Discussion
Just wondering if anyone has any advice on dealing with migraines. I've suffered to differing degrees over the last 20 years however in the last 3 years their frequency and impact has increased. I've seen my GP numerous times and last year I was referred to a specialist who arranged for an MRI.
The good news was that there's definitely a brain in my skull. The bad news is that they couldn't see anything that would be causing my migraines.
Drug wise I've been prescribed a variety of triptans none of which have had any sort of positive impact (a couple had extremely negative results).
In one way I'm slightly lucky in that I don't get light sensitivity, so I don't need to close off all light sources.
I always get the same aura leading up to the pain, the order can vary:
- One of my arms goes very light, almost like the connection between it and the brain isn't fully connected.
- Twinkling in my vision.
- 'Fractures' in my vision.
- A large blind spot in my peripheral vision.
- Numbness down one side of my body, almost like a form of palsy. My face will visibly droop.
- Pins and needles in my hand that will start either in my thumb or little finger and gradually work its way across my hand.
- Trouble speaking. I have trouble forming sentences, quite often I will jumble the words up and forget words.
- Trouble reading. I can have a word put in front of me, in my mind I will know the exact meaning of the word I'm looking at yet pronouncing it is near impossible. I end up saying it in an almost phonetic fashion.
- Memory loss. Quite often I will have interactions in the hour leading up to and then also during the migraine that I will not remember.
The above symptoms usually last between 1 and 2 hours. After all of that I get intense pain deep inside my head. Moving my head causes the pain to shift to the side of my skull before returning to the centre. It's almost like my brain has shrunk a little and is bouncing off the inside of my skull. The pain tends to hang around for 3 to 4 hours before slowly subsiding. I'm left with a form of bruising inside my head for the next 24 to 36 hours, I'm incredibly tired too (I've been known to sleep for 16 hours after an attack) and for the next few days I feel very jaded and slow.
The frequency of them has now increased to roughly once every 3 weeks so it's starting to have a major impact on my professional and personal life.
Diet wise only consume a few units of alcohol a week, I get pretty good sleep stay well hydrated and my diet is fairly good (junk food maybe once a month). I don't smoke and my caffeine intake is minimal (I thought that may stop them). My migraines don't seem to appear at any certain time, I can be tired or alert, hungry or full, sober or drunk. It can be night time or morning, I can be stressed or super relaxed. I've removed almost every food at some point or another to see if that had an impact, I've tried all sorts of scented and unscented washing powders but nothing seems to stop them.
They're getting to a point where I'm almost having panic attacks over the thought of them, especially when I'm about to go away on holiday or spend the day doing something I'm really looking forward to!
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on ways to handle them that I may not have yet tried?
Thanks all.
The good news was that there's definitely a brain in my skull. The bad news is that they couldn't see anything that would be causing my migraines.
Drug wise I've been prescribed a variety of triptans none of which have had any sort of positive impact (a couple had extremely negative results).
In one way I'm slightly lucky in that I don't get light sensitivity, so I don't need to close off all light sources.
I always get the same aura leading up to the pain, the order can vary:
- One of my arms goes very light, almost like the connection between it and the brain isn't fully connected.
- Twinkling in my vision.
- 'Fractures' in my vision.
- A large blind spot in my peripheral vision.
- Numbness down one side of my body, almost like a form of palsy. My face will visibly droop.
- Pins and needles in my hand that will start either in my thumb or little finger and gradually work its way across my hand.
- Trouble speaking. I have trouble forming sentences, quite often I will jumble the words up and forget words.
- Trouble reading. I can have a word put in front of me, in my mind I will know the exact meaning of the word I'm looking at yet pronouncing it is near impossible. I end up saying it in an almost phonetic fashion.
- Memory loss. Quite often I will have interactions in the hour leading up to and then also during the migraine that I will not remember.
