Anyone else hate migraines?

john22

My god i hate them. I have been having them for the last 2 years now and they're the biggest burden ever.
Im still not able to find what the main causes for me are. So far i find those long light bulbs that are in offices cause them alot, and eating food im not used to.
Anyone else share my hatred for migraines or who have found what causes migraines for them?

Ruu_Old

No harm in going to your GP for the once over. I get them once in a while but not as bad as I used to.

fade2black

I love them myself.:rolleyes:

Could it be something to do with your diet? Or even eyesight?

Maybe you could get an allergy test done?

john22

I did, but the common cure seems to be a pill or two and two hours sleep. Waste of a day really. You feel like a zombie after it:(

Ruu_Old

Do you use the computer often? You might need glasses (if you don't already wear them).

john22

Yepp i wear glasses and use the computer a fair bit. Also another cause.

Crucifix

I get them occasionally, but I'm still not sure what triggers them for me.

Baffled

Yea I get them too. Only when Im really tired or havent slept very well the night before. I get them so bad that I lose the feeling in some of my limbs and sometimes my speech and sight gets all messed up. Oh and for some strange reason I always get a tingly sensation in my tongue. Strange!

The only remedy for me is to go to bed (in a dark room) and sleep it off. No tablets have ever taken it away.

Danes

Baffled, what you have is Acute Migraine rather than the Classic type. Acutes are fairly unusual and a lot of GPs wont have seen them before - I suffer exactly the same symptoms as you, and was originally diagnosed with MS. I find Imigram tabs keep them to a bearable level. I had one yesterday and still feel hungover and giddy today

jobonar

Crucifix wrote:

I get them occasionally, but I'm still not sure what triggers them for me.

i'm the same! no idea what sets them off... havent had 1 in a while now(touch wood) but when i do get them i'm out of it for 2 days, 1st day with the pain and sometimes vomitting and the 2nd day i'm worse than a zombie!

Black Swan

Had one a couple of days ago, restricted to the right temporal lobe. Ouch! Believe it was triggered by stress. Apparently more women report having them than men. See below site for more info:

http://health.allrefer.com/health/migraine-info.html

ianmc38

I quite enjoy them. There's something really sweet about having a pumping, almost unbearable headache.

Baffled

I didnt know it was called that Danes. Must try those imigran tabs. I just gave up trying tablets because I found none of them worked.

I can be scary though. Thought I was going to die once. I was about 11 when I got my first one. Plus, if you move your head suddenly after a migraine, it can be very painful.

Gordon

I'm very glad not to have had them judging by the description from a friend.

I read a month or two ago on BBC that some doctor type people are looking into heart surgery as a way of stopping a certain type of migraine.

scrattletrap

I've been suffering from them for the last twelve years, hospitalized a few times for it (ouch) what effects me the most if hazy light and stress (but we all have that) and dairy. This time of year is very bad for the light, I've had two in the last month, their no laughing matter. For some reason my leg twitches when I have them.
The imigram didn't work for me nor did any of the other many tablets I was prescribed. I just have to grin and bear it. Oh so very easy to do with children running about.
My mother suffered terribly from them too.

Baffled

Heart Surgery? Thats interesting.

My mum and sister both suffer aswell. My mums biggest cause is chocolate. Does anyones speech go a bit weird. When I get a migraine, if I try to talk I start talking a load of rubbish. I get all my words mixed up and what Im trying to say comes out a**se ways. Kind of embarrassing when you are trying to explain to your boss that you have a migraine and you need to go home.

LegacyUser

I got one a while back, well actually two within the space of a few weeks.
The first one was after a night of cocaine use, wasn't a lot and I dont do it often but about once a year I'll have a flutter.

In any case I didn't know that time it was a migraine as it was my first ever, but it came back about 3 weeks later with a vengeance and left me incapacitated for two days, anytime I closed my eyes all I could see were flashing lights and got dizzy, head was splitting, everything was an effort. I went in and had a checkup after that just in case.

I wouldn't wish a migraine on my worst enemy.

