Had my first major migraine yesterday

[Cerpin Taxt]

It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I was actually pretty freaked out at first, because it began with (what I've now learned) is called an "aura." Basically, a bright spot appeared in my field of vision as if I'd happened to look directly at a camera flash or something. It affected my vision for about 30 or 45 minutes, in which time it sort of translated across my field of vision into a jagged arc of scintillations from approximately the 12 o'clock to 4 o'clock points in my field of vision before it finally faded away.

At the time, I had no idea what it was, so I was beginning to wonder if I was caught in the midst of a stroke or something. The ensuing headache made me worry even more until I eventually started googling to better understand what I was experiencing. It was actually a bit of a relief to find such an uncannily accurate description of my visual experience in the pages about migraine headaches.

I've never experienced anything like this in my life that I can remember. More strangely, I can't seem to attribute it to any clear trigger. I wasn't particularly stressed. I didn't sleep well over the weekend, but Sunday night I actually slept quite a lot and I woke up feeling relatively refreshed.

Anybody have experiences with these? Advice to prevent them in the future or mitigate them if I encounter one again?

 

[Exodist]

I haven't had a migraine in about a year. I really feel damn lucky. When I normally get one my head screams with pain at the sight of anything, if I get to hot or to cold my head would hurt and if I heard any sound my head hurt. Not a normal hurt, a gang of thugs with bats and tire-irons beating my skull would be much less painful. It hurts so bad that it causes nausea and I normally have a iron stomach. Only thing I can do is take 2400MG of prescription motrin and craw in the corner of a dark, quiet, cool room and hope to pass out from the motrin. Normally about 3 hours later I am good to go. But yea they suck.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

2400mg of motrin? That's 12 regular ibuprofen pills. Take some excedrin or something for your liver's sake 😛

 

[tedrodai]

You might try recording the past couple days leading up to the migraine (and each subsequent occurance, if it does happen again), such as what you did and what you ate/drank. It might help you identify the trigger.

It's probably wasn't the only factor, but reducing my salt intake really seemed to help me. I noticed that being 1 common trait leading up to most of my migraines--too much salt. I haven't had a migraine in around 4 years, and I would get between 1-3 a year before that. Of course, that may have nothing to do with yours.

 

[Ancalagon44]

My girlfriend says she sometimes gets them so bad that they cant see. She goes to a hospital, she tells them to give her morphine, they refuse, give her something else, doesnt work, then they give her moprhine.

I remember for a brief time in university, I got these headaches where it was like someone had squeezed a tennis ball behind my eye. It made me want to rip my nose/sinuses open to relieve the pressure. At least it felt like that might be less painful. Took about 1000mg of ibuprofen for it to disappear.

 

[McWatt]

Back in grad school I got them 2-3 times a week. It might have been caused by an organic solvent to which I was occasionally exposed. Over the last five years they've become less common, tapering off to a migraine every couple months now. Naproxin is the most effective analgesic in my case, but a regular dose does absolutely nothing unless I take it the moment I start getting an aura or nausea. Lack of sleep, excessive caffeine, dehydration and alcohol consumption all seem to be potential triggers.

I've discovered a migraine property that I find fairly interesting: getting into a hot shower in a completely dark room can often stop the symptoms, or at least somehow make then unnoticeable. However, that usually only lasts while hot water is hitting my head. Hot and cold packs don't have the same effect - that might be simply a difference in the rate of heat transfer or it might be related to something else, like humidity or noise.

If you have another migraine, try heat or cold and afterward go talk to a doctor. There are really effective anti-migraine medications if they become a serious problem.

 

[TecHNooB]

never had a migraine 😀

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I haven't had a migraine in about a year. I really feel damn lucky. When I normally get one my head screams with pain at the sight of anything, if I get to hot or to cold my head would hurt and if I heard any sound my head hurt. Not a normal hurt, a gang of thugs with bats and tire-irons beating my skull would be much less painful. It hurts so bad that it causes nausea and I normally have a iron stomach. Only thing I can do is take 2400MG of prescription motrin and craw in the corner of a dark, quiet, cool room and hope to pass out from the motrin. Normally about 3 hours later I am good to go. But yea they suck.

2400 mg?! Jesus, get them to prescribe you some lortab or something. You're only supposed to take 600-800 mg, which is still 50-100% more than normal, when taking it as a prescription.

For a couple of years, I'd been getting headaches every day. I thought they were related to chronic sinusitis I have so I figured getting that fixed would fix them. Turned out to be migraines and fixing the sinusitis actually made them even worse : ( Now, I take elavil (antidepressant(beta-blockers didn't help at all)) every night and treximet (some sort of antimigraine stuff + nsaids) every time I feel one starting and I haven't gotten one uncontrollably bad in several months although I still get bits of pain and disorientation sometimes.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I've had the occasional migrane similar to what you describe. Usually because of some food preservative that i can not remember the name of.

It is very bad pain and keeps me up for hours on end. I've been tired at midnight before and basically been up till 6 am trying to get rid of the pain. It can be so bad that I can't sleep.

Never had hte light thing but I would loose my vision for a few seconds on occasion. My eyes would also get super sensitve to light.

