Anybody else get migraines from hell?

[nytemare]

I have had these things since childhood. I get them where I can't see and get sick to my stomach, can't see straight and one side goes numb. That is before the headache comes.
I have to thank some phamacuticals though, imitrex has stopped many a migraine for me and made them tolerable.

[The Great Escape]

1. I Have Taken a Beta Blocker For Years To Prevent Migraines...

Corgard...this has been very effective for me. I keep Imitrex on hand for the rare migraines I do have. I have to do the Imitrex injections though, the pills never seemed to phase me.

[unblock]

9. stomachs do a number on triptan pills. you have to experiment with dosage

personally, i need the 100mg tablets to do almost the job of the 6mg injection. even then, it's not quite as effective and in any event takes an hour to kick in as opposed to about 3 minutes for the injection.

[The Great Escape]

18. The Neurologist I Go To Actually Uses Imitrex...

as a means to determine if a patient is truly suffering from migraines or in fact experiencing pressure/tension headaches. I always thought that was a bit of a shortcut but I guess as long as the patient does not have heart problems there is no harm in it.

[nytemare]

12. I take Verapamil to prevent them

I hear it is normally used to treat angina. A couple of years ago I went through a spell where I was getting them 3-4 times a month, and I couldn't do it any more. The verapamil works pretty good though, now I seem to only get 5 a year or so.

Glad your treatment has worked. :)

[Floogeldy]

2. No

But I fear them and have the greatest sympathy for you. I want your headaches to go away forever.

One thing you might want to try is to get all unnatural chemicals out of your system, by eating only natural, whole foods and drinking lots of filtered and distilled water.

Just an idea.

[nytemare]

8. I get them far less than I used to

I have been eating a low fat diet. Nitrates and Nitrites can cause the headaches, so I avoid those.

[unblock]

13. better advice would be to try to identify the actual triggers

some unnatural chemicals known triggers, e.g., nutrasweet.
however, plenty of migraine triggers are natural.

my main triggers include:
alcohol
vinegar
soy sauce
grape skin

all perfectly natural.

drinking lots of water is very good advice. dehydration/underhydration aggravates nearly all forms of headaches, and while it won't prevent migraines, it can make them less severe.

[Floogeldy]

27. I'm talking about . . .

. . . natural, whole foods, as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, preferably organically grown, with little or no additives. I don't consider alcohol, vinegar or soy sauce natural, whole foods, because you can't go pick or harvest them and eat them in their natural, whole state.

But I agree finding triggers would be the solution.

[unblock]

32. there are organic whole food triggers as well

bananas, soybeans, and various nuts, e.g.

[ooglymoogly]

37. frequent headaches for me are triggered by

nutra sweet (diet drinks) and when i drink too much milk which i love. since i now make my own favorite drink 1/2 lemon a little tea, and 8-10 oz water and whey low (a sugar substitute with no taste difference from sugar), with this minor change in my life, i have fewer migraines and can stay away from diet drinks. now when i make this rather mild drink for my finicky friends at say a meal it is the preferred drink.

[LoZoccolo]

3. I got the numbness once.

I thought I was having a stroke! I ended up in the hospital for two days and they didn't know what was going on...the MRI came up normal and all that. Later I read on the net that some people with migraines get that, and I told the neurologist that when I followed up with him and he didn't seem to have ever heard of that before. Some blood tests they took showed up with some increased level of something that happens when you get a migraine so I guess it was that.

[LoZoccolo]

4. That having been said...

...I can almost always trace them back to some combination of stress and lack of sleep.

[Floogeldy]

6. Strenuous exercise cures both of those

[nytemare]

16. yes sometimes lack of regular sleep or changed patterns

will get me, I think that is what happened to me today. I work a night shift, and this week they had me coming into work 4 hours earlier than usual to start my shift, and my sleep pattern never was quite right.

[unblock]

5. had 'em since 13.

i've had migraines that lasted entire seasons.

i'm now down to 6-8 a month, thanks to singulair 30mg/day (it's an ashthma medication, and i don't have ashthma, but for some reason it seems to help) and an herb called petadolex (150mg/day).

still, i get migraines 6-8 a month, and i need imitrex, and often that fails, or helps but not enough. if the pain is unbearable, then i sometimes use stadol, though that is truly vile stuff. i have to dilute it, otherwise it makes me vomit.

as a male child of a migraineur mother, i had a 50% chance of getting it. oh well, at least i didn't inherit my grandfather's bipolar paranoid schizophrenia with delusions that my brother got....