Static M.e.

This is just a warning of sorts not meant to scare you in anyway.

My brother use to get migraines alot, over a 2 year period then they increased to the stage where he was getting them more often than not.
Turned out he had a tumour in his head. It was operated on an it all came out successfull, thank god. But now Im always very aware when people say they get migraines\headaches alot. I think you should go to GP and get a blood test just to make sure everything is alright Migraines arent normal

NeMiSiS

Oddly enough I've had two in the past six weeks, and before that the last one I had was nearly a year ago. But I used to get them very severly, basically with the bright lights in your eyes thing, like you've stared at the sun.. that would last maybe a half hour.. then bring on the pain and vomiting.

I could barely speak also, still when I get them I can't speak properly.. but an hour before I get one.. my senses kinda get . 'heightend' you hear more you see more.. kinda odd

I've have had them so bad, that I've go unconscious and woke up on the floor or where ever. sorrounded by vomit and head still pounding..

I had to cut out Chocolate, Milk, coffee, anything really sugary, cheese , ginger, among other things. That was back when I was around 14 - 17 or 18. No chocolate for like 4 years! Imagine that.. That being said.. I can eat all those things now except Ginger, which will give me a head ache within literally about 2 or 3 minutes. Another thing I've found is artificial sweetners.. like they would put in a Mocha (the coffee chocolate drink thing).

Tablets have never really worked for me and just made me feel worse to be honest. My grandad had this vile tasting plant in his garden he used to give me that seemed.. to work, possibly because it tasted so bad you forgot about the pain, I also heard.. Onion Sandwiches ..

TK

leeroybrown

I occasionally get mild migranes affecting my eyes and causing mild nausea. They're not that bad but they do put me out of action for a few hours and it takes a day to fully recover.

Mine were normally caused by using CRT monitors, eye strain in general and over tiredness. I don't get them very often at the moment and that's mainly down never using a CRT (I'm a SysAdmin so that's the big one) and working more flexible hours so that I'm not forcing myself to go to work when I know I'm too tired.

I used to work with a guy who got severe migranes and would occasionally wake up so ill that phoning in to work was too much effort and resulting in doctors administering pain killing injections.

spinandscribble

i got them when i was 8 for the 1st time. they would even cause me to throw up. eventually my parents realised i needed glasses and nowadays we always know when i need new lenses when my mirgraines return. maybe you need a stronger perscribion?

free2fly

Baffled wrote:

Yea I get them too. Only when Im really tired or havent slept very well the night before. I get them so bad that I lose the feeling in some of my limbs and sometimes my speech and sight gets all messed up. Oh and for some strange reason I always get a tingly sensation in my tongue. Strange!

The only remedy for me is to go to bed (in a dark room) and sleep it off. No tablets have ever taken it away.

I have the same symptoms and condition. It can knock me down for days. I saw a neurologist and was told that in my case the attacks come about due to stress. It can also be caused by wine, chocolate, nuts and many other foods and factors. There are medications available now to help with the pain, but the best remedy is to lie down in a dark room until it passes.

john22

Trying to sleep it off only works for me at the beginning when i have the blurs and lights in my eyes. After that the head ache comes and the only thing suppresses the pain a bit is sitting up right with my eyes open.
I think the pills must be mainly used as a placebo cause they never work for me.

Danes

Sometimes nothing will work especially if you ignore the warning signs like I do and the migraine takes hold. Some people find the Imigran nasal spray works better than the tabs and if you're female, the Depo contraceptive injection seems to keep them away - I only had very mild ones while on the Depo but when I stopped getting it, I had a nightmare six months or so where I needed to go to the GP for painkilling jabs. I've heard a good few women say they noticed this as well.

The Imigran tabs ar really expensive here - about €90 for 10 but if you know anyone travelling to Spain they can be got there for a fraction of the price and without presciption.

Baffled

Jeez, they are expensive! Must keep that in mind about Spain.