The above symptoms usually last between 1 and 2 hours. After all of that I get intense pain deep inside my head. Moving my head causes the pain to shift to the side of my skull before returning to the centre. It's almost like my brain has shrunk a little and is bouncing off the inside of my skull. The pain tends to hang around for 3 to 4 hours before slowly subsiding. I'm left with a form of bruising inside my head for the next 24 to 36 hours, I'm incredibly tired too (I've been known to sleep for 16 hours after an attack) and for the next few days I feel very jaded and slow.
The frequency of them has now increased to roughly once every 3 weeks so it's starting to have a major impact on my professional and personal life.
Diet wise only consume a few units of alcohol a week, I get pretty good sleep stay well hydrated and my diet is fairly good (junk food maybe once a month). I don't smoke and my caffeine intake is minimal (I thought that may stop them). My migraines don't seem to appear at any certain time, I can be tired or alert, hungry or full, sober or drunk. It can be night time or morning, I can be stressed or super relaxed. I've removed almost every food at some point or another to see if that had an impact, I've tried all sorts of scented and unscented washing powders but nothing seems to stop them.
They're getting to a point where I'm almost having panic attacks over the thought of them, especially when I'm about to go away on holiday or spend the day doing something I'm really looking forward to!
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on ways to handle them that I may not have yet tried?
Thanks all.
I get them occasionally. I never have memory loss of the lightness of the arm, but they vary in severity from an aura that lasts 15 minutes with no subsequent headache or other effects to an hour or more of aura, with headache, aphasia (the weird inability to put a sentence together or read or understand a spoken sentence), followed by that bruised feeling inside the top of the head. They tend to come in clusters, i.e. attacks over several days, but I can go months without one. I haven't had one this year so far.
Can't offer any suggestions but do sympathise suffering with them my self - I think mine are triggered by bright light.
The increasing frequency coule be a growing intolerance to a food or food group? My neighbour suffered with all sorts until he cut out dairy. Have you been tested for any intolerances? Edit: reading again I see you have tried food, apologies.
Stress is the other thing that comes to mind.
The increasing frequency coule be a growing intolerance to a food or food group? My neighbour suffered with all sorts until he cut out dairy. Have you been tested for any intolerances? Edit: reading again I see you have tried food, apologies.
Stress is the other thing that comes to mind.
Ok ... my symptoms started with puberty (10 & a bit), used to get aura (typically losing ability to see red in one eye, losing blue in the other) but 19+ it's generally been straight into escalation of pain going from hint of headache (but different) into feeling like someone's stuck a Katana through my right eye to the back of the skull and is twisting it 90 degrees and back again with every heartbeat, while someone else t
ts my right temple with a cricket bat ("classic" hemispherical migraine) ... escalation takes anywhere from a couple of minutes to a few hours, symptons last anywhere from 2 hours (6 is probably about average) up to a week. I also get a different sort starting in the the back of my head/neck,, these are much much worse. Once the pain has gone, I'm extremely woozy, uncoordinated for anthing from a few hours to couple of days, 24 hours is about average. After that, I sometimes still get a high/euphoria.
Triggers ... certain fumes, especially oil based paints and "industrial" scents used in detergents and air fresheners are a massive problem for me, they seem to get into my bloodstream and I can still taste them when I exhale several hours later. Probably not literally, but that's what it feels like. Petrol burnt in un-stociometric ratios never used to be a problem, but old A-series engines and twist and fart mopeds are triggers for me now. Stress, or more correctly when the stress goes away, also after completely metabilising alcohol or caffiene (i.e. after there's none in the system). I have crippling spine and hip pain so used to TENS machine quite a bit, until I discovered it was causing elevated blood pressure (like 195 over 105 vs my "normal" 120 over 80) & when it went down again, you've guessed it ... sometime still have to use it though.
And sometimes, no bloody clue what's caused them.
