BS: It's A Migraine!

Subject: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 03:54 PM

Join me in celebrating the sudden and embarrassing 30 minute ocular disturbance heralding the delivery of an afternoon migraine.

Head and eyes are doing well now and should be at work tomorrow, hopefully functioning together.

picture of what it looked like sort of It was like looking at world reflected through a spiky mirror ball.

It has been a number of years since I had this happen. The other 2 were lovely rainbow auras and followed by little or no headache.

Today, I didn't recognise what was happening and as I had really bad palpitations last night I thought perhaps I was having a stroke this morning. Called TheSilentOne and in tears requested a lift home. By the time he arrived at my work, the visual disturbance was starting to clear and massive headache came on. GP later said I should get my eyes checked to be on safe side.

"Aggghhh you silly ninny." say I. "You've played migraine before. Don't you remember?" "But that was when I still had hormones", says ninny me.

What a day.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 03:58 PM

Oh, I'm sorry! I don't get 'auras' or any visuals at all. I just hit the floor in extreme agony. Hurts to bad to scream or I would. My ONLY option is to go get a demerol and atropine injection, put a constriction bandage around my head and hide in a DARK QUIET room for 2 days.

My sympathies

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:15 PM

Ditto Sorcha. I used to get those too. Even complete black darkness hurt so I needed soft diffused light coming from adjacent room.

I actually punched my (then) husband in the mouth once when in the throes of pain. I was in bed moaning so I didn't hear him come in. When he applied a cold cloth to my head, I reacted. I was 18 and having daily migraines like clockwork. Started at 2pm every day. Turns out the birth control pill had driven my blood pressure sky high.

Started getting them again in my thirties. They were linked with my monthly cycle.

I thought I was too old for them now, since I have gone through the change. I guess not. I keep a wheat bag in freezer for my arthritis pain and it works a treat on headaches. Even helped with today's migraine, but then so did the codydramol (codeine laced paracetamol /tylenol) and nap.

Hope your migraines find somewhere else to play.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:18 PM

closer to what it really looked like

try reading a monitor through that!

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: gnu
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:26 PM

Oh my. My heart goes out to youse. I have a number of friends who suffer from same. Such a terrible thing.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: ClaireBear
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:27 PM

I don't get the pretty pictures either, just the pain. And I have one today too, the first in years. So I guess I join you in celebrating something...

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: jacqui.c
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:38 PM

i had them regularly - just pain and having to throw up before I could sleep it off.

Stopped taking any caffeine - no tea, coffee, chocolate or soft drinks and they went away.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: gnu
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:43 PM

I bought some chocolate ice cream a few weeks back, and threw out the last bit. I only ate a small bit after supper, but, woke with a headache.

I understand some peeps are reverse... chocolate "helps". LTS could comment.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:47 PM

I've occasionally had the visuals - no headache. Staring at bright points of light is usually the trigger - like the sun reflected off car bodywork. Looks much like VTam's picture but with a blank empty bit in the middle.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: SharonA
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:50 PM

VirginiaTam, you should listen to The Silent One. Get your eyes checked pronto, just in case you were watching your retina tearing. Do it before the retina detaches, if that's what it is, because repairing a detached retina is a MUCH more involved operation than repairing a torn retina. Take it from one who knows!!!!!! (I've had 3 operations on my eye so far, all because I didn't read the warning signs -- flashes of "light" and an explosion of mini-floaters -- and I delayed a visit to my doctor until my retina detached and I saw a black spot in my vision!)

Good luck,
Sharon

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 06:26 PM

Seems like some kind of intense pressure on the ocular nerve, or something related thereto. I would get it thoroughly checked. It may not be, now, what it seemed to be then, you know...


A

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Alice
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 06:37 PM

I've had migraines since I was 14. It tends to be genetic, as you probably know.

Last winter I started getting the "migraine visual disturbances" without the pain kicking in - sometimes called a "silent migraine". Every stage of life, even after menopause, it seems to show up in some way or another.
Usually lack of sleep, stress, and then some kind of bright or flashing light is often a trigger for me. Yup, bright light reflecting off a car. Or sunlight flashing reflections off rippling water... or a ceiling fan running under a light, making the light flash, or a flickering flourescent....

