How do you know when a headache is a migraine?

[Dontknowwhattodo223]

I've had the worst headache I've ever had today. It's lasted hours, paracetamol and ibuprofen have done nothing. It's like a really intense painful throbbing all over my head but mainly on the right side into my neck. I felt nauseous and sweaty and went pale.

I had migraines from about the age of 12 but didn't know that til I was 19. I was in a study group with a mature student who clued me in that headaches where you feel nauseous can't see properly and have to go to bed are a different "class". I thought aura meant something incredibly specific about halos so didn't know that my blurred vision and loss of peripheral vision was also part of the migraine options!

For me a migraine would have been a pain behind the right eye, radiating to the top of my head

Severe aversion to light, any light, a blindfold of some kind was needed

Nausea and sometimes vomiting, depending if I got the aversion to any smell

For me a migraine was find someone dark and silent and just lie and die, maybe 3/4 days at their height in my 20's. I had a pretty shitty sick record back then

Now since menopause they are so much easier to live with, I get aural migraine now, a different kettle of fish and luckily I dont get pain, just visual disturbance

With migraine there was no chance of any sort of normality. I couldn't have looked at a phone/laptop/book. Not a mission could I have left the house, getting to the loo was as good as it got.

Trying to sleep was hard as well, waves and waves of pain and nausea. felt like I was going to puke, move head to make the bucket and the pain shot in

Exhaustion would finally get the better of me and sleep would finally come and hopefully the migraine would pass

Mine were triggered mostly through smells. Back in the day Poison perfume was a prime trigger

I get visual disturbances- like big blurry blobs so much that I can’t really see. Often I get this before the head pain kicks in.

If you've had a migraine you honestly know. Very distinctive from a headache.

I disagree with so many of these comments. There are people who get classic migraines where they ‘know’ (just like you’ll ‘know’ when you’re in labour), but plenty who don’t. Two separate neurologists told me I was suffering with migraines and I didn’t believe them because I’m not stuck in bed puking my guts up like my friends who suffer are.

they aren’t always classic.

I had a silent one, that presented as a TIA. I got taken to hospital in an ambulance. It was very scary at the time.

How old are you OP? Migraines usually start in teens/ early 20s. If you are older than that you should get checked out by a doctor if you start having terrible headaches.

Could you have COVID? As a migraine sufferer, the original strain of COVID gave me the worst headache ever...but it was noticeabley different than a migraine.

They aren't always agony. I used to have them more painful and less of the other stuff when I was younger. Now I can reduce the pain enough to function on a basic level, but get the aura, nausea and the feeling like my brain is working at about 25% of its normal speed. I want to eat everything, yawn a lot and have no energy whatsoever. They often last 2-3 days of that, and then another one of just the fatigue.

I yawn my head off for a couple of hours before a migraine starts. Literally cannot stop. Apparently it's a thing!!

Light and noise sensitive, can't look sideways quickly, head pounds if I stand up. It's very different to a regular headache. I do get aura though so I know it's coming and I'm wiped out physically for days afterwards. Sometimes ibuprofen helps, sometimes it doesn't.

Severe thumping/pain over one side usually over eyebrow.

Nausea/vomiting

Lots of yawning and feeling cold

Achey legs

Mine always last for three days bloody hate them! I have to lie down with an ice pack and sleep.

If I feel a headache coming on I take anadin extra which gets rid of it straight away, sometimes I can't catch it in time and it turns into a migraine.

I don't usually get bad pain from a migraine. When it starts, I can't see properly, and the disturbed part of my vision moves across my filed of vision over 30 minutes or so.

The next stage involves difficulty trying to understand language properly, and if I try to talk it comes out as gibberish. I usually have numbness in my face as well.

Finally I just get a very strange headache, but not a particularly painful one, and feels nausea.

Less often I'll get a very strong headache that feels like there's a rope being tightened around my head. I won't understand what I'm thinking.

I take Sumatriptan when I feel one coming on and it works very well for me.

I have a relative who was admitted to hospital with a suspected stroke, and was eventually diagnosed with migraine. There was apparently no trace of a headache.

Thanks for reply. Yes - VERY scary. Thought it was a stroke the first time it happened.

A headache isn’t a migraine.

Headache is or can be just one symptom of a migraine.

When the nausea hits. Then the only real cure for me is to sleep it off in a darkened room with a cold flannel/kool n soothe. If I throw up it shortens the duration but I'm still shattered for a day or so after sleeping it off.

When the nausea hits.

Migraine feels like head is in a vice, pain in eye sockets.

Issues with vision, being sick.

Head feels bruised for days after.

I agree. Lots of comments on here saying it’s not a migraine if you can function, but I think that assumes a more classic migraine.

I get vestibular migraines. My head pain is mild, but I get dizziness and nausea. Painkillers and full fat coke normally take the edge off enough for me to continue to work. I once had an optician say that the ‘hangover’ you get the next day is one of the main indicators of it being a migraine.

I get an intense pain always on one side, but it's never fussy about which side, right on my temple.
If I'm not fast enough with a Triptan I start to see black arrows dart across my vision moving like lightning and the affected side of my nose feels stuffed up and I can't breathe down that side.

Luckily for me I have never ever been let down by a Triptan and can abort them in about 40 minutes.

And to add, normal painkillers, anadin ibuprofen, paracetamol etc have no effect whatsoever. Don't even take the edge off it sadly

Blind spot is usually the first sign for me, and generally find it hard to look at things. I try and take painkillers asap, ideally before the headache starts and as I have propranolol for anxiety I take some of them as well as having a migraine sends my anxiety through the roof which makes the next stage of sleeping it off difficult.

Always behind my right eye
Sensitive to light/smells
Just need to lie down
Eventually starts with nausea and vomit for about 24 hours

I start with an aura which is like the snake game from the old Nokia phones. Then I get numbness in one hand and one side of my face into my mouth. I don't get strong pain or nausea thank goodness. Mine are called hemiplegic migraines. I don't get them too often thank goodness. I sometimes wake up with one which is the worst because I then feel like rubbish all day. It also mucks with word memory really badly so that mixed with menopause is fun!

For me it's the vomiting and light aversion and inability to do anything but sleep. The hang over can last days.

Nausea. Dont get nauseous with a normal headache & I have to take a cocodamol and go straight to bed and wait for it to pass.