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Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

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Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#51

Post by LeoPanthera »

markx2 wrote: post #2

I was around 13 when I had my first migraine. A solid block of pain on the right side of my head. That occasional migraine became more frequent over the years. I had a headache 24/7 in one specific place in my head. In my early 30's, after blood tests, food elimination, x-rays and finally an MRI I was told that I had Chronic Daily Migraines. Most days were 6-7/10 pain. Those days that were 10/10 I perfected the art o…

Research says it's no more effective than a placebo, but hey, if it works, it works.

https://headachejournal.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#52

Post by groos »

I started having migraines at 8 years of age, several a week. This persisted all through my life till 42 years later, I had a blood pressure emergency where I ended up in ER with 190/100 blood pressure. Thankfully, it never repeated and was never diagnosed but as a consequence I was put on Olmesartan, a blood pressure medication that relaxes the blood vessels. Eventually, the dose was reduced to the lowest, 5mg, once a day, to which I added 240mg magnesium glycinate, which they sell in Costco. I have been mostly migraine free since for several years and ones I do get are mild compared to before.

My cardiologist, who prescribed the blood pressure medication, is mystified saying that while beta blockers are a migraine prevention medication, olmesartan isn't a beta blocker and maybe it was just my (mild) hypertension which needed to be treated. I doubt that I had hypertension when I was 8 but I'm just thankful that decades of pain have come to an end.

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#53

Post by mh- »

tiltowait wrote: post #11

I think everyone who suffers migraines has their own “relationship” with them. Myself, I can tell when I am “pre-migraine” and know I have to sit down for a bit lest one develops. They most often come from eating junk food after exercise (I’m looking at you, Fritos). And warming my hands often helps speed the recovery, though I always end up with “tender brain” for 24-48h after. I’m intrigued by another poster having…

> They most often come from eating junk food after exercise (I’m looking at you, Fritos).

Dehydration causes a good portion of mine, at least of the ones that I can point to a proximate cause of. I wonder if that's what you're experiencing, with the salty food after sweating?

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#54

Post by iainctduncan »

bootloop wrote: post #44
pan69 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "looking through broken glass" I think we have similar symptoms, but I have no headache, just the "broken glass" that passes over my vision. Usually takes about 15 mins to half an hour or so to pass. This is the best visual representation that I have found of it ove the years: https://imgur.com/gallery/kY0I0Ht

Yes that's silent migraine with aura, you experience the visual effects but not the headache. It's rare but happens for some people. The representation is really good in my opinion! Gives me flashbacks.

I suppose an even better one would be "looking through broken glass that keeps fucking moving around".

The weirdest thing I discovered was that, back when I juggled professionally, I couldn't read at all during that aura but could still juggle, even hard things like 5+ balls. Strangely it did not screw up peripheral vision.

Worst time was when it came on before a music school performance. Not a hope in hell of keeping track of which line the little circles were on...

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#55

Post by [deleted] »

peterfirefly wrote: post #23
orthecreedence wrote: post #19

I've thought for a long time now that everyone has a migraine all the time, but migraine sufferers temporarily lack the brain's ability to ignore the ever-present pain. In other words, the migraine isn't the addition of pain, but the absense of a pain relief mechanism. I have no sources to back this up, other than personal observation.

That doesn't explain the auras. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(symptom)

[deleted]

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#56

Post by alabastervlog »

pan69 wrote: post #31
iainctduncan wrote: post #25

I have been a migraineur for decades. Mine are classic aura, with the whole "looking through broken glass" thing for a half hour or so when they happen. This year one of my partner's doctors mentioned positive results from supplementing with Vitamin B-2 and Coenzyme Q10, and it has dramatcially lowered their frequency. Mine are especially bad when the air pressure is seesawing which it does a lot here in the spring a…

> "looking through broken glass" I think we have similar symptoms, but I have no headache, just the "broken glass" that passes over my vision. Usually takes about 15 mins to half an hour or so to pass. This is the best visual representation that I have found of it ove the years: https://imgur.com/gallery/kY0I0Ht

I used to get typical migraines, starting around junior year of high school. One every 6-18 months, usually, for years. Visual auras for twenty or thirty minutes, then a few hours of bad headache.