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 07:29 PM

It is not a solely female phenomenon, and you will be happy to know that there is a positive correlation with intelligence.

I get "splobs" (an expression coined by my daughter) followed by partial blindness, then some nausea.

Curiously if I ignore all of the above and keep going (but driving while blind is not clever), I tend to have no or little headache. If I succumb to temptation however, and recline in semi-dark, I may be headache-ridden for up to four hours.

Migraleve is a palliative, but almost guarantees a recurrence.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 12:44 AM

We've had migraines, they come from my mother's family. Her sister used to get the aura. I have had stomach aches (huge ache, and is one you can sleep off) and the headache. First one I had was the huge visual disturbance (I was 16, taking a test, but couldn't read the page). Scared everyone, and mom took me to the eye doctor. Wrong doctor, and I went for many years with a wrong diagnosis, before I realized it was a migraine.

My son gets the bad headache, but lately the stomach ache. His meds usually keep them away, but there are breakthrough headaches every so often. Allergies seem to bring them on more often.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Skivee
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 12:57 AM

the aura illustration is one of the best I have seen. After a while they can look a bit like a flashing map of a coral atoll.
I'm just glad that, if I must get them, I don't get the heavier effects. Barfing for days in a darkened room with a pickaxe smacking your head sounds like less fun than going flashy-blind for a while.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Darowyn
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 04:57 AM

I get the visual disturbance with no headache.
Rather than romanticise it with ideas of auras, I explain it to myself by thinking that my eyes are still sending perfectly valid data, but the visual cortex is not processing it properly.
I can fight it off for long enough to ride home safely, but I'm not back to normal until I have a lie down, and then I go into a very strange, deep sleep for half an hour or so.
It's just as if I'd pressed the "restart" button in my head.
I have no sensation of going to sleep or waking, nor is there any impression of the passing of time, and I have not moved at all.
It's just as if the clock had skipped 30 minutes.
How strange it is to be alive!
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Rumncoke
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 10:31 AM

I recently had a very slight migrane headache - it was literally a few minutes, but before that I had a visual disturbance. It was like looking at a slowly rotating fan through a net curtain with splodges on it.

At first the disturbance was only slight, affecting periferal vision to my left but it gradually increased to form an arc around 180 degrees.

Most of the visual disturbances I have ever had were moving in some way. They have been quite interesting, though usually they have been at a higher frequency than the last one, lines and colours moving or alternating rapidly or sparkling.

One thing which can induce my migranes is using an electric fan in hot weather, perhaps it could be linked to dehydration.

Anne Croucher

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 03:38 PM

Damn raggin frakurlastic"%%$"!^%£$!*&^ flippin' ovaries.

I said I had gone through the change. It appears I ain't finished changin' yet. Explains why the migraine then.

And just before my holiday.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 09:23 PM

On an aromatherapy list long ago people recommended taking a drop of peppermint oil and a drop of lavender oil, mixing and putting on temples. Test on other area of skin first (if you decide to do this after doing some research) when you are not ill. Peppermint is a strong skin irritant, but lavender is usually not. Something about the combination worked very well for many headaches, including migraines for some people. mg

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jul 09 - 10:20 AM

Had one last night, was hoping some one would kill me during the night to make it stop ... I get em once in a while ... loads of fun, especially the throwing up part ...

gosh .. miserable .. I sometimes see blue colors ... Went to a head doctor couple of years ago (nuro something or the other) Good place for me right LOL
anywho, told me all normal with them ... gave me some meds ... never worked .. cost me a fortune for the MRI's and all the other tests .. that the insurance only paid part thereof.   One of my many list of things that are fallin apart on me ..

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jul 09 - 11:42 AM

Silver rippling lakes, ahh I know them well. Surprisngly one is in direct control of how pervasive they can be in ones field of vision.
You can shrink them or magnify them if you try. I don't mind them since they are virtually a relic of my youth at this point.
They are much nicer than 24 to 48 of throbbing pain.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: ClaireBear
Date: 15 Jul 09 - 12:25 PM

What I get, with no visual effects, is just a slow build from numbness in my sinuses (my migraines are apparently sinus-triggered) to excruciating pain, extreme light and noise intolerance, and very bad nausea. One symptom I have that no one's mentioned, unless I missed it, is that all clothing must be loose-fitting with no waistband, otherwise the nausea becomes unbearable.