Aparently if you keep your hands warm when you get a Migraine, it will ease a little. I noticed that my body temp drops a bit and my hands and feet get really cold. Some times when I get a Migraine I put on a pair of gloves and get into bed. Dunno if it makes the pain any better, but it makes me feel more comfortable.

LegacyUser

i'm so glad i've seen this thread!!!
i was totally incapacitated last 2 days with really bad headache, couldn't bear any noise/light etc i went to the doc this morning and she diagnosed migraine- based on the fact my balance completely went and vomiting and stuff. turns out i had it before- my previous gp had prescribed me beta blockers when i was getting really bad stress headaches during my leaving cert but never mentioned it was actually migraine!
anyway what i'm wondering now is what kind of warning signs should i look out for? <when this started monday night i kind of felt this pain creeping up my neck and within half an hour i was basically unconcious with the pain- really cold etc.>
the doctor said i will be ok by tomorrow (obviously i'm much improved seeing as i am online again!) but i will almost definitely have another attack in 1/2 weeks. so she prescribed imigran (feckin well expensive €20 for 2 tabs!!).
but from your experience how will i know if im going to get an attack?- she said the pills will only work if i take them before i'm actually "in the attack" but i'm worried i wont realise in time and will just be in unbearable pain. i know i'm sounding like a total baby but i thought i was going to croak yesterday i've never felt pain like that before and don't ever want to again!

john22

For me i usually feel a little weird. Like im tired and a bit of pressure in my head.
The main thing that tells me straight away i have one is that a see a tiny spec of brightlight/blur in my eye and it cntinues to get bigger and bigger untill the pain stars. Awfull things these migraines.

Baffled

Yea mine usually starts with partial loss of vision or a blur in one of my eyes. Then my hands and arms go numb and about 20 minutes later the pain comes. Then thats pretty much it for a day or 2.

hairyfairy00

I've suffered with migraines for about 14 -15 years, at my worst i was having 3 a week, now i get about 3 - 4 a month which is quite a lot but i get by. I've been to the doctor loads of times and i've been given many different pain killers and preventatives but none worked, my doc told me that the last resort for me would be injections in the neck :eek: I find the only over the counter tablets that actually work for me are SYNDOL they are a god send. They do make you a bit sleepy which can be crappy during the day if your at work but if you can't sleep at night from a migraine they are great.
I do get warning signals of one happening eg. extreme tiredness and flashing lights, but my migraine sometimes takes 4 days to appear. With mine i stammer or slur my words the sight in my right eye goes blurry sometimes and with every movement i make my head pounds and i want to throw up.
I found an article that was in the Irish Daily Mail a few months back that linked migraines to a faulty valve in the heart ( non-fatal ), i gave the paper to my Doc and he 's lookin into it, hopefully i can get an ultrasound of my heart to see if i have the faulty valve that causes them and get it fixed.

Pet

Apparently a big cause of migraines is fluorescent lights. Via the optic nerve, they excite production of norepinephrine and gaba, and cause vasodilation. There are special glasses you can wear which will inhibit this effect, a friend of mine uses them and swears by them.

I don't get migraines, but fluorescent lights make my face get really hot and flushed, so I used to wear tinted contacts when I was in the labs, until I realised that the dilation in my eyes was making them really sore! So now I wear tinted glasses (I look like a fool, but hey, better than a pounding head!)

cinnamon

I used to get migraine if I did excessive exercise. My kickboxing instructor who is also a trained nurse, reckoned it was a deficit of glucose (or oxygen, can't remember). About an hour after a training session I would see little specks in front of my eyes, these would get bigger til I had tunnel vision. Then I'd get a throbbing headache but only on the right side of my head. I would have to go to bed with the pain and felt exhausted by morning.
Actually whenever I get stress headaches it is alwys on the right side - does anyone know why this side is so significant?

PiE

My doctor diagnosed me with migraines when I was about 7 years old. He always said I'd "grow out of them". To an extent I have but I still get them on occassion. It's kinda surprising to me when I hear descriptions of other people's migraines. I never get any blurred vision or anything and very rarely would lighting affect me, unless it was really dim. What kills me is hot days and especially sports on hot days. Just walking around town on a hot day will sometimes result in a whackin' head as soon as I get home. I had to give up playing football for my club when I was about 14 because I couldn't last the 90mins without wanting to die. It's really quite annoying, especially during the summer when you're raging for a game

Prolly same thing as yerself cinnamon^.

