When I read this I just said “WOW!”:
Another reason for Letang’s improved play is that the congenital migraines he suffered as a teen have subsided. “When I had them,” he recalls, “I couldn’t see the puck or guys coming to hit me.” He experienced only mild discomfort during the off-season, but a throbbing pain often flared up throughout the winter. Letang would take injections that made him nauseated. If he threw up, he had to scramble to try to rehydrate before skating. Amazingly, he’s never missed an NHL game with a migraine. “I was dying to play, so I didn’t complain about headaches,” he says.
Letang began taking a new medication last year but still had one bad episode before opening night when he ran out of pills. Afraid to drive home, he slept at the rink after the morning skate. “I need the room completely dark,” he says. “Otherwise when I wake up, it’s like someone is pressing on my eyeball and I see blurry colors that move around.” He still undergoes brain scans twice a year.
If you have never had a migraine, you will simply not understand, but I had them as a teen and fortunately grew out of them for the most part. But when I would get a migraine, my PILLOW was too loud and caused me physical pain. I can’t imagine playing a contact sport like hockey with one.
de stijl
Cluster headaches here. I wouldn’t wish those fucking things on Dick Cheney.
The Moar You Know
I can, because no matter how hard you get hit, it won’t hurt as bad as the migraine.
Nicole
Wow. That guy is made of tougher stuff than me. I started suffering migraines in my 20s and I still remember the first one and trying to call a friend for help. It was like that scene in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? when Joan Crawford is trying to reach the phone but she can’t because she’s paralyzed but in my case it was because my head hurt unbearably at an elevation higher than two feet above floor level. I eventually conked out in the kitchen. When my roommate got home she was very considerate about carefully stepping over me while she made lunch.
RossInDetroit
I think toughness just got redefined.
Nicole
“Tougher stuff than I.” Boo. Boo.
Cat Lady
Ugh, sounds horrible. I’ve never had one, but I was talking to a co-worker once and watched her experience a migraine as it was coming on – it was crazy – she said she smelled something funny, turned a strange color and her whole face contorted, then she got sick to her stomach and had to go somewhere she could lie down in the dark. It was kinda scary.
AliceBlue
I remember my mother’s migraines when I was a kid. If we had to walk past her room, we tip-toed. If anyone had to talk in the vicinity, we whispered. And it was still too loud. Fortunately, she grew out of them as she aged.
Violet
Wow, that’s impressive. Migraines are awful. I have found that eating right definitely helps me experience fewer of them. Eating low on the glycemic scale makes a huge difference. Certain foods can set me off, though.
@AliceBlue:
Migraines are often tied to hormonal issues so it makes sense that as she got older they might subside.
RossInDetroit
I get the visual cortex migraines. Virtually painless but your vision is dominated by cheap sci fi special effect sparkling waves. Frustrating but not too serious.
Crusty Dem
Whoa, reminds me of TD, he’d only pull himself out of games when he couldn’t see… An amazing indifference to pain.
Kryptik
Jesus.
I’ve dealt with migraines on and off all my life, and while they’ve never been a constant, my god, I could never imagine playing a sport with them. Christ, walking around the house gets me to the point of nausea when I get hit by one.
EDIT: Oh…er…John? Might wanna fix the link. It’s borked and it self-references back to this post.
Crusty Dem
@Violet:
This works for me, plus coffee every morning (weird, but a big cup knocks mine down ~90% of the time).
Uloborus
I’ve been hospitalized a couple of times for migraines, and I know ’em from the tiny to the ‘We’d better give you a CAT scan.’ So let me make a contrary point:
He’s not talking about the pain. I dare say he’s pretty stoic about that, but don’t connect his descriptions to pain. They’re not connected. He’s talking about temporary and partial blindness. Your vision can be shot to Hell by a migraine but the pain be hardly noticeable. Migraines are really weird and unpredictable that way. The pain and the associated neurological side effects (numbness, vomiting, blindness, an inability to properly register what you see and hear) don’t have to be proportional to each other.
I personally find the blindness to be the least unpleasant of the side effects you get before the migraine starts (once the pain gets going, the side effects usually stop) but it sure as Hell would interfere with your hockey performance.
Glen Tomkins
Mileage on the painfulness of migraines varies a lot.