I've been having these since I was 7 years old -- thankfully, not often, and they're usually avoidable if it occurs to me to treat the triggering sinus problem (with a combination of ibuprofen and pseudoephedrine) in time.

C

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: GUEST,Noreen
Date: 16 Jul 09 - 05:31 AM

Those pictures are very like the 'visual disturbance' I had on Sunday, first I have had for many years. In the right field of view, angular like the drawing, but sparkly, like a kaleidoscope.

Lasted for about half an hour. No headache or nausea, but felt a bit 'woozy' for a couple of days afterwards.

Seems to follow a late lie-in of a morning (which I rarely get now!) so may be associated with dehydration. I cut down on tea intake too during woozy period, just in case there is an association- but I'm not giving up tea altogether!

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 16 Jul 09 - 10:10 AM

Mine were definitely caused by "raging hormonal unbalance" and/or estrogen drop-off. Started as peri-menopause started. Went through a number of changes/evolutions and got crazier the closer I was to (finally!) menopause.

In the 7 or 8 years since my estrogen dropped off permanently, I've had few headaches (mostly sinus or stress) and only, I think, one that could be classified as a migraine. And it felt different yet again from my formerly monthly variety.

I never had the aura -- and Tom ONLY had the aura, no headache. But mine always left me still useless the next day; totally wiped out.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 16 Jul 09 - 11:26 PM

Food sensitivities: a weak cup of black tea at 4pm will result in a migraine at 4pm the very next day. Other things behave likewise. Very hard to track down due to time lag. Migraine will last 24 or 48 hours, depending on substance ingested. Only solution: mind what one ingests and determine culprit.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 02:21 PM

I had another ocular migraine this morning.

That's 2 on Friday and one today. And everything smells revolting. I usually love the smell of roasted peppers and leeks sauteed in butter. Bleagh!

Wonder why I am suddenly having these ocular thingies. More than annoying, they make it impossible to do anything that requires use of my eyes and even with eyes closed I see the jagged edged moving kaleidoscope which makes me feel a bit nauseated.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Alice
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 02:30 PM

I've had migraines ever since puberty. Hormone fluctuations, sleep deprivation, usual triggers. They always started with the silvery vision distortion, then often went to nausea and vomiting and unbearable pain.

Now I sometimes get what is called a "silent" migraine, which means there is the silvery vision distortion, but it doesn't turn into the intense pain (thank goodness).

It may be from your sleep pattern being changed because of the holidays, or just stress in general, or hormones doing something to trigger it.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 02:41 PM

ClaireBear

My take:
At first, I suspected my migraines were caused by sinus conditions (for some of the reasons you state). But, later found this not to be the case.

Many migraine impacts are vascular in nature (though not caused by that)...blood vessels inflame and go in to spasm and enlarge. Many of the drugs used to counter this are vascular constrictors.

Pseudoephedrine is used in sinus treatment, because veins constrict in the sinus blood vessels, allowing blockages to flow. ibuprofen, reduces inflamation...also vascular inflamation.

I get migraines,that are not sinus related. They cause pressure around and above my eyes....to the center of my forehead and I get heightened sensitivity to light and sound (and also nausia).

My migraines are mostly caused by rapid and sharp changes in barametric pressure....and can be aggrivated by triggers during this weather period.. especially fall and winter.

Migraine accupressure (and possibly acupuncture) sites I believe are just above the nose, on the forehead.

Odd thing is caffene (in coffee, chocolate) can both cause and give relief to migraines....since caffeen tends to constrict blood vessels also,

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 08:44 PM

I had migraines as a child, but in recent decades I have had (about once a year) a related condition called scotoma. A piece of the visual field, in both eyes, goes blank. It changes shape, size, & position, and goes away in about half an hour. Its boundary is somewhat animated, but there is no spectacle. No pain.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 09:52 PM

Check out acephalalgic migraine or Ocular Migraine on Google. There seems to be many varieties of symptoms...and a mixture of terms overlapping to describe the various migraines.

