Comments on: What is Migraine? (the Story of Symptoms)

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:28:49 +0000

My Migranie pain is between 5/7 on a scale of 1/10.
My wife and I can’t go anywhere were there might be loud music or conversation I just get hit with pain and the trouble starts. We went to a banquet and when they started plaing the music I started to feel funny and when they up the bass, that was it, I was in full migrane. I couldn’t walk to the cab, the movement of the car made me sick but the cold air felt good. i was told that I stop the cab and dove out of it and tried to but my head into the ground, my friends thought of takeing me to the hospital. The piercing, stabbing, pounding pain made me jam my head into the frezzer when I got home. I suffer from Post Concussion since April of 2010 and have had around 10 -15 concussions in my life ( I just turned 50). My last concussion was June 2010 playing baseball. I am being look after at St Michaels hospital by Dr Oucterlonie. My question is am I ever going to be able to go to parties were there might be loud music playing and conversation/ Is this my life from here on? I have gone down from 5 headaches a week to 1 or 2 every two weeks. The pain stays pretty much the same 5/7.
Thank you for reading this rather long story.

Dan

By: Lamia

Lamia — Sun, 29 May 2011 12:46:49 +0000

Nearly cried when I read this; growing up “migraines” were something posh women with pearl strings suffered from on sweaty afternoons; my headaches were regarded as common old sinus ones. Maybe they were/still are. But as I’ve gotten older and the headaches have become worse, I’ve had more opportunity to recognise the warning signs – and the symptoms just don’t seem to add up to a sinus headache anymore. (I’ve tried talking the doctor about it; I always get the impression he thinks I’m exaggerating or making it all up.)

Excessive yawning is usually my first sign; often but not always the yawning is accompanied with unbelievable fatigue. I’d underline that if I could. Unbelievable. Often from nowhere. Suddenly I’m yawning, and that’s it – away we go – headache on its way. Often the nausea kicks in soon after, although sometimes the nausea’s the first thing; I’ll wake up feeling sick and I’ll know from that point on my day is going to be a challenge. I seldom get blurred vision, but my speech can get slurred and I’ll have trouble thinking. During the headache phase – if I’m “lucky” – there’s very little pain, just a sense of my brain feeling hollow in places; if I’m “unlucky”, there’s a slight throbbing that can be control by staying very, very still; and when it’s really bad, drugs, a darkened room, and staying very, very, very still until i can sleep are my only saviors. (I’ve never been prescribed migraine-specific pain relief – I rely on over-the-counter stuff; as I’ve aged, it seems to have lost its efficacy – leading one friend to suggest my problem was not headaches but pain relief addiction.) I consider myself lucky. I get these headaches on an almost weekly basis but they are seldom bad enough to keep me from work. The “hangover” is what I hate worst; I literally feel stupid.

After reading this, I’m more convinced than ever that it’s migraines I suffer from – not sinus headaches. I know the dangers of self-diagnosis – but I also know that I catalogued my symptoms before I even suspected my headaches were migraines. I think it’s time the doctor and I had a little chat.

By: Sick, frankly.

Sick, frankly. — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 02:25:22 +0000

[...] Now as most of you know, I’m never exactly in the peak of health. I have chronic migraine, a neurological disease which makes our unpredictable lives… well, more unpredictable. Never a day goes by without one interesting symptom or another. [...]

By: anne

anne — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:21:28 +0000

Hi, at the moment i am on holiday and feeling very down, have just had my 3rd migraine in 3 weeks and i get most of the effects with it but the hangover after is really awful lasts for nearly a week and have tried every thing. Can you advise anything?

Anne

By: Melanie

Melanie — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:43:12 +0000

Hi…well I am in Atlantic Canada. I only started getting migraines this summer. They have sent me to the ER at least 6 times in the past 3 months. I am just learning on how to deal with them. Today we are expecting heavy rain, rain warning. I woke up with migraine and started on my meds right away. Right now I know I am on my way. Scared because I am hoping it isn’t going to go full blown. But I am so sure it will. I am trying to soak in all the information I can. I am on my last two pills of presecription. I know I am going to have to go to the after hours clinic tonight. I have missed so much work over the last few months that I am scared. I am trying to get them under control. Any help would be greatly appreciated, with a young family and trying to make ends meet…this is getting really hard to deal with! Thanks.

By: Beth

Beth — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:38:19 +0000

I was just re-reading this and I have to say that as many people that read these articles and get SO much help from them, I guarantee that you only hear from a small fraction of them.

I haven’t told you lately how much I appreciate everything that you do – all the research and work you put into this website for all of us!!

Thank you, James! God bless you and your family!

By: Aurora

Aurora — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:40:51 +0000

I finally found my migraine soulmate in you, James.

By: James

James — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:27:52 +0000

Thanks, Catherine. There’s no doubt it takes time to connect the symptoms with migraine. I get pain in one eye quite often, and it took me months, maybe years, to notice that it was connected to my migraine attacks.

One reason it’s tricky is because the symptoms don’t necessarily come right at the height of the attack – they may come hours before, or even days after!

By: Catherine

Catherine — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:09:52 +0000

Thank you for confirming the whole body symptoms. Nice to know it is not just me and that it is just part of the migraine. Until triptans were invented, I did not realize that the back pain I had before and during the head pain was also migraine. Had assumed they were caused by muscle tension. When the triptans removed the back pain at the same time as the head pain, I had an eureka moment.

By: James

James — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:46:36 +0000

Thanks Carol and Kelly! Yes, sometimes I explain migraine pain and then end up by saying “Sometimes there’s head pain too”. No doubt, often the headache is the worst symptom – but even without a headache, a migraine can be nasty. Take it from one who knows…