Over the years the frequency has swung toward the longer end of that, and now the last three times I haven’t gotten the headache part at all, but other weird symptoms. One time, bad tunnel vision for a while and then feeling like I had to go to sleep immediately. Another, just a weird disconnected/disembodied feeling for a couple hours. The most recent, I got fairly bad aphasia for ten or fifteen minutes, which is the fist time anything like that’s happened to me. Not just trouble thinking of words, though that too, but knowing the word I wanted to say and having something else come out instead, no matter how many times I tried.

Migraines are weird.

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#57

Post by graypegg »

pan69 wrote: post #31
iainctduncan wrote: post #25

I have been a migraineur for decades. Mine are classic aura, with the whole "looking through broken glass" thing for a half hour or so when they happen. This year one of my partner's doctors mentioned positive results from supplementing with Vitamin B-2 and Coenzyme Q10, and it has dramatcially lowered their frequency. Mine are especially bad when the air pressure is seesawing which it does a lot here in the spring a…

> "looking through broken glass" I think we have similar symptoms, but I have no headache, just the "broken glass" that passes over my vision. Usually takes about 15 mins to half an hour or so to pass. This is the best visual representation that I have found of it ove the years: https://imgur.com/gallery/kY0I0Ht

The one aspect this misses that's so hard to communicate is the lack of visual processing inside the sort of curled aura "area". When I was getting them often as a kid, I would basically become illiterate over the course of 15minutes, because anything in that shimmering area was not parseable. I could SEE the shape of a letter, but I couldn't read the word. That shimmering area grows and grows till it's covering all of your vision, but near the start you can still read out of one side.

It was by far, the part of migraines I hated the most as a kid because it took intense pain that people assume you're overblowing, and prefaced it with 30-45 minutes of people thinking I was an idiot/doing some weird awkward joke. (Or having a stroke! The dread of not being able to speak correctly, not being able to read, a slow pain in my temple getting stronger and stronger, and now the teacher is calling 911 while the class starts screaming.)

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#58

Post by graypegg »

readyplayernull wrote: post #9
wozer wrote: post #8

> Migraine can even drive full-blown visual hallucinations similar to the ‘reflections of the living light’ painted by Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century abbess who was thought to have experienced a condition that is now called migraine with aura. I don't think the aura effects are usually considered hallucinations? I get mild migraines sometimes, with hardly noticeable headache, but with aura. In a way, it's pr…

AI hype terminology? Should be a visual effect.

Hallucination is a medical term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination

The usage in relation to AI is a reference to the medical term, not the other way around.

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#59

Post by tim333 »

FloorEgg wrote: post #49

I got my first migraine in my early teens. I was over at a friend's house and we were playing in the basement on a summer day, then went outside where the sun reflected off a window into my eyes. It would start with a shimmering pattern obstructing my vision where the bright light was, which would grow into a c shape and get bigger until it surrounded my vision and then faded away. About 15 min after the shimmering p…

I sometimes get shimmering patterns which I think they call visual migraine or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma but thankfully mine don't go on to migraine proper. They often seem set of by a bright light outside the center of vision like I'm reading a book with sunlight coming in from 45 degrees.

Re: Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope

#60

Post by sepositus »

I read a book a while ago. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name (maybe AI can find it), but the premise was based on a metaphor: there are multiple hot air balloons that, together, affect the chance/severity of a migraine. Something like food, sleep, stress, hydration, and one more. One of these "balloons" filling up may be enough to trigger a migraine, while all of them partially filling up can also trigger a migraine.

Sorry for the rough recall, but the point is that there may not be a silver bullet solution simply because it's not one thing contributing all of the time. I can trigger on all four of the ones I listed. I've had migraines for a week straight now because I recently developed tinnitus and am struggling to sleep. However, I had a migraine the week before because I inadvertently consumed red dye, which triggered massive inflammation in my body.

So, for me, it's all about managing multiple things enough to not get above the threshold.

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