I suffer from classic migraines. I have the aura and attack phases.. My aura makes me partly blind, and also makes fingers and toes go numb.. fun!

Just watching this video makes me nauseous because it so reminds me of a migraine! Thank God I have medicine now that stops the most severe symptoms. Before the medicine I felt like I'd rather cut off my head than have another migraine.. Just imagine having a steel belt around your head that's been tightened over and over again, until you feel like your head is about the explode.. And then include some serious nausea and vomiting to the mix!

Yes, if I didn't have any prescription medications, I'd rather have my head cut off. Period! Worst pain ever.

My question is, how do you know when a headache is a migraine, and not just a bad headache?

Because I think a lot of people like to say they're having a migraine in order to garner sympathy (not you mintbb, they sound terrible).

Plus, occasionally I will have a headache that will last hours, increasing in severity to the point where sometimes I have vomited due to them... but I don't think I'd call them migraines.

I can't find something which you can feel/see/say that cleanly defines something as a migraine or not. (I haven't looked that hard though.)

I feel kind of guilty talking to other migraine sufferers, because I get aura-only, no pain.

The aura makes an impression though, especially when I can't speak a word or read even a single letter. I'm actually grateful for the insight into the fragility of our minds, that something so fundamental as language can be snatched away so suddenly and totally, by such a slight and temporary change in the brain.

Here's the way I know if it's a migraine or not: If I start to get a tight feeling in my head like just before you get a headache...and I take ibuprofen or tylenol...and it doesn't stop within 30 min, it's gonna be a migraine. That's when I do the nasal spray prescription med. If I wait until the auras show up, the prescription meds do nothing. Weird, huh?

Incidentally, I haven't had one in over a year now. I believe they were stress related, had them pretty much all my life. My advice to migraine sufferers is to seriously take measures to reduce your stress response (involves a lot of self-awareness, which is a good thing).
Investigate bio-feedback as a tool to understanding how you react to things. I focused on reducing my stress response (stimuli may never go away, so you gotta work on your response) and that's the only thing I've done differently.
Hugs ~

I get a pressing sensation in the upper front part of the brain about 30-60 minutes before an attack, like the brain suddenly starts swelling. This feeling eventually leads to the attack itself which usually lasts between 5-6 hours.

It feels completely different from a normal headache in that it firstly makes me extremely nauseous, which a normal headache doesnt; secondly that it gets worse and/or better depending on the position of the body. For instance, standing up or lying down for makes the pain and nausea worse, while moving around lessens the pain.
The pain itself differs from a normal headache, with a pulsating sensation overall and a feeling like a blade pierces the area behind my eyes over and over. Never experienced complete loss of sight, but the pulsating headache often led to the edges of what I could see started to flicker and grow inwards with each pulse, and by flicker I mean the sensation you get by closing your eyes as hard as you possibly can while facing a bright light.

Haven't had an attack in about ten years though. Guess the brain also got tired of them. But at the time it was impossible to take any pill or sustenance during an attack due to the nausea. The only possibility was to nip it in the bud and hope the pill started working before the migraine set in.

Woah, so that's a migraine? That's some serious stuff. I agree that "migraine" is a word that is often abused to the point where many people don't know the difference between migraine and headache anymore. If it's a bad headache, they just call it a migraine.

The Aura stage is interesting. Makes me wonder how many people have experienced it and mistaken it for "seeing the light" or super natural event, especially the super-religious types. Looking back in history, makes me wonder how many prophets-and-the-like were just having migraines, not actually speaking with the Man upstairs.

The brain is a funny thing.

Migraines are characterized by throbbing correct?

I don't know if this is known to people who suffer from migraines, since I have never had one but caffeine, being a vasoconstrictor, can constrict the blood vessels which become inflamed during migraines. This also is why sometimes a caffeine withdrawal can trigger them though. So it is better to not consume too much caffeine if you suffer from migraines but it may help if you take your usual medicine to relieve them along with caffeine when the migraine is taking place. I don't know how effective it can be, since this could vary from person to person. This is just something I remember hearing from a neurologist.

Robert Fischell has been working on a portable device that uses magnetic pulses to 'cancel out' or depolarize the electrical pulses present in the brain when a migraine is occurring.

For those interested, a TED talk of Robert Fischell where he talks about this (starts at minute 11:14):
http://www.videosift.com/video/Robert-Fischell-Finding-cures-for-migraine-depression

^great comment, mauz15. Caffeine is one of the main ingredients of "Caffergot" (along w/ aspirin) which I was given in 2001 as the "latest" stuff. It never worked for me. Then again, my version of "throbbing" has always been more of a knife stab like Kreegath's.
Another thing I would mention is the sensitivity to light. I never felt pain like what is caused by light when I'm having a migraine. Even a lamp in the room makes my eyeballs feel like they're gonna explode. Ok, I have to stop thinking about that now. Nothing like pain to get people to share their stories, eh? lol

I find coco gives me extreme migraines. Not chocolate, but pure coco, like when you make chocolate icing and put in way too much coco. I find expensive chocolates (usually Belgian), not the cheaper, regular chocolate bars,also give me migraines.