Baffled

Just read back through some of the posts. Speaking of migraines, faulty valves and your heart, last year I spent a week in bed with an awful migraine and really bad palpatations. I went to my doc and he sent me for a series of heart tests because the palpatations were irregular (or regular, not sure). Nothing showed up at the time but Im still not convinced. I still get bad palpatations every now and again.

So yea, maybe migraine & your heart are linked in some way or another. Must look into it again.

scrattletrap

At the time of my first few migraines I was prodded and probed but they revealed nothing. Years later I developed epilepsy and they don't know why I have that either. Some things are just baffling to medical science.

daveg

Having read this thread I think I suffer from them. When I was younger and when I got rundown (tired from lack of sleep etc) I always got tonsillitis. However over the years this subsided and I started to get bliding headaches around my eyes and would vomit. I went to the doctor and he told me it was just my bodies reaction to bring rundown (only ever get it due to lack of sleep). As a previous poster said sleeping in a darken room is the only cure for me. No tablets ever get rid of it. Only get it a few times a year through.

kittenkiller

My doc told me that there's a few different drugs on the market for migranes at the moment.
He prescribed me one of the brands after I went to him during one that had lasted 2 days at that stage.
I popped this tiny little pill on my tongue, let it disslove & minutes later my head was clearing!
A pill sent from God!

Other that that I had been taking dissolvable Solpadine & it was doing a grand job most of the time when it was combined with a few hours shut eye.

For any girls out there suffering, the contraceptive pill is said to sometimes cause migranes even suddenly after prolonged use.
I've given it up now after 7 years, so fingers crossed.

Hangovers also trigger mine.
Nasty Buggers!

red_ice

we all hate migrains, and i get them alot!

When i was in school i suffered from them all the time, and one day in class my business teacher suggested i try a wet towel on my neck. Within 10 minutes my migrain was gone!

Get a small towel, rinse it in cold water (as cold as it gets), fold the towel losely and lie down on your belly in bed. i place my forhead on the matress, and lift my chin into my neck... if you know what i mean - it stretches your neck so its straight. Try relax in that position, and place the cold towel on the back of your neck. When the towel warms up, turn it over to the cold side, and repeat till the towel is all warm. your headache should be gone by this stage, if its not, do it again untill it is.

I swear by this home remidy, i tell it to anyone i talk to who has a headache of any sort, and it usually works for them(i cant think of a time it didnt).

Last week i was in birmingham, 'fresh' off a flight that i had administered oxygen on. I had the most fowel headache and migrain. The back of my head hurt, the top of my head, and behind my eyes - all 3, my brain took a serious shot. I did my towel thing and it was all gone in 10 minutes.

I think it numbs the nervs that cause headaches, and the cold towel helps distract from the pain.

Let me know how you got on, im sure all the replies will be positive

turbot

My opinion on migraines is that... if one way of thinking about them or understanding how they got there is ineffective, then you should change your system of understanding and you may get better results.

Good things I know of that I consider to be worth exploring to help deal with migraines are:

Dental Issues:
- Your jaw alignment with your skull, that affects tension of tendons between your jaw and head, which can apparently cause both migraines and even tinitus.

Spiritual Issues:
- Different systems of thought about the human body include the observation that around your forehead and crown, you have two major energy centres; your third eye and crown chakra.

If strip bulbs and allergens bring these on, then what you may be experiencing is that you have some kind of energetic blockage around this area, and anything that weakens your energy levels / ki makes this more apparent.

