Migraines, what are yours like?

[Jux]

I have had a few migrainey days this week, yesterday and today being the worst.

I get the aura and pressure in my head, sometimes it's very quite painful. My eye also feels pressure. This can last about half an hour, and then I'm kind of OK, but left tired. Then it'll happen again a few hours later. This kind of sporadic migraine can go on for several days. These last two days the gaps between have been shorter -maybe an hour at most.

My doc has recently changed my medication and put me on propranolol, since when it's been worse. I spoke to him earlier today and he expressed astonishment that a migraine could be so short. He says that a migraine usually would make you lie in bed in a darkened room for at least an hour. Mine don't usually, for which I am grateful.

Do yours? Does anyone have migraines which behave like mine?

Twenty minutes max here. Always on the left side, my vision goes shimmery at the edges. Then I can only see half of everything. Sometimes my hands go numb. That goes on for about ten minutes, then it all gradually goes away and I am left with a dull headache that lasts the rest of the day. Paracetamol sorts it though.

I get the aura and if I can take sumatriptan quickly then it doesnt develop and I just feel spaced out for the rest of the day.

If I dont take tablets in time then I am in pain for up to 24 hours and ideally do need to do the cold forehead / darkened room / no smells etc.

Invariably there is vomiting involved

I have a dull headache at the back of my neck, but I know its a migraine and not a headache iyswim, I can fight it for quite a long time, usually until the kids go to bed and then it explodes and my eye feel slike it will pop out and I have to lie in a darkend room and if i so much as breath deeply it feels like my whole head will explode.

I can have them that last for days and just turn into the full on migraine at night.

I don't feel my migraine is that bad compared to everyone else.

I generally wake up with a cracking head. It would have me in bed for 3 days solid, and if anyone had left an axe nearby I would have been tempted to chop my head off . It was beginning to make me exceptionally depressed.
Then I was prescribed Sumatriptan and to say it has changed my life is not much of an exaggeration. I wake up with the headache, take a tablet, go back to sleep, and 3 hours later I wake up minus the headache, though slightly out of it for the next few hours.

Painful above my right eye and always in the same place. Painful moving head and neck, vision dodgy in right eye, feeling sick, can't look in certain directions. Very painful and throbbing.

Just been referred to a neurologist and my appointment is next month.

Limited on what I can take due to being pregnant, so only on co codamol at the moment. Dr wanted to prescribe beta blockers but as I have mild asthma that's a no go too.

They last for hours, until I've slept.

The aura always feels like it's in my left eye but it's in both, and my right eye is the one that feels like it's going to pop.

Now that I have recovered a bit more, I can tell what it was doing to me a bit better. I can't control my finer movements - writing goes to pot. Language is slurred. I am dopey and can't take things in (I can't remember what the doc was saying, but I know I have new pills to pick up tomorrow, for instance). I get shaky and my balance goes. I am much more prone to motion sickness.

The aura and pressure came back for about 5 minutes a short while ago. I can't tell whether that is another one or just the same one fading in and out.

My old doctor, from 8 or 9 years ago, told me they were all separate ones, but my current doc seems to think that's not possible.

I have just been taken off Naramig, which was pretty good stuff. no paracetomol as I was taking 8 of those a day for pain anyway. I really miss it, at least I could take something which would control it a bit. I know mine aren't that bad, compared to a lot of you, but it's the frequency that makes it difficult. It's been going on all day and most of yesterday. Happens 2 or 3 days a week at the moment.

Sparklingbrook, tell me anyway? I am not doing a compare and contrast! I am interested in how migraines vary and behave.

Mine's the first reply Jux, but it seems mine are quite mild. interestingly I only started having them post DC1. I have been on Citalopram (anti-D) for a year and haven't had one at all.

I had the aura last night and went to bed immediately today I have pain and feel generally quite sick and light sensitive

I have started having the aura without headache too. makes me feel so sick. If I get teh headache my eye throbs and I generally vomit and then sleep. Syndol usually shifts it and I have to add soluble aspiring with a really bad one

Sorry Sparkling, I was reading the first few with an aura shimmering about so didn't look at names! Yours are quite like mine I think.

Some of you suffer pretty badly, don't you.

Does there seem to be any relation between severity and frequency? Mine aren't bad, but happen a lot, for instance.

How do you manage to hold down jobs with all this going on? if that doesn't sound patronising? Or drive? it sounds horrible.

Its taken me several years to realise that I actually do suffer from migraines as I don't get an aura or sensitivity to light or anything. Also I can go for months or even years without one, but then get several in a few weeks. Generally I wake up with a headache thats located in the top or side of my head, but what makes it different from a normal headache is that I feel so sick. It usually lasts for several hours and then quite usually I throw up and then start to feel better.nI find Migraleve helps me - mine obviously are not that severe but the sickness is so horrible.

Other thing is that I can always link them to stressful times when Ive been rushing about and panicking that I can't get everything done!

Botox eliminated mine completely but when it wears off they come back but not as severe

Mine used to follow the same pattern - visual aura for 30-60 minutes. That fades and then the pounding head comes, with heightened sense of smell, can't bear light or loud noise either. I will have to lie in a darkened room as I am unable to function, and will be able to sleep. After a few hours I will be violently sick, then will sleep again.....usually after waking the migraine s on its way out.

