaches I do get respond much more to paracetamol or ibuprofen.

I know how frustrating ‘have you tried x?’ is because YES WE HAVE but it turned out I’d never tried removing everything at once 😳

@Birdahoy is that the David Buchholtz one?

@friskybivalves mine definitely have a hormonal link. But are not just hormonal, they have got worse with pre menopause though and much harder to control. I'm finally trying one of the new CGRP'S drugs and it's actually helping, but after waiting for 2 years on the NHS I've had to pay for it privately.

Often when you have a craving for something your migraine has already started. This is classed as the predome phase of the migraine. People used to mistake this for triggers, say you crave chocolate eat chocolate then get a migraine. But actually more recent research shows the migraine already started before the craving. Which is why single triggers for migraine are actually very rare.

@Birdahoy yes did that one seemed to work for a while when I was younger then my hormones changed and things went to pot again. I haven't found anything that has worked long term. 😕