I never get a headache...But, occasionally everything seems vividly clear before a migraine, then I loose my sight focus. This than can lead to a perpherial aura. On occasion, I have had tingling fingers, and a bit of confusion

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:03 AM

for as long as I can remember I've had severe headaches. Many are related to glare & summer & hot airless places. They can last over 24 hours in spite of the max. allowable dose of paracetamol or codeine/paracetamol.

I also get mini-migraines - I don't call them migraines after seeing/reading what my cousin & other folks endure. A mini-migraine starts with the nausea, then "just" becomes a long term headache. Over the years (decades?) I've twice had headaches that started with visual disturbances.

sandra (almost over a ~24 hour headache - 2 x 2 paracetamol + 2 codeine/paracetamol yesterday + 2 codeine/paracetamol with breakfast)

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:04 AM

Starts with a faint flickering, like a ceiling fan off to the left, somewhere in the periphery.
Then comes the flashing, much as you portrayed it, the blind spots and the aphasia. More recently my cognitive skills have been diminished somewhat. I've only had the pain a couple of times but the agony is forever etched in my mind.
It's over in about 20 minutes to half an hour but I stumble over words for the next couple of days.
Usually brought on by glancing at a light. A Bic lighter is enough but halogen lights and the sun on rear windshields are killers.
Things to avoid... cheese and chocolate.
Bugger!

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 03:42 AM

The illustration (Virginia's posting 12th July)is remarkably close to the strange opticals I see during an attack.
But they're not 'pretty pictures'.
They're frightening and disturbing, and you never get used to them.
The headaches I get, thankfully, are nowhere near as bad as they used to be.
My sympathies to all sufferers.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: black walnut
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:40 AM

When I woke up yesterday morning I wanted to kill myself. The wind was howling outside and I felt it right through the left side of my head and neck. I'd had my max of tryptans already this week (only 2 allowed per week) so I tried a 400 mg Advil and strong coffee immediately (my hub brought it to the bed...I couldn't move) and a cold pack to the head. Surprisingly, I made it through the day with only a mild headache remaining.

The worst thing about this is that it makes it difficult to commit to performing or working solo, or even joining groups. I continue to drive alone but always have meds at the ready.

Very few visual auras, though. Don't know why I've had a few at all. I thought that people either had auras or they didn't. Most migreurs do not have auras.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Ed T
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:05 AM

In a few migrains, I have had stroke symptoms....I could not communicate verbally....but could on paper... temporarynumbness on one side of my face and hand. As one ages, the liklihood of stroke increases....which rules out vascular constrictors. First time I had this type (only a few in my life, it was very scary...I was in a mall....and felt like a zombie).

My son has 'em...and aereything takes on odd colours....like sunlight on oil on the top of a puddle. My sister's stopped when she went on blood pressure medication.

I see zigzag, flickering neon-like lights off to one side....I only wish I could see it clear enough to capture it on Canvas.

Frequency of migrains oddly have gone down, when I was put on low doseage synthriod a couple of years back, for an unrelated condition (as far as I know, anyway).

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: black walnut
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:09 PM

You take a drug, and it affects your migraine frequency? Not too surprising. I think that any change to the body's system seems to disrupt the migraine pattern at least for a time. And it is amazing how little is really understood about this condition. My neurologist says that so little money is put into the research, whereas a lot goes into researching other diseases. He is very frustrated about it.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:29 PM

Rain down windows. 70s zig-zags. Black spots. Half vision, both vertical and horizontal. Bright lights.

Years of curling up under my solid fronted desk at work, inbetween booking patients in for major heart surgery. Anywhere to get away from the terrible pain-inducing light. Or hiding in the darkness of Mrs. Hajny's basement stairs during lunch hours, curled up like a dormouse to find the darkest spot...Days of travelling to work on the Underground, with a carrier bag in my pocket, just in case I was still on the train when the sickness started...and dashing into the bathroom at work for that very reason...toothbrush and toothpaste always at hand, to freshen my mouth and help paint my smile back on when I talked to the patients moments later.....