More recently though, I have also had migraines without aura. Never completely sure if it is a migraine at the time, but I know for definate it was the next day (if that makes sense). I also sometimes get the aura only, no headache develops, if I take the sumatrapin nasal spray in time. I have also noticed that I can be a little hyper for a few hours before an attack. I never recognise this myself, but my friends know, or I realise afterwards.

Always the next day I feel 'woolley headed'.

Phew, sorry, I went on a bit there

i get all sorts of symptom....very rarely do i get them all together.

Mostly I get the nausea, vomiting and terrible head pain, those are the day in a darkened room ones, I have got better at seeing those coming as I get a weird "premonition headache" and instead of thinking "it's just a headache " I fend them off with a day or two of painkillers, though sometimes I just wake up with one without warning that's no fun. These tend to be in response to stress, over tiredness, exhaustion, just being too busy.

Other times I get the flashy lights, lose areas of vision, zig zag nonsense, usually they vanish without trace, but occasionally I get a very intense headache and have to lie down, but not usually any vomiting....headache is usually over very quickly...... under an hour. These will come on if I am exposed to very bright lights, car headlights, sun shine on water or window reflections, maybe a loud noise. I rarely leave the house without sunnies!

Others give me stroke like symptoms...cannot say certain words, I can see them in my head, write them down but cannot make myself say them. Grip is affected, I drop lots of things, speech also can be slurred, and I look vacant, thanks dh!

I generally self medicate with plenty of paracetamol and diclofenac this works if I catch them early, or I have Imigran, but not had much success with that, but that maybe because I am using it too late and thanks to the whole vomiting for hours.

kinelle ...dh sees my migraines coming, but we have not yet perfected the system where he tells me in advance!

"I thought you were a bit odd yesterday!!" he'll say.

Sunny days are a nightmare, I only have to glimpse the sun in my eyes and it triggers a migraine. I also get the slurred speech and clumsiness. You know when you just can't think? I end up sitting on a chair next to the oven to cook dinner etc - Im on my own with 3 dc so although the advice is to lay in a dark room it's just not possible. I go to bed at 7.30pm every night.

I'm not sure what an aura is?

I had no idea about migraines until I met dh, his start with an aura and he gets pressure in his eyes and head, has to go to a dark room and is always sick with them. They seem to last about 2 hours and then he has to sleep for a few hours. He always craves carbs afterwards.

He has been on beta blockers (for atrial fibrillation) for a year with no migraines at all but stopped taking them for two weeks and in the last three days has had two terrible migraines. He is back on the beta's now though.

Is there anything that can help you once this starts? I always feel like I want to help but there's nothing I can do apart from leave him alone.

I get spotty eyes mostly.
Then some pain and nausea.
Then the proper pain where I feel like shooting myself.
But I can not lie down in a darkened room. I have to move around and almost do something to take my attention away from the pain. Eg, pace round the house and count the circuits.

I will have taken co-codamol/ibuprofen at the very start, and have usually thrown up about 2 hours in.
4 hours later I am usually asleep.
Very wooly headed for the next 2 days.

I don't think they are migraines, but they are not simply headaches either.

I forgot to say sometimes I can't get my words out properly. Anyone get this?

Cats - haha. My dh has never noticed, it's just my friends and work colleagues. Sometimes I wonder ....

I wonder if I get migranes then? Every now and gain. Get 'disconnected' from the world - like I'm watching it on tv. Buzzing noises in my head and pressure in my forehead and eyes, then sharp stabbing pains. I get really clumsy, sagger about, feel massively tired. I've banned flashy and noisy toys as they make me feel ill.

Just always put it down to mental illness and anaemia...

I'll apologise in advance for venting.

I've lost 2 days work this week to migraine, 5 last month and if I hadn't Bern on holiday last week that would have been another 2 or 3.

I have no idea what to say at work about how I am, because I've got no way of knowing if tomorrow I'll be back to uncontrollable crying on the sofa.

I'm getting so much migraine at the moment apparently because I've managed to give myself occipital neuralgia from a dodgy neck, which most days turns into some degree of migraine. Pain varies in severity - sometimes just a mild twinge, sometimes stabbing and paralysing. But whichever out is or any degree between my right eye won't work properly with my left, and I can't think of the word for, for example, 'table'. And its easier to type than to talk

Its making me miss the throw up 10 times and pass out but wake up feeling fine and don't worry about it for 3 months kind I had before ds.

On the bright side I'm seeing a neurologist surge end of the month, and got some diazepam yesterday which held off todays migraine till about half an hour ago - and I'm thinking I'm going to medicate this one with a couple of glasses of wine instead...

So basically, I'm a bit pissed off at the moment

Thank you for bearing with all that!

I get an aura about half and hour to an hour before hand - if its going to be a bad one, my vision starts to close in (like tunnel vision) and I often get what looks like stars coming towards me (like the old windows 'space' screensaver)

then pressure on my head, I often find myself ducking as I walk (not that it helps, its a sub-conscious thing). The pain itself when it comes can last anywhere from to hours to the rest of the day. Sometimes eaing carbs help and I'm always hungry afterwards. Lying down and dark rooms someimes help but not always - but bright lights or loud noices will always feel like a sledge hammer until it clears

thankfully I rarely get them now, was much worse when I was younger