That, and it sounds like his physicians are not at all confident that these are migraines, given the brain scans twice a year. A clear diagnosis of migraine is a limiting diagnosis, in that there is no anatomic abnormality associated with it that shows up on MRI or CT. You have to assume that the diagnosis isn’t clear.
LGRooney
I had them from the age of five until my last one about 2 months after my son was born. Since then, I have been migraine free. After 30+ years of the damned things hitting me at least once a month, after 30+ years of doctors and drugs and scans, after 30+ years of losing time, my son freed me from that hell. Every now and then, I still get a bad headache but I can usually laugh them off when I think what a migraine did to my system.
geg6
One of my co-workers suffers from migraines and it is just terrible for her. Hers have gotten worse and are almost continual as she’s gotten older and she has been seeing her neurologist pretty much twice a week. She’s been hospitalized twice since November, had dozens of tests run, and had almost every treatment (including one where they gave her over 30 injections of a migraine med to her head!) known. Nothing has worked. She is going to be hospitalized again next week so they can give her morphine by IV to tamp it down and then will give her another series of over 30 shots of botox, which she will have to repeat every few months, to see if that does anything.
Letang is an even bigger badass than I thought.
LGRooney
@Crusty Dem: Drink a shot-sized glass of coffee before you go to bed. Sounds like a caffeine withdrawal.
LGRooney
@de stijl: I would!
slag
I don’t understand how he would not puke while playing. Never been diagnosed with migraines, but from my experience, really bad headaches and perpetual puking go hand in hand.
Karen in GA
@RossInDetroit: Same here. I got the headaches as a kid, but hadn’t gotten one in about 25 years — and then one day at work a few years ago my vision suddenly got weird. It took me a little while to understand what was happening, and once I did, I figured I was in for a world of hurt. I was very relieved not to get the headache as my vision improved.
I still get the visual disturbances occasionally, but no pain. I’ll take it.
Athenae
Yep, migraines here. My quack-ass doctor previous to the genius I see now told me they weren’t migraines, so for years I took handfuls of ibuprofen because that was the only thing that touched them. The new doc, first visit, said, “I don’t care if you don’t see an aura” and gave me an Imitrex shot. The relief was unimaginable. I nearly passed out from the joy of not being in pain.
I take Imitrex in pill form now, and while the side effects are fucking WEIRD — like, my hands get hot and cold, and my head feels heavy and I’m a little dizzy for an hour or so — they are nothing compared to the way those headaches felt. It was like somebody was sticking an ice pick through my left eye, from the inside. Hellacious.
A.
Ramiah Ariya
I have had headaches since my 20s but I am not sure they are migraines; they usually went away with aspirin One of my friends told me that actual migraines do not go away with aspirin.
I have had them once a week or two for 16 years now; in the USA I always had Advil with me. Two advils took care of it for a week. If I did not take the advil in time I usually had to throw up before the headache stopped.
But, in 2005, I was complaining about this to a Russian coworker. She was learning the Japanese massage therapy called “Shaitzu” (I think) She stood behind me and massaged my lower neck and upper spine for 10 minutes.
The headache went away.
She said my headaches could be because of strained neck muscles cutting off blood supply to the brain. She said her massage made the supply smooth again.
I could not fully reproduce this myself – after that, whenever I got the headaches I used to press my upper vertebra with a finger and seemed to get instant relief. But the headache did not completely go away.
Two years back the headaches went away; but then came back worse. The usual pain medication did not cut it. Then I found that pain medicine with Caffeine in it helped. Apparently I had become addicted to coffee.
Trying to give coffee up for the past week. Almost there – just one instance of nausea.
Has anyone tried the Shaitzu thingy?
Rosalita
@de stijl:
I’d wish every discomfort on Dick Cheney
J.
Wow, indeed. I get migraine headaches regularly — and they feel like someone hit me in the back of the head repeatedly with a hockey stick. Hmm, wonder if there’s a connection…. Also, thank Merck for Maxalt. Only thing that’ll cure them (or the symptoms).
@John Cole, you are fortunate that you no longer get them.
Bill H.
I started having migraines in my teens, drowned them with alcohol. Don’t know if it worked or not, that is to say, I don’t remember those years very well. So in one respect at least it didn’t work well. After I got sober in 1982 the migraines were still there and by 2000 I was having them 4-5 per week. I was taking a medication that aborted them, but it was one that I was supposed to take only 1-2 times per month, as it was a powerful vascular constrictor. I felt like shit but could function.