Days of lying in bed, still as a cadaver, to avoid any excruciating movement.   Years of my children knowing that Mummy couldn't talk for hours on end, sometimes days..Months of back and forth to St. Bartholomew's Hospital Migraine Clinic, trying to explain how hard it was to travel in during an attack so they could monitor me...

Learning to breathe deeply. Realising that 'giving birth' breathing took the pain away, because if you focus on being your breath, and NOTHING else....eventually, you fall asleep...

Knowing that I had to give up eating or drinking anything, no matter how thirsty I became, because anything would start the nausea...

Migraines stole so many days of my life....but they gave me something back to replace them...and that was the most wondrous sense of feeling WELL afterwards.

Oh, the joy of waking from deep sleep, lying there frightened to open your eyes, but doing so, one at a time...and finding the pain gone....knowing that for a few days or weeks the invisible metal band that was pulled tighter and tighter around your head, was broken and gone....The pain that made you long for death...was gone.

Getting up after it was over, feeling magical...tired and worn out, but so ALIVE! The beauty in everything, the sounds, the sights, the light, the sunshine..food, drink...

All were beautiful!

And then, you reach your 40s...and for the first time...since you were 11 years old, the migraines no longer return....

At first, you think it's just a flook, but it's not...and your life becomes your own again....

You learn that childhood car sickness and tummy ache is all a part of childhood migraine, and you recall all the times when Dad had to pull over on journeys...the hot water bottles on your tummy...the sick bowl always kept beneath your childhood bed...and the jigsaw starts to fit together...The 'Anadins' you took in handfuls, not telling Mum and Dad, because the pain was so bad you just wanted it to stop....

Yeah, Migraines....

But they bring magic!

They bring a huge toleration to pain....and you find you gave birth with no pain killers...because it was a doddle after a life of migraine...and the beauty, always the Beauty, remains....even after every attack has become just a distant memory...the thankfulness of a pain free head remains..

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:46 PM

I am lucky - I only had them during pregnancy. My mother-in-law got them very badly, though, and they were linked to her persistent high blood pressure...which turned out to be linked to cancer of the kidney. Any post-menopausal women suffering from migraines should definitely have a full check-up.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:05 PM

Lizzie, thanks for your memories

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: GUEST,Helen, cookieless
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:21 PM

Hi all,

I never had migraines at all until the middle of last year when we moved all of our household stuff upstairs into the garage, and moved the bare essentials to a rental property. It was all done in a rush, and we couldn't afford to use a removalist so we did it all ourselves.

I found that all the heavy lifting, and especially carrying heavy bags and boxes upstairs, caused me to start getting visual migraines. It definitely was related to heavy lifting and muscle strain. That and the stress probably meant my blood pressure was up, too.

I didn't know that it was a visual migraine until I Googled the words "migraine" and "aura" because I remembered that was the word used in relation to visual symptoms of migraines. I did an image search on Google, and found the pictures just like the ones linked to by Virginia Tam. I was getting the visuals and then nausea and a sort of electrical on-edge feeling, like standing too close to high tension electrical wires, and headaches but not as bad as some of you are describing. They were persistent and heavy but not totally debilitating.

I found out that the visual migraine is caused by spasms in the blood vessels behind the eye(s). One page I read said that some of the cells are in spasm and others aren't, and they alternate, which is the cause of the sparkly zigzag effect.

I also Googled remedies. Coffee can help, even though it can also be a trigger. It's one of the remedies I use at work, now.

But the thing which helped me the most was an electrolyte drink, Staminade. I buy the powdered form, from the supermarket, to make up a drink with water. It's a lot cheaper than buying Staminade or other electrolyte drinks in bottles, and I chose Staminade because it has no added sugar. It helps to balance the electrolytes which helps to stop the spasms. I started using Staminade when I was getting bad leg cramps a few years ago. I always have it in the cupboard now, just in case.

