Hardcore Migraine Sufferers Unite

Whoa! I looked in the mirror at the peak of a migraine aura earlier. Bad trip, man! I couldn't see my left eye, and the right side of my face seemed to have a massive dark crease under my eye and then a glowing bump which loomed out of the dim haze of the rest of my vision. Thought it was light reflecting from the window but shifting my head around didn't move it away from my cheek. Blugh.

And then I went to bed, which is probably where I should still be, because it still hurts even though I can see again now.

(PS I am not on any drugz of a psychedelic nature)

I've never looked in a mirror during a migraine - I get the big neon lightshow auras - but I'll give that a go next time!

shld give it a try as well. but usually i cqan't really see properly: vision seems to have lacy curtain over it. like now. uuuurgggghhhh

Lacy curtains? My aura look like this:
http://tv.cream.org/lookin/totp/setdesign.htm

...which is kind of appropriate as I spent a lot of my childhood watching Top Of The Pops.

I just have difficulty seeing.

Honest to god, when I don't have a migraine, I can hardly explain it. Mostly I can remember "please let me sleeeeeeeeeeeeep"

I get the lacy curtain thing, or at least a general fuzziness with a blind spot covering or just to the side of my focus (so I could lie down and look at one foot and not see the other right next to it, or if I'm trying to read I can just about make out a word at a time but can't see the sentence), hence staring at face-reflection and not being able to see one eye.

After a bit of that, the blind spot usually turns into something like a transparent sliding block puzzle rearranging itself in front of my eyes, or sometimes I get a small block of tiny shards of colour shifting around, kind of like if these tiles moved:
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/7237/wattsstructure.jpg

Interesting that everyone's seems different. Also I'd like to know if my blind spot or face-numbness is always on the opposite side to the headache side, but, you know, not by having enough migraines to notice that kind of thing.

i've never had migraines before but this morning i got this really weird visual blurring/clouding effect towards the right side of my vision. lasted for about 20 minutes probably, got progressively worse then went away.

shortly after a headache on the left side of my head came on, and has been pretty strong for the past hour now. accompanied by general "i feel like shit" symptoms that weren't there this morning when i woke up.

brief online research suggests this might be a migraine? ughh

If it persists, go see a doctor, Mark. No need to wallow in migraine misery. Hugs. Migraines suck ass.

this sucks. i am on day 3, responding only intermittently to medication.

It seems that sinus infections and migraine attacks are sometimes hard to distinguish. I can just say: since July I have had both and IT FUCKING SUCKS. Had migraine attacks all my life of course. Last couple of says I had it so bad, I threw up. FUCK THIS SHIT. I am so fed up with feeling so bad. There are moments I feel mildly sick and then I'm HAPPY. hah.

that discussion the other week about pressing eyes to produce phosphenes prompted me to do a little wikiresearch on migraine auras, and some of the artists' renderings give me chills just looking at them. gnarly stuff.

http://i45.tinypic.com/34hg9ad.jpg

it's like seeing THE RING except instead of dying you get to look forward to a day of solitary confinement and barfing and having a dump truck cruise around on your skull.

hi i'm the suffering angel here to remind you about your impending suffering, enjoy the show loser

http://i46.tinypic.com/2m50w7o.jpg

also apparently aura artists only get auras when they're on vacation (?)

Dear migraine auras: PLEASE FUCK OFF I would like to leave work and go home but I can't navigate the tube with giant glowing neon snakes taking up half my vision.

hot tip somebody gave me feminex for a migraine and this shit is goood

I just got an email where she called it "the wicked deadache" - which I know is a typo but it just absolutely describes it so perfectly.

I've been getting opthalmic migraines lately. All the neon snakes without the headache later.

My mum is urging me to go to the doctor about them, as they seem to happen with increasing frequency. But I'm not sure that doctors can do anything about them. They're annoying, but not incapacitating, they tend to last about 30-45 minutes. But my head does feel like it's been washed out with battery acid afterwards, even if it's not a headache, it definitely leaves me unable to function properly for hours afterwards. Like, looking at screens becomes really difficult.