[nytemare]

14. Wow I never got them that often!

I am sorry to hear that, my heart goes out to you. They are awful.

[fluffernutter]

7. yep, i get them, they are the worst.

i have had them since i was young too, with everything you mentioned except i feel sick only when the headache is actually there, and i get numb in my hands and sometimes my mouth.

i don't get them that often anymore, thank heavens, and i only take Excedrin Migraine as soon as i see the spots and it works pretty well. imitrex is something i would definitely get if i got them more often.

[ikojo]

10. Yes, sometimes my headaches are so bad that I wish

someone would come along and just chop it off. With the really bad ones it's like I have to negotiate with my head to move, like "head, I know you will pound for 20 minutes or so but I'd really like to move into another position."

[high density]

11. I get them rarely, about once a year max

Since I've been out of school they've been even less frequent (knock on wood.) My most reliable trigger is weird sleeping habits.

I usually get sick to my stomach as well, plus the blurry vision/aura. It's not a fun thing to go through.

I have about a 50% success rate with Imitrex.

[POTGNE]

17. I've gotten them since I was about 18.

They really suck! I have had them so bad that I had to pull off the side of the road while driving the car and I literally beat my head on the steering wheel. Sounds stupid, I know, but that's what I did. I had one so bad one time that I had to go to the hospital and get a shot of Imitrex. It made me throw up instantly, but then I felt better. A bit euphoric, but basically better. They gave me a script for it, but it was so damned expensive that I couldn't afford it....LOL! I can't handle the light when I have a migraine. I have to lay down and close my eyes tight. Never had worse pain in my life. Including childbirth! :wow:

[barb162]

15. I had about ten of them in my life, where I had the aura and

couldn't see except for a tiny bit of tunnel vision, was vomiting, and my head felt like it would explode any second. Each would last about 3 days and the vision problem would be the precursor each time. I hope I never have one again. I was in bed the entire time for each one; there was nothing else...I was bed-ridden. Mine were whole-head deals too.

[freeplessinseattle]

19. oh, yeah, since I was a child too, so happy when imitrex came along

but doesn't always work, but is better than suffering through like the first ten years or so!

[flamingyouth]

20. I've taken Imitrex too

You have to take it RIGHT when you start getting the first signs, the flashing, or else it's a big waste of the $20 or so per pill (it's ridiculously overpriced). At least my doctor gives me samples of it.

[freeplessinseattle]

21. I try to catch them right away, but sometimes they just come back after

a couple hours or so and it is so expensive to take like 3-4 in a day, tho I get samples, too, it's only every 6 mos or so, the rest is self-pay, no insurance, the shots can work if I can't keep down the tabs, but are ridiculously expensive and take me forever to get up the nerve to push the inject button-my sweet mom used to do it for me when I lived with her, and even bring one to me at work to inject if I had a really bad one but had to finish my shift. of course I'd be completely out of it and screw up, but hey, more functional than having the migraine! I sure hope that a generic is allowed soon, it's been more than a decade!

[nytemare]

28. There are new pills called Amerge and Frova

They take longer to work, but are longer lasting, I have them for a "back up" when the migraine comes back after using imitrex.

Luckily the Verapamil has been doing pretty well preventing them. It is supposed to work for the people that get these "classic migraines", the ones with aura (vision problems, photophobia, numbness, speech difficulties). Even though I will still get the occassional one, that verapamil has been a godsend.

[BamaGirl]

22. Yep, since I was 12

They seem to come in phases. I'll get them day after day for weeks and then be fine for a couple of months. Mine tend to get triggered by food or insomnia and stick around because of rebound from the drugs. I'm allergic to aspirin and a lot of the aspirin like drugs. Imitrex makes me violently ill so it's out. I still take midrin and maxalt is my new best friend lol. They are genetic right? My Mom gets them, and my 9yo daughter has already had some. It's pretty bad when your 9yo knows all the food triggers!

[warrens]

23. Not so much anymore

I used to get them like clockwork once a week when I was younger. Now it takes a trigger, like lack of sleep, food, or too much wine, as a rule. I get some random ones once every few months. I have found that very hot black coffee and Aleve are the only things that help me.

[alittlelark]

24. Hubby occasionally - I've never had a headache even!

Eye strain is the closest I've come - except after a nasty whiplash injury in the early 80's (She hit my VW Bug at 35 MPH, and there were no headrests and no shoulder belts. I hit the steering wheel so hard my soft contact lenses came out, and I fractured my nose), I had a 1 1/2 mo 'migraine', they gave me enough drugs that I didn't care about the migraine.