We'll be moving back home soon and have to go through the whole moving process again. I'm not looking forward to it, but I know what to expect and what to do about it.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:59 PM

Helen, cookieless,

Thanks for the tip on Staminade. I'll try it.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:29 PM

I have them occasionally now, but nowhere near as often as I used to.

Anybody that thinks all a migraine is is a headache or a temporary visual disturbance, it's not. I had symptoms that were somewhat like multiple sclerosis. I've had tests and two MRIs, both a tad abnormal. On the second one, the radiologist stated that the pattern of de-myelinization was NOT in a pattern indicative of MS. My neurologist said he'd seen it before, and it was caused by migraines.

So my head hurt, it eventually stopped, but the migraine left some lasting effect: tiny messed up areas in my brain that look like I've had micro-strokes.

You can get headaches with high blood pressure, but oddly enough, migraines are caused by blood vessels that expand and press on nerves. In other words, not enough constriction, too much of which causes high blood pressure. This is why caffeine, a vasoconstrictor, works on migraines. It's only a trigger because it eventually wears off and your blood vessels go back to being over-dilated.

A doctor once told me about Feverfew--an herb with some scientific validation that has no side effects and is pretty inexpensive. It worked very well for me, for as long as my migraines were primarily caused by hormone fluctuation.

In any event, migraines are circulatory problems and head pain is merely one symptom. If you get them, you'd do best to see a professional.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:38 PM

fascinating info Jeri

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 02:59 AM

Helen, thanks for the ref to Staminade - Bob Bolton recommended it for my tingly numb feet that have been keeping me awake recently & I tried it yesterday. Dunno if it worked cos I was still awake 1.5 hours after I went to bed - so I took a muscle relaxant, half a valium as recommended by my Dr & Physio for back & leg pain several years ago.

It was the first time I'd taken it since then & I woke with the alarm, then I woke again an hour later, 30 mins before I had to leave for a medical appointment! Fastest shower ever!

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: black walnut
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:24 PM

I didn't find Feverfew helpful but I do really believe that Butterbur extract is making a difference. "Reduces freq1uency of migraine attacks". I am certainly able to function better now than before I started taking Butterbur.

It is sold as Migranon II (Flora brand), and I take 50 mg AM and 50 mg PM.

My neurologist got me on to it. He said that it is one of the few things showing real results in the research right now in terms of daily prevention.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:36 PM

well I have had no repeats of Friday and Sunday performances. Have been careful about exposure to glaring glinting light.

Lizzie.... Ow. I remember the crippling migraines and the miraculous relief when the pain stopped. I was never so functional as you when it was that bad.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: black walnut
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:21 PM

I watched a TV show on migraines and a famous performer - I wish I could remember who it was, you'd all know him - could perform with a migraine, but before and after the performance he would be in great pain and vomitting. I know that when I have migraine pain, it is relieved somewhat when I hum.

Grief can squash migraines as well. After we lost a dear member of the family last January, I didn't have a migraine for nearly 2 weeks. I asked my neurologist about it, and he said that he hears many stories of people not getting their usual number of migraines while experiencing crisis situations. No one really knows why, but it is as if the brain cannot cope with another difficulty to bear on top of the grief.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 03:44 AM

Black Walnut - Most interesting. I will try the humming and singing thing in future.

And I have had definitely fewer migraines, since my daughter passed away. Everyone has given so much to think about on this thread.

thanks

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: GUEST,Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 10:03 AM

Jumping in at the bottom here to ask a quick question. I have the laptop cranked up to take with me to the ER, where my ex took our son this a.m. due to a recurrence of his stomach ache that we think is a migraine. It has stuck around longer this time and they got into the ER without a horrible long wait, and they are going to do a CT scan of his stomach.

Assuming this will resolve itself (I ask with fingers crossed before heading out the door, with laptop) what kind of doctor did some of you see to deal with migraines or even diagnose them in all of their complexity. The GP will give us a referral to a gastrointestinal person, but we really need to see someone who understands migraines. Is there a specialty for that?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: It's A Migraine!
From: Alice
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 12:13 PM

A neurologist would be the specialist, but over my lifetime of having migraines, every family doctor I've seen understood what a migraine is and once medication like Imitrex was available, prescribed that for me.