Found a neurologist who takes a preventive approach and has me on an anti-seizure medication that results in one every couple of months. He does good work. When I do get one Axert is a magic remedy. Maxalt never did anything for mine. You have to try them all and find one that works for you.
Michael
I had a couple of what were described by a neurologist in my late teens/early 20s. One of them hit while I was carpooling a friend to school – I had to stop the car and let him drive.
It was like I was blinded by an overwhelming blazing light. He prescribed some vasoldilators and I was right as rain – they never returned.
artem1s
@RossInDetroit:
ooh, I started getting those about a year ago. it is sparkly but can’t see to type for a couple of minutes after. definitely an improvement over regular migraines and cluster headaches. I get both but not too often now. weirdly the cluster headaches were often caused by sinus pressure. when i got my wisdom teeth out they subsided substantially and after i got my overbite corrected the pain diminished to a much more acceptable level.
PonB
Four words, John…”He’s a hockey player.”
– PonB
Persia
I’ve had them off and on since late elementary school, when I got a concussion (that wasn’t treated by my awesome elementary school, because apparently they didn’t think I’d hit myself hard enough, but I digress). Imitrex dulls the pain but still fucks with my vision/perception. I am tempted to try the Botox shots if they come back any time soon. I can have the doc do the crows’ feet at the same time, right?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I rarely even get normal headaches. I’d guess where there’s no sense there’s no pain.
blogreeder
That’s tough. Actually playing hockey with a migraine is very impressive. My wife used to get them and the room had to be dark and quiet or I had hell to pay.
elmo
I used to think that I suffered from migraines as a kid. Terrible, terrible headaches, puking, noise sensitivity, and so on. Nothing would cure it but sleep. Even in adulthood, I sometimes get weird visual auras, where I can’t see the left side of anything. I can see out of both eyes, but only the right sides of things. So I had always figured – migraines.
And then, about six months ago, my partner got a real one. OMG. She was fine, and then she suddenly looked very strange, cried out and fell, moaning in pain. I thought she was having a stroke.
I rushed her to the ER, where they gave her a shot of Demerol and a muscle relaxant. It didn’t help. They did a CAT scan, which was normal. They gave her another shot of Demerol, and it didn’t help either. Finally they gave her a shot of Imitrex, and within a half-hour she was sitting up, tolerating light, and sipping a ginger ale.
Holy crap. I’ve never seen her in so much pain — not even when her appendix burst. It was terrifying.
And I realized then, that I probably hadn’t had migraines as a kid. Not if migraines are like that. Holy crap.
martha
Migraines here too. Finally found a great doc. I take “preventive” drugs plus large doses of riboflavin and slow release magnesium. Then when I feel one coming on, anti-nausea drugs plus ibuprofin. Then roll out the imitrex if necessary. But I must say that the preventive step has reduced my need to move to steps 2 and 3 hugely. But, I have to be careful about triggers, and sadly, alcohol is one.
DFH no.6
My baby brother, sadly now deceased, suffered from migraines/cluster headaches throughout his too-short life.
He was a tough, macho, bad-ass guy, a top-notch wrestler in high school, but his headaches could reduce him to tears. I would keep a cold wet cloth over his eyes while I gently massaged and scratched his scalp in a darkened room, sometimes for hours (which seemed to help a bit), but I was six years older than him so not around much after he got into high school.
Nothing medicinal seemed to help very much, and I believe his self-medication with (mostly) alcohol for his condition is what led him down the self-destructive path that ultimately killed him.
I’ve always had the more-typical “tension” headaches — I’ve never gone more than a few days without one, and Excedrin is one of my oldest and dearest friends — but nothing like the migraines my brother had. My only consolation when he accidentally killed himself while drunk was that he only took himself out (he fell and broke his neck) and that his lifelong struggle with migraine pain was finally over.
Migraines are evil shit, and one more in a long list of reasons why I know there is no invisible sky-father benevolently watching over us. As Twain wrote, if there is a god, he’s a malignant thug.
PurpleGirl
I feel sorry for people who suffer migraines. I have several friends who have had such problems. One friend in particular visited me two years ago and he had them during the visit and even with imitrex the headache had him out for several days, unable to move much or do anything. Imitrex usually helps him but something was different, I guess, and it didn’t work during this trip. He was supposed to leave NY and take the train first to Indiana to visit his mother and then go home to L.A. and a headache hit that morning. I canceled his train reservation and wouldn’t let him leave. He was down for a about a week with that one.