Treatments ... been on 80mg LA betablockers since my teens, supposed to help even out blood pressure spikes. Was on Naratriptan for some time until local health whatsit decided it was to explensive & switched me to Sumatriptan - slightly more effective, but longer/stronger "wobbly" phase, Zolmitriptan (when couldn't get Sumatriptan for a while), pretty much the same. One thing I've found is taking the pill early is essential, and in my case, with antihisamines and a pain killer (on all sorts of stuff already, so usually paracetamol as that's the only other/safe option left) - "gastric stasis" often accompaines migraines so anything swallowed too late just isn't going to work. You can also get triptans in single use injectors (think big fat Epipen you slam into your thigh) which get the drug into your bloodstream when pills wont.
nb Cutting out alcohol and caffiene did help - but I had to be completely offf them for 3 months to see any benefit, cutting down or stopping for a week will tell you nothing.
What side i lie on also helps - most of my migraines are right sided, so If I lie on my left side it does reduce the duration ... one "slight" problem is that it does increase the pain to the point where it takes all my focus to just breathe ... "diaphragmatic" breathing (in 4-count, out 4-count, no holds) might also be helping. Usually after a couple of hours of that, I can roll over & sleep the rest of the pain off for a few hours.
Possibly you've read all that & thought been there already & no help ... if nothing else you have my sympathy
ts my right temple with a cricket bat ("classic" hemispherical migraine) ... escalation takes anywhere from a couple of minutes to a few hours, symptons last anywhere from 2 hours (6 is probably about average) up to a week. I also get a different sort starting in the the back of my head/neck,, these are much much worse. Once the pain has gone, I'm extremely woozy, uncoordinated for anthing from a few hours to couple of days, 24 hours is about average. After that, I sometimes still get a high/euphoria.Triggers ... certain fumes, especially oil based paints and "industrial" scents used in detergents and air fresheners are a massive problem for me, they seem to get into my bloodstream and I can still taste them when I exhale several hours later. Probably not literally, but that's what it feels like. Petrol burnt in un-stociometric ratios never used to be a problem, but old A-series engines and twist and fart mopeds are triggers for me now. Stress, or more correctly when the stress goes away, also after completely metabilising alcohol or caffiene (i.e. after there's none in the system). I have crippling spine and hip pain so used to TENS machine quite a bit, until I discovered it was causing elevated blood pressure (like 195 over 105 vs my "normal" 120 over 80) & when it went down again, you've guessed it ... sometime still have to use it though.
And sometimes, no bloody clue what's caused them.
Treatments ... been on 80mg LA betablockers since my teens, supposed to help even out blood pressure spikes. Was on Naratriptan for some time until local health whatsit decided it was to explensive & switched me to Sumatriptan - slightly more effective, but longer/stronger "wobbly" phase, Zolmitriptan (when couldn't get Sumatriptan for a while), pretty much the same. One thing I've found is taking the pill early is essential, and in my case, with antihisamines and a pain killer (on all sorts of stuff already, so usually paracetamol as that's the only other/safe option left) - "gastric stasis" often accompaines migraines so anything swallowed too late just isn't going to work. You can also get triptans in single use injectors (think big fat Epipen you slam into your thigh) which get the drug into your bloodstream when pills wont.
nb Cutting out alcohol and caffiene did help - but I had to be completely offf them for 3 months to see any benefit, cutting down or stopping for a week will tell you nothing.
What side i lie on also helps - most of my migraines are right sided, so If I lie on my left side it does reduce the duration ... one "slight" problem is that it does increase the pain to the point where it takes all my focus to just breathe ... "diaphragmatic" breathing (in 4-count, out 4-count, no holds) might also be helping. Usually after a couple of hours of that, I can roll over & sleep the rest of the pain off for a few hours.
Possibly you've read all that & thought been there already & no help ... if nothing else you have my sympathy
The only trigger I think I recognise is dehydration, particularly after exercise. I’ve never been aware of any particular food group triggering them.
I’ve woken up with a migraine. I’ve had one trigger while skiing. I’ve always worried one might strike while I’m at the wheel, but that has never happened.
Neurogenic, espresso and lots of water seems to be the best treatment.
I’ve woken up with a migraine. I’ve had one trigger while skiing. I’ve always worried one might strike while I’m at the wheel, but that has never happened.
Neurogenic, espresso and lots of water seems to be the best treatment.
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