It starts with a headache right behind my eyes, a strong pressure that makes me dizzy and tingly, It can take me about 2 hours to get to the stage where I start to see white spots that resemble flairs igniting and trailing off. By this time, I can barely open my eyes as they are watering. I need to close my eyes and hold my head. Then I start feeling sick to my stomach. By hour's 3-4, It will cause me to vomit, which is the turning point and the migraine will subside slowly go away over the the next two hours. If I don't vomit, I am still dizzy, off balance, seeing stars, have to keep my eyes closed in a dark space and feel the need to vomit but the pain can last another 5-8 hours.

Gotta love em'

My auras are very strange. Sometimes I get electrical patters, sometimes not.

However, I always get blind spots. Imagine looking directly at someone's face and not being able to see their left eye. It isn't obstructed, nor is there a "hole" in my vision. It simply looks like there is skin with no features there. The blind spot is relative to my center of vision, so if I look directly at their eye it will reappear, but their ear will disappear (for example). Sometimes I will lose all peripheral vision, but the blind spots only seem to affect detail... all the color is still there.

Migraine pain is nothing like a normal headache for me. It is a very intense, specific, sharp pain... like a spike being jammed into my brain. I cannot function in that state... I just lay down and void out all of my thoughts (any thought or stimulus causes more pain). Also, imagine full-body nausea... it's a terrible feeling. It usually subsides after about 6 hours.

Edit: I have not been able to find any cause for my migraines. My mother, however, knows that hers can be set off by cinnamon of all things.

For those with migraines:

What have you found that helps?


I've found that if I chug a beer at the first sign of an aura (I hate beer btw) then my pain is noticeably reduced. I've heard that anything that acts as a vaso-dilator helps. Marijuana helps me a little, but it makes it more difficult for me to stop thinking so it isn't a great choice. Painkillers don't really help either.

^If you chug 10 beers or play power hour for two hours, then you can pass out and you don't feel any pain until you wake up. After that you'll have a different type of headache.

Wow. Contrary to what I've always believed, I guess I've never actually had a migraine before. Yay!

There have been times where it hurt to move my head or open my eyes and I've been severely nauseated even on an empty stomach, but I've never had any of the fucked up stuff in this video. So I guess what I thought were migraines were just really, really bad headaches.

Death to migraines.

my migraines left at about the same time CaptainPlanet420 was banned. That's a weird coincidence.

I get the classical migraine. Flashing lights slowly appearing from the periphery of my vision, and spreading until I lose about 60% of my eyesight. After about thirty minutes of this the headache kicks in, which will last for up to a couple of days. I usually feel a bit distant over this period and my speech gets a little slurred on occasion.

After identifying my triggers, the main one being caffeine, I've pretty much got things under control. Probably only a couple of attacks over the whole of last year. I do miss my coffee though, and unfortunately decaffeinated still has more than enough caffeine left over to set me off.

The wonderful aroma when I pass a coffee shop is as near as I get to a caramel frappuchino these days.

i get a stage where light makes me puke. especially indirect light, light reflected on surfaces. and i get super sensitive to smell, i can smell other people 100m away. so the worst possible place and time for me to get it, is when i am flying somewhere abroad, and have to do a change of planes in oslo. they force you to walk through their tax free perfume shop to get to the international planes.. and tax free perfume hell is nothing but lights and mirrors and heavy smells. instant puke.

but excederin works for me. too bad i cant get those here in norway. excederin, plus sleep for an hour or two in a room as dark as possible with lots of ventilation/fresh air. i did get a presciption for some horribly expensive medicine.

the most interesting attack ive had was when i was flying to or fro the usa (cant rememeber) with my ex-wife. i practically had an OBE.

Wow, I didn't know so many people suffered from migraines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migraine#Epidemiology
I'm glad I don't have it, I would like to experience the aura though.

Apparently cluster headaches are even worse and may even cause the worst pain ever experienced by humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache

I'll add my 2 bits.

I get certain visual problems before a migraine. It begins with what i would liken to tunnel vision, where i'm focusing very hard on the "centre" of my sight, if you will, and the edges become milky almost. I wouldn't say i lose my sight in those areas, but i "don't see" them. Then, distances start to morph, and i translate the distance between my head and my book/monitor/desk/hand as both very small and HUGE at the same time. Almost as though i'm considering it on a relative level (relative to the size of my body) and also on a molecular level, where the distance is astronomical. Then, having recognised this, the distance begins to change in front of my eyes, almost like zooming in and out on a camera very quickly. It's nauseating, and it gives me a panic attack, it's a really scary sensation. Other times i'll get blue sparks occuring all around the peripheral vision area, they're nothing special really, the better of the 2.