At least when I have a headache due to too much sunlight exposure, I can handle it by having some tea/toast, taking ibuprofen and then finding the darkest, coldest spot in a room and taking a nap. I’ll wake up a few hours later and be fine.
fucen tarmal
what may only be interesting to me is, when letang first went to pens camp, while he was still in juniors, he made the team, for the maximum number of games, while still being allowed to play junior hockey…
the story that went around at the time was,even though the pens could have used him on that season’s team, he didn’t “fit in” in the locker room. was kind of an entitled standoffish douche, to put it another way…now assuming he wasn’t all that forthcoming with this type of thing at that point in his career, and seeing how he is now, one might assume, knowing this, where that came from.
Nutella
I used to think my migraines were bad since they make me feel miserable (but still functional) for 2 – 3 days. When I hear stories about the pillow being too loud or the drugs being available as suppositories for people who can’t even swallow then I know mine aren’t that bad. Only rarely do I get the ones where I have to lie down in a dark room.
I know my triggers now so I can avoid some of them. Mine are too much food, too little food, alcohol, bright sunlight, and hot weather.
Jager
Percy Harvin, the Vikings wide receiver has had reoccuring problems with migraines, he passed out in training camp last August and missed 3 games during the season and entire weeks of practice. Of course, the jerks on the sports blogs say shit like, “can’t handle a headache Percy” or call him “P***y Harvin”. Imagine catching a pass over the middle, getting pounded by Clay Matthews Jr. all while suffering from a migraine…wow!
Jager
Does the word P***y get one sentenced to moderation?
Jager
It does!
Uloborus
@elmo:
No, sounds like you suffer from migraines. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some people will never know they have migraines because they hardly experience any pain from them. Other people have disabling headaches that aren’t migraines at all.
Migraines are a special kind of headache caused by blood vessels in the brain contracting about fifteen minutes and then expanding for… well, as long as they feel like. Minutes, hours, days, it’s individual. They can be crippling, they can be tiny, they can be everything in-between. During the contraction phase very little pain but all sorts of weird side effects are common, but they’re ALSO individual and some people don’t get them at all, and they change each time you get a migraine to boot.
You’re hearing the horror stories, but it’s like the flu. Some people die from the flu. Some people sniffle and cough for a couple of weeks at work.
And I say this having been in the ‘horror story’ category, where I lay in a dark room and fumbled to try and remember – and summon up the manual dexterity – to use an automatic injector because I was in so much pain I couldn’t give other people instructions or read the directions on the injector. But I’ve also had way more migraines than that where I wasn’t even sure I was having one, or maybe my sinuses were making me uncomfortable. Migraines are not necessarily worse than other headaches.
Geeno
When I used to get migraines, in my twenties and early thirties, I would be in my darkened bedroom under the covers in a little paralyzed ball of pain. Even dim light was like red hot knitting needles being jabbed through my eyes. I can’t imagine doing ANYTHING physical, let alone playing hockey, while having one.
nalbar
Everyone who suffers from migraines should start a food diary. After I hear Kareem Abdul Jabbar state that he believed his were caused by allergies, I started paying attention. It turned out my migraines were seasonal and the food was ….. strawberries. In SoCal we have strawberry fields EVERYWHERE, and during season I would eat strawberry pie once a week.
I absolutely love strawberries. But I went cold turkey and my migraines dropped to once every 18 months or so. I took ergocet for those (probably the vascular contractor the commenter above used), then ercaf (caffeine helps for migraines), now I take sumatriptan. All taken as soon as the aura becomes apparent.
Because of the no strawberries rule and the medication I have suffered (with one exception because of no medication) only auras for the last 15 years, no ‘real’ migraines. However, medication does not take away the hangover. It just makes it stranger.
There are solutions out there. Food diary is a MUST.
nalbar
RP
This is the craziest thing we’ll read today? Please. We all know that George Allen is going accuse Pelosi and Obama of paying the Hollywood foreign press to nominate The Tourist for a Golden Globe because they want to encourage Americans to leave this country and emigrate to Italy.
R-Jud
@LGRooney: Same thing happened to me: I had bi-monthly migraines from about age 10, and then exactly 0 since the birth of the Bean at age 29. For that, I can forgive the stretch marks.
brantl
It’s just another indication that hockey players are nuts.