So. Beta Blockers. Do they work? I've been given a prescription for them but I'm nervous to start any long-term medication again. It's called PropranoLOL which makes me LOL.

I like the sound of something that stops anxiety as a side effect, but don't like the sound of something that makes you tired all the time and gives you crazy nightmares.

Anyone?

i've had like three migraines in the past two weeks (and one more migraine that i was able to get rid of in the aura stage). but reflexology does help, kinda...

http://www.livestrong.com/article/12881-use-reflexology-migraines/

i was able to get rid of in the aura stage

I always get the headache first for 15-20 minutes, then the aura starts up. Maybe that's because my main trigger is a blocked sinus.

i have bad sinuses too but my sinus headaches are distinctly different from my migraines. it's another set of pressure points, and my sinus headaches have no aura.

Kate, I have heard great things about betablockers but I am weary of'em. I mean, shit, those are some strong meds. My neighbour once fell asleep at the table with his bookkeeper. lolol

Now I don't know what'what: sinus or migraine. I thought I had a sinus problem but no gunk came out. :-(
I do have to say that now that I am antidepressants, I feel a LOT better. Less migraine attacks due to less stress. YAY. I think they put some speed in my meds cause I love to work.

i have this. had an op a year or two ago for my sinuses as they said it was a deviated septum but it helped a bit, and now its bad again. doctor wants me to get another op but ive been putting it off as i dont want to have another op. maybe i should. but lack of sleep kills me and gives me awful head pains. have an inhaler but i cant tell if that helps anymore or not. so i just take paracetamol and do lots of deep nasal breathing.

My mom's speech teacher says humming helps for bad sinuses. I wonder if she's just testing how far she can pull my mom's leg (or would that be nose?). I mean for chrissakes, HUMMING? Anyway yeah sinuses suck as much as migraines :-(

I had been suffering from an apparently migraine attack the last couple of days. I had a prescription for some hardcore meds. But I was in doubt: if it wasn't a migraine attack, it wouldn't help and they are some hardcore meds (the list of side effects seem endless). My friend said: why the fuck do you read the paper, just pop the pill. I finally did. I feel so happy, like walking on clouds. Fuck me, migraine-less me is feeling happy happy. Now I realize how fucking crap migraines are. It really drains you.

Anyone get Cluster Headaches?

Usually get them every other year but am getting "warning signs" that I'm going to get them a year early.

^ Getting them now. Fucking fuck.

Had mine from Christmas to the end of January, waking up every bloody night feeling like there's a knife in my eye. But it's over again for the moment. You never get used to them.

If only I could send this message to StanM 2009 : it's not trigeminal neuralgia you've got, even though some of the symptoms point that way, it's cluster headaches after all. Your beta blockers didn't actually help, you only thought so because it was just the end of that particular cluster. You'll get them every 2 years and they'll last for about a month, if the next five years are anything to go by. (oh, and try and lose some weight if you don't want to get a hernia in about 3 years)

How were you treating them? I used to only get mine in the night but they have moved to every 7 hours or so.

(Similarly, was prescribed antibiotics for years and always thought it just took six weeks worth ...)

I didn't take anything because of the uncertainty (if it helps, is it the pills or the end of the cluster?), the only thing that worked was to either sit upright in bed (it would slowly fade away in waves during the next hour or so) or walk around (but it's not obvious to go walking around a quiet part of town at 3 or 3 AM without looking like a burglar looking for a target).

Good luck! Try everything you can think of that isn't dangerous or illegal and don't give up!

2 or 3 AM

Try everything: drink a lot of water, drink less water, skip meat, eat more meat, more vegetables, less vegetables, nuts, no nuts, greasy food, no greasy food, bread, no bread, fish, no fish, milk, no milk, be outside more, higher or lower temp on the thermostat, etc etc etc, I'm convinced there's a pattern or trigger but I haven't found mine yet.