Then i get a terrible, terrible headache that lasts for at least half a day. Often it feels like such a great pressure in my head that i think it'll explode. Usually it only goes if i sleep. I'm incapable of doing anything while i have that headache, it's debilitating. It pulses in a sense, become more painful for a while and then less painful for a while. I need utter darkness, including any LED's in the room, literally every source of light has to be extinguished. Marijuana has helped, and when i've been drunk i've thought that i had a migraine, but it wasn't feeling anywhere near as bad as a migraine (and so is it? perhaps not).

During the "aura"(?) phase with the visual hallucinations and for a few days after the headache part, i find it hard to speak. I know i can say something if i want to, but when i try to speak i stutter a lot, and it takes me a while to say what i want to say, and i often feel distanced from things.

I've never had one at work or at university, i dread to think what i'd say/do if i had one. It's something i feel almost guilty about because i feel that if you've never had one you'd never accept/understand just how much it hurts. "Boss, i've got a migraine." - "Yeah, i've got a headache too, get back to work."

I'm actually feeling my hackles rise explaining it and remembering the feeling. I don't get any other the other stuff though.

I never knew about medication for migraines, i thought it'd just be painkillers. Gonna speak to my doc thanks to mintbbb's initial post.

I used to get migraines, but haven't for quite a while now. I suspect they were caffeine related. I could also feel them coming on when staring at a particular monitor where I worked (and old CRT monitor), or any other repeating set of lines (hard to explain). I would get the visual problem, as well as going numb on half of my body (always the left side). Feels weird just thinking about it. Was just like in the video. It appears as a blurred spot that grows while my hand begins to tingle and eventually spreads to my face and half of my tongue.

This was a long while ago, and there weren't any medications that I was aware of aside from Tylenol PM. I'd take that and hope to fall asleep before it hit, but I wasn't usually successful. And even if I did fall asleep through the main painful part, there was still a dull pain that lasted for days after. I'm lucky I haven't had one in many years. And yeah, a lot of people say they are having one, but I have my doubts that they really are. You don't spring back to life after a few hours of having one.

>> ^cybrbeast:
Wow, I didn't know so many people suffered from migraines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migraine#Epidemiology
I'm glad I don't have it, I would like to experience the aura though.

Why would you want that? When I get hit with an aura I'm nearly incapacitated because I cannot see anything infront of me and only see the edges. It really sucks and makes driving impossible. The video doesn't show it but for me that area in the C shape actually ceases to exist. I cannot see anything inside of it just the shimmering edges.

Thankfully I don't get the pain component however I do sometimes get vertigo 1 to 2 days after it. I'm told it's rare but it happens and it is very very bad.

Asmordean, I'd like to experience an aura because I like to experiment with psychedelics. This seems like an interesting experience. Not being able to drive/do stuff is not a problem, because I take psychedelics in the safety of my home and with the stronger ones (Salvia, DPT) I've been unable to leave my couch or bed for a few hours before.
But still, it really sucks for all you people with migraines, and you have my sincere sympathy.

I personally get the aura phase followed by what i would call a "bad headache." I usually get it when I sleep less than 4-5 hours in a night, and if I take any kind of NSAID (tylenol/advil) it'll alleviate the symptoms. What I found to be most effective was sleep. If I can fall asleep during the aura phase, I wake up without any other symptoms.

Dang, I've never had this. Lucky me, I guess.

Is there a reason these things happen? The video just covers what it is.

>> ^Tymbrwulf:
and if I take any kind of NSAID (tylenol/advil) it'll alleviate the symptoms.

Tylenol's not an NSAID. Just sayin'.

I've never had a migraine but I've had something approaching an artificial one, I think. The first times I ever wore a bearskin (the headdress seen on the guards in this picture) it must've been two sizes too small. It was my recruit summer and I was 19 and didn't know any better -- besides, all my fellow squids were complaining that their bears were tight and uncomfortable too, so I figured we were all in the same boat. We weren't.

I'd say my threshold for pain is above average (I wasn't too bothered when I broke my hand in three places at sixteen) but after 15 minutes wearing that bearskin (and quite unable to adjust it) my eyes were crossing by themselves and I could barely think straight. After 30 minutes there'd be involuntary tears rolling down my poker face (indistinguishable, at least, since I was dripping with sweat from the heat). I had to wear it about a dozen times until some corporal noticed -- when I asked him to help me tear it off my head at the end of my shift -- and then they got me another one. After that it was merely hot; no more bear bite.

I get the visual auras.... mine look like this but with a lot more red, green and blue, no one color, more like a rainbow but this kind of "tear"
http://ddpn.com/rvstuff/long01.jpg

They come with anxiety but maybe its because of the visuals only?