Pay attention to diet. Think about what you have eaten when these thigns can occur. Two things that trigger headaches in me due to food additives are frozen (storebought) meatballs and beef jerky. Too much beef jerkey can do it.

Read this:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/dis...e/could-food-additives-cause-my-migraines.htm

In my case, I thought it was MSG. I guess it is Sodium Nitrate that gets me.
Sodium Nitrite. Sodium nitrite is a preservative that can dilate blood vessels in your head, causing pain. It acts as a preservative, preventing botulism, a type of food poisoning. It is also used to make meat pinker as well as add flavor. Sodium nitrite is usually found in hot dogs, canned or packaged meats, cold cuts, sausages, and some cheeses.

 

[Exodist]

2400 mg?! Jesus, get them to prescribe you some lortab or something. You're only supposed to take 600-800 mg, which is still 50-100% more than normal, when taking it as a prescription.

Lortabs dont work for me. Motrin is one of the few pain relievers that will ease my pain and I have to OD on it to get results. Plus it doesn't help with migraines, it just nums me enough that I can pass out.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I was actually pretty freaked out at first, because it began with (what I've now learned) is called an "aura." Basically, a bright spot appeared in my field of vision as if I'd happened to look directly at a camera flash or something. It affected my vision for about 30 or 45 minutes, in which time it sort of translated across my field of vision into a jagged arc of scintillations from approximately the 12 o'clock to 4 o'clock points in my field of vision before it finally faded away.

At the time, I had no idea what it was, so I was beginning to wonder if I was caught in the midst of a stroke or something. The ensuing headache made me worry even more until I eventually started googling to better understand what I was experiencing. It was actually a bit of a relief to find such an uncannily accurate description of my visual experience in the pages about migraine headaches.

I've never experienced anything like this in my life that I can remember. More strangely, I can't seem to attribute it to any clear trigger. I wasn't particularly stressed. I didn't sleep well over the weekend, but Sunday night I actually slept quite a lot and I woke up feeling relatively refreshed.

Anybody have experiences with these? Advice to prevent them in the future or mitigate them if I encounter one again?

I get a few of them a year. One good tip is to get some caffeine in you as soon as you see any symptoms. I believe it works because it's a vascoconstrictor. Other than that just try and take it easy. Once you get the aura don't try to fight through. Close your eyes and don't try to read or watch tv.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Lortabs dont work for me. Motrin is one of the few pain relievers that will ease my pain and I have to OD on it to get results. Plus it doesn't help with migraines, it just nums me enough that I can pass out.

Have you tried a more powerful nsaid? Like naproxen? I'm not a doctor or anything so take what I suggest with a grain of salt, it must be hell on your liver though what you're doing now.

 

[chin311]

my wife had her 1st one a month or so ago, she got some weird visual stuff before it kicked in, she was in some major pain, i ran out and got her excedrin migraine and she said it made it more like a "normal headache" and gave her some relief.

 

[angminas]

I have a friend who gave up gluten and never gets migraines anymore...except if he eats gluten.

 

[pm]

It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I was actually pretty freaked out at first, because it began with (what I've now learned) is called an "aura." Basically, a bright spot appeared in my field of vision as if I'd happened to look directly at a camera flash or something. It affected my vision for about 30 or 45 minutes, in which time it sort of translated across my field of vision into a jagged arc of scintillations from approximately the 12 o'clock to 4 o'clock points in my field of vision before it finally faded away.

At the time, I had no idea what it was, so I was beginning to wonder if I was caught in the midst of a stroke or something. The ensuing headache made me worry even more until I eventually started googling to better understand what I was experiencing. It was actually a bit of a relief to find such an uncannily accurate description of my visual experience in the pages about migraine headaches.

I've never experienced anything like this in my life that I can remember. More strangely, I can't seem to attribute it to any clear trigger. I wasn't particularly stressed. I didn't sleep well over the weekend, but Sunday night I actually slept quite a lot and I woke up feeling relatively refreshed.

Anybody have experiences with these? Advice to prevent them in the future or mitigate them if I encounter one again?

I had my first major migraine about 8 years ago. Exact same thing... the aura started in the center and moved out, started as a ball that looked like a camera flash and then turned into a long scintillating worm thing that moved towards the periphery of my vision. I remember thinking "what the heck is going on?". And then when things started going back to normal with my vision, I had a ridiculously painful headache along with mild nausea. I googled it too - same deal as you, and was actually relieved... there's nothing like putting a name to something. About the only really bad thing is that there's really nothing to do... light "hurts", music sounds gratingly annoying, I can't read a book or use a computer and talking to people isn't fun... so I sat in our closet (because it's quiet and dark) and just thought about all of the things that would be a better use of my time other than sitting in the closet with a throbbing headache.

Since that time, I've gotten them about once a year or less. So maybe six more since that original one. I haven't had one in the last two years though... no idea why. People talk about "triggers" but I have no idea what mine would be. They are so rare that I don't really think too much about them now. After the first one or two, I've learned to take a double dose of ibuprofen and two benedryl and go to bed. I wake up about 7-10 hours later feeling groggy and my head is sore, but things are fine after that. Not sure if this is a good or bad way to deal with it, but I think sleeping is more pleasant than sitting in a dark closet hurting.