[REP]

25. Prevention Is Better

I have both Classic (aura, one-sided pain lasting 3-4 days, photophobia, etc) and Optic (temporary blindness in one eye with vivid aura) migraines. I don't get the Optics very often, but was getting the Classics two or three times a week, every week. I'm now on Topamax to prevent them, and so far, it seems to be working. When I do get one, it's less severe (only requiring Fiorinal and rarely a self-injection of Imitrex).

[indigobusiness]

26. All my life.

Finally found relief in Costa Rica, when a Dr. gave me a 'script for 'Migra'. Not sure what it's called up here.

[Carson]

29. Since I was a toddler.

Until I was able to communicate better, my parents had no idea why I would cry non-stop at times and become violently nauseous. Later, when I was around 3, the doctor diagnosed migraines.

They run in my family on my mother's side. My mother and her sisters all suffered (and some still do) from them. Thankfully, as I've gotten older, I've grown out of them.

Now, I may have 1 or 2 a year and they are less severe. I take Fiorinal and that works 99% of the time.

What bothers me most is people who have never had a migraine and think they are just like any other headache. I'm sure fellow sufferers have heard someone say, "It's just a headache. Tough it out." or "You missed work because of a headache?"

These people have no idea how debilitating the pain and other symptoms can be.

[lcbart]

30. Sometimes I just want to die.

I've had migraines from hell (doc says they're clusters). Starts out by seeing four of everything for about 45 minutes, Then head splitting pain, noise and light sensitivities, curl up in a fetal positon and occasionally vomit for 12/16 hours. Than comes a 3/4 hour 'hangover' - Then the cycle starts all over again.

[gollygee]

31. Yes, as long as I can remember

I had them the worst when I was using birth control pills. I had to stop taking the pills because of it.

So awful.

[cags]

33. Oh Yeah, Sometimes for three weeks straight, Heres what helps me

It started with menstrual migraines after I had my first child, then one year they just decided to come more often and whenever they wanted. I used to spend days in my bed and my head in the toilet.

I take Imitrex, but you do have to take it right away for it to work properly,

I also found a product called Migrahealth, its a daily vitamin that has lessened the severity and length of my migraines.

I also have found a few of my triggers, this is in my opinion is the most beneficial thing you can do to lessen your migraines. It can take a long time to figure them out but it is worth it.

The ones that I know of for me are artificial sweeteners, alcohol, and caffeine (the last one i just can't seem to cut out LOL)

But the Migrahealth has shown a noticeable difference, I recommend it to everyone I know with migraines.

[skygazer]

34. Yes, they are dreadful

I've gotten them for many years. I take a beta blocker which seems to help some and take Zomig when I get one. I hate the way the Zomig makes me feel but I hate the migraines worse. I get many of the same symptoms you do, the weird visual stuff that sometimes makes me go blind, and the nausea.

I've found that one thing that triggers mine is changes in air pressure. They were far worse in New England during the humid summer months - I got 2 or 3 a week then. Now in California where it's rarely humid, I get them less often and they're not as fierce.

I find that laying in a dark room with a warm (never cold) compress on my eyes is soothing. But nothing really does a whole lot to make them easier to bear. They are the worst pain I've ever had and I'm sorry you get them, too. I'm sorry for anyone who does.

[Zomby Woof]

35. yep

Since I was 15. Not frequent, maybe once or twice a year, but when I do, wooweeeee... :puke:

Usually brought about by prolonged periods of stress. I prevent any I feel may be coming on with OTC anti-migraine aspirins. I would only bother with prescribed one if they were more frequent and/or less preventable.

[Minimus]

36. I was a migraine sufferer for as long as I can remember.

I finally went to a headache wellness center, all they do is treat migraines and they tried me on everything. Effexor and Topomax to prevent. Zomig and then Imitrex when I felt one coming on. My problem was I would wake up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain so I could never take the Imitrex soon enough.

They gave me the Imitrex injection to try for awhile so I could wake up in the middle of the night and give myself a shot. That didn't work either.

Through some other medical problems, and after many tests, I found out I have Celiac and can not tolerate gluten. So I can not eat anything with wheat, rye or barley in it.

Once I went gluten free, my migraines stopped. I will get an occasional severe headache, usually stress or sinus related, but no more of those horrible migraines.

Good luck treating yours. I know how horrible they are and would not wish them on my worst enemy. (Well bush and cheney maybe)