whine about your migraine

[queenmob]

I need fellow sufferers to whine about migraine!

Holy shit, since I -thankfully - only get migraine every 5-7 months I always forget how mean they are! For me, they always start with an so called Aura, usually an visual Aura - I lose the ability o focus onthings and everywhere I lok it seems like I look trough a fine cristal. Then, if it's really bad, my fingers go numb - one after each other - completely numb - that usually only happens when the migraine is activated by a very very tense neck. I looked it up, it can happen (the first time it happened I thought I had a stroke)!
Then the headache starts, boom and I'm useless for hours and maybe the next days.

Whine with me, fellow sufferers! I will give you symphathy!

[BaronHelix]

I will aid you by chasing away the migraine demons. I find smashing together pots and pans scares them pretty well.

[kajabor]

Fellow migraine nerd! Mine were worse when I was younger. On one occasion when I was 17 I was DMing a game of Runequest and I went almost completely blind! I had just little slivers of vision left and had to go lay down for a while. The nausea, too, was pretty unbearable.

I get them very rarely now, and the good news is they usually don't hurt. That is, I get them without the pain and nausea, for the most part, but I still get the auras (I'm told these are still technically "migraines"). Actually, as soon as I get a hint of aura, I take some Tylenol, and I think that's what disrupts the pain/nausea. My auras are weird; I really can't see through them. They look like ziggy lines nesting inside of ziggy crevices. They frequently start as tiny slivers and then get bigger and bigger.

I was teaching a class once and the auras came on. We were doing a close reading of a text, and I had to hold the book at weird angles to get around the auras. But the auras kept growing and crowding out more of my vision. Finally, I couldn't read at all, so I had to have students read aloud the sections we were discussing. It was weird to go blind in front of a class! I didn't tell them I was blind, and the auras faded enough by the end of the class that I was able to get to my office.

In general, my migraines don't last more than a couple hours these days.

[queenmob]

I will aid you by chasing away the migraine demons. I find smashing together pots and pans scares them pretty well.

Don't do it man, the demons love that!!!!

@ kajabor!
Holy shit, almost completely blind?! I usually just have the problem on one eye. I can't believe that this symptms are nt dangerous at all, they certainly feel dangerous! In some way, I suppose an Aura helps you to take painkillers in time, so even though they suck they are an early warning system. But seriously, when iw as younger I didn't know what it was and nobody could tell me! This really didn't help my mild hypochandria at all.

Here, have my sympathy!!

[kajabor]

You have my sympathy, QueenM! I know how horribly painful they can be, and luckily I haven't had the pain in a long time.

The blindness is weird, because even at its worst there are always still slivers of vision available to me, so if I twist and turn my head a bit I can find my way through the world.

[Bret G]

Ugh.

I get one every 3-4 months and they knock me right on my ass. I usually have to call in sick to work. The last one happened on a weekend and I woke up, took a handful of aspirin, and went right back to sleep. I kept doing this until about 8PM when it finally went away. This was a lucky one because I can't usually sleep through them. One time I woke up in the middle of the night with one so bad I asked my girlfriend to drive me to the emergency room. It hurt more than any migraine I'd ever had in my life. I was pretty sure I was dying.

[boredoom]

I don't have true migraines, but I get a curious "weekend headache" that can be pretty severe. Once the nausea was so bad I threw up. I think it's a reaction to a reprieve from job stress. My solution is to not relax that much on weekends...

[VeggieBoy]

I get them very rarely these days, seems like less than once a year, but the last few have felt like godawful hangovers. For years I would only get the shimmering vision, the blind spots, and the numb fingers (which was pretty disturbing in its own right, but at least I felt OK otherwise).

[jware30]

I don't have true migraines, but I get a curious "weekend headache" that can be pretty severe. Once the nausea was so bad I threw up. I think it's a reaction to a reprieve from job stress. My solution is to not relax that much on weekends...

Have you ruled out caffeine withdrawal? Some people drink coffee/soda during the work week, and not on the weekends. Suffering headaches, as a result of the caffeine withdrawal.

[boredoom]

I don't have true migraines, but I get a curious "weekend headache" that can be pretty severe. Once the nausea was so bad I threw up. I think it's a reaction to a reprieve from job stress. My solution is to not relax that much on weekends...

Have you ruled out caffeine withdrawal? Some people drink coffee/soda during the work week, and not on the weekends. Suffering headaches, as a result of the caffeine withdrawal.

I think that was an early suspect. I've stopped drinking caffeine altogether, and it persists. Have also suspected something in the green tea I drink at work might be causing withdrawal, but extending my habit to the weekends hasn't changed anything. My job is addicting, clearly.