Worth exploring:
- Different aspects of bio-energy / chakra / energy meditation
- Different aspects of tai-chi / head massage / acupuncture and acupressure

One way of identifying if this is a cause is, if you ask someone in a really good mood to put their hand on the top of your head, and see if the migraine, albeit temporarily, dissipates, this may indicate an energy blockage is highlighted under certain circumstances for you.

delly

Might get a migraine once or twice a year but have found that I can recognise it coming on within about 5 minutes from the sun spot effects. If I take Migralive within that 5 minutes it really helps to stop it coming on, but time is the big issue.

Another thing which helps, but does not stop it, are a product you can get from Tesco and the like which is a freezing cold gel pack that you can put on your forehead. You have no idea how cold it can get, but is such a relief from the pain that I always have a spare one knocking around.

Man, even talking about migraines is making me feel i'm about to get one .

hairyfairy00

I've tried using the cold towel before but it only makes me feel like my head will split in two. I've eliminated a whole lot of things from my diet which helps a bit but i really don't have a trigger. Try going to migraine.ie they have a really good site and they will send out a fact sheet to you if you give them your address, they give you a diary to note down when you get a migraine. They also give a list of medication that is available to suffers, i found it quite helpfull!!
If you have to take pain killers try and stay away from ones that have a lot of Codine in them, these can actually trigger another migraine after a couple of hours, your body kind of goes through a Codine withdrawl. This one of the reasons that Solpadine doesn't work for me.

lost_for_words

I've been having migraine since I was 7 and I'll never forget my first one. I buried under the duvet just so I could find a spot to hide in the dark and at some point started to vomit, then I'd move to another spot and get sick and move again, till the whole bed was covered, I couldn't come out from under the duvet because it was day time and it was better to be there with the sick than face the light.
Have learned to cope with it a little better since then as I know most of my own triggers which include red lemonade, lemon/yellow food colourings, bright sunlight, heat, strong perfume, stress, overtired, smell of grease/grill/bbq/deep fat fryer (especially in small spaces like someone cooking in an apartment), beer, standing for a long time (like at a concert or something), driving on a bright/hot day, driving long distance on a normal day....the list goes on.
I recognise a lot of the symptoms people are posting here, like vision getting blurry, speech not making sense, not being able to finish a thought because the pain is so bad, not being able to open your eyes because it hurts, not being able to close your eyes because it hurts
They are unbearable really and I find the only thing that helps is for me to take nurofen plus literally straight away when I think a migraine is going to happen, I always get a warning about half an hour before one kicks in so it's like the window of opportunity to get out....although that always doesn't work, a lot of the time the only thing is a dark room and complete silence and a prayer that at some point you might fall asleep and when you wake up it'll all be over. Which reminds me when I was younger I used to pray to god that if he took the migraine away I'd be really really good the next day.
Going to Oxegen next weekend so fingers crossed that I survive it but I suppose I already know I will get one, can't let it stop you from doing the things you want to do though.

gubby

I have been suffering from migrain for about 32yrs... (since i got married,, lol no connection) I have tried most things. a few yrs ago my doctor precribed zomig rapidmelt. I think some other poster mentioned a tiny tablet you melt under your tongue.. and hey presto head gone!! no no I ment it head gone.. not a typo. seriously I find them brilliant. they stop the pain.. you still wont be able to do anything.. but at least the pain is gone. like other painkillers you have to take it on time. zomig also are very expensive. my doctor prescribes 12 for me so I get about 2 months out of that depending on how frequent an attack. my latest new on migrain front is that I am now attending a ciropractor and thank god I have not had a sever one since i started with him. I also take solpadeine.. I know at this stage that I am addicted to them. but i cant manage without them.

Giruilla

Yeah, hate them! Ive only got them in the past year, only had three so far thank God! so far they've been triggered by playing football without taking water, then being dehydrated after, and another time was basically just from watching tv as far as i can tell.
my symptoms are first my eyesight gets completely messed up in my eyes. I can't focus on anything or know who i'm talking to. Then i get a feelin like a vice is gripping my head, then everything seems alright for about 5 minutes, then the pounding headache!

On a sidenote, i've also had concusion before and it feels exactly like what its like to have a migrane. in fact my migranes only started after the 1st time i got concussed. Anybody know if the two things are related?