I usually treat cluster patients for prevention with verapamil (take every day to keep the cluster away), or a short course of the steroid dexamethasone (start only when the cluster starts, to interrupt the cycle).

Acute treatment is tricky because the episodes are usually brief and medications take awhile to get absorbed from the stomach. Subcutaneous or intranasal sumatriptan is the fastest-acting option. 100% O2 by mask is effective in research trials but impractical in real life.

Cluster is circadian and related to hypothalamic/autonomic function, not typically associated with environmental triggers like migraine. Smoking and hard liquor are risk factors (but not necessary to develop the disorder). Milk, fish and bread or whatever are probably not the issue. Interestingly, hazel eyes, ruddy skin and furrowed facial features ("leonine facies") have been described as associations.

/neurologist

Thanking you!

Nothing skin- or face-related here. My partial heterochromia (brown sector in otherwise blue eyes) IS on the same (right) side my migraine is on, though.

Yes, I use Sumatriptan 50 mg tablets plus oxygen or Sumatriptan injection. Problematically, I'm getting three or four attacks a day at the moment(which would take me over the allowed prescription of the injections). Didn't get on with Verapamil or steroids, at all.

If you're having that many attacks, you're in the middle of a cluster and steroids are indicated to interrupt the pattern. They usually work.

If you're having frequent clusters (ideally, you'd have 1-2 or fewer clusters -- bouts where you have 1 or more attacks per day on most days -- per year), you should be on an ongoing preventive like verapamil. Verapamil is usually effective even at modest doses, tends to be well tolerated.

If you get on the right regimen (sometimes easier said than done), you might be able to reduce the number of attacks to a handful per year, or even go a year or more between attacks.

I'm apprehensive about taking something that fiddles with my heart like verapamil for the rest of my life for something completely different just because it happens to inexplicably seem to work :-/

OK chief, that's your call.

I'm lucky to only have it for about a month every couple of years at the moment, I might change my mind if it was more often.

So what you need is a order for steroids that you can start as soon as the cluster does. Cut that month down to a couple of days. Stay off preventives (verapamil etc) if you can go years between clusters, they're only needed if the clusters are more frequent. When it finally recurs, knock it back again with the dex. Whack-a-mole style.

For people whose clusters are predictable by season (only get them in the fall or whatever), I put them on verapamil just during that window and then stop it until the same time next year.

Thank you so much! ^ why can't I buy this person a gold star?

Spoke to OUCH (Organisation for the Understanding of Cluster Headache)(UK)'s helpline today. They suggested not bothering with Sumatriptan tablets (too slow) but using the injections. They also suggested using Oxygen but continuing use for ten minutes after the pain stopped (likely to reduce rebounds). They mentioned the possibility of using Frovatriptan, which has a longer "shelf life" than Sumatriptan. They also mentioned Verapamil and steroids.

Frova's a decent idea for bridging during recurring attacks, because it stays in your system for 24 hrs or so. It's quite slow to start working, so it's next to useless for acute treatment of an attack that's just started. But it would likely prevent further attacks in that 24 hr window.

You're probably better off with a short course of steroids to interrupt the cluster: way cheaper than brand name triptans and very effective. Once the cluster "breaks", it often goes quiet for a nice long time.

Acute treatment in cluster should be considered as rescue therapy -- if needed more than rarely, it's a sign that other measures have failed.

Ta.

(Yes, once I get to the end of this, it'll be two years before they happen again).

First migraine in two years. My main trigger is blocked sinuses, so I attribute this one to a very dry September where it hardly rained at all suddenly shifting to being very rainy today.

i've been getting migraine symptoms without the headache. light sensitivity/blurry vision/aura. am i going blind?

curious about the post just above mine that mentions the change in the weather -- we just went from a long period of drought conditions to heavy rain.

Sounds like: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalgic_migraine

Barometric pressure changes can be a trigger for all sorts of migraine, including visual aura w/o headache.