LGRooney
@R-Jud: Yeah, bored much? Now, with the little one so reliant on me and his non-stop activity, and with a wife who still wants my attention, I have no time for migraines.
LGRooney
@RP: Umm, what?
Chris
Just want to put this out there in case it’s useful info for anybody else. I got about a dozen migraines in 2009 and it wasn’t until some months after my last one that I made the connection they were all triggered by a certain type of tea I was drinking. It was one of those Whole Foods detox kinds, supposed to promote healthy kidney and liver function. So it’s really healthy stuff but the combination of spices, or something in it, was triggering awful, week-defining migraines for me.
Looking back on it, it was a vicious cycle. I was drinking the tea thinking it was making me healthier and less prone for migraines and actually it was triggering them. The day I finally made the connection, I was drinking it for the first time in months and with the first sip, I got the glimpse of the all-too-familiar aura, and that helped me put two and two together.
I’ve heard that different spices can trigger them. I know somebody who can’t drink gin because the strong spice in it does it for her.
Crusty Dem
@Athenae:
My favorite imitrex side-effects were the weird tingling throughout my head and hyper-sensitive to sour tastes. But it usually knocked out the headache, so I didn’t mind either one bit.
@LGRooney:
Nope, or at least, I don’t think so, I was nearly caffeine-free for the first few years I had migraines. I never liked coffee, tried some when I had one “coming on” and it vanished. For a few months I only had coffee when I started getting one, but of course, then I developed a taste for it and just go with a cup or two every morning. Unfortunately, I’m still pretty sensitive to the caffeine (sleep-wise), so I can’t have any after ~noon if I intend to sleep that night.
Bob L
How in the hell he keep his meals down and do that with a migraine? On the other hand he must be a savage opponent to face on the ice in that much pain.
debit
The worst part about my migraines, after the pain, is the vertigo. The best way I can describe it is this: I turn my head and it feels like while my head is turning, my brain remains stationary. This is then followed by vomiting up every thing I’ve ever eaten.
Legalize
I’m one of the lucky people who have grown INTO migraines as I’ve gotten older. I had my first about a year ago, and I’ve had maybe 4 or 5 since. It’s really a weird thing to feel after decades being largely headache free, generally, and having never experienced the sensation of being debilitated by even the tiniest amount of light and sound. It’s no joke.
elmo
@Uloborus:
Oh! thanks for the education, I never knew any of that. My mother, one of my brothers, and I all suffered from them. Oddly, out of the four children, my migraine-prone brother and I also look very, very much alike — so much so that I’ve been stopped by complete strangers and asked whether he was my brother. (It’s sad, really. He’s a very handsome man. I’m his sister. And our faces look like we could be twins. Sigh.)
But other than when my mother was dying of cancer, I have never, ever seen anyone in the kind of pain my partner was in that night.
DB
Terrell Davis won a freakin’ Superbowl while blinded by a migraine! Video
lawsipan
I have had migraines since I was seven, and at one period in time (around 98-99) I was getting 3-4 a week, some of which lasted for more than a day. Mine are -bad-, but I’ve had them for so long that I can usually function past them unless they’re real doozeys. I was desperate, but I’d tried Imitrex and a couple other meds and the side effects were horrendous. Then I read an article about acupuncture, where someone in it said that the second the first needle went in, her week-long migraine went away. The next Monday I woke up with a migraine, called in to work and said “I’m going to try acupuncture.”
I did. The instant the first needle went in, my headache went away. Subsequently I had acupuncture once a week for six months. For two years after that, I had only the auras with no pain at all. Then they started coming back irregularly, but not nearly as bad as before.
Then two years ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia (which is most often paired with migraines) and I went on two drugs for nerve pain (gabapentin, & amytriptilene) which are often used to treat migraines as well. Now I only get one a month, tied to my menstrual cycle. I got a side ‘scrip of Midrin (isometh, tylenol & a muscle relaxer) for the monthly hormonal headache. That stuff is no longer on the formulary of my medical plan, so my doc gave me some Imitrex last week for emergencies, but luckily I haven’t had to try it yet.
This entire story is a precursor to my real point: I have now had migraines for 30 years, and have suffered everything y’all have talked about (blind spots, auras, nausea, pillow too loud) and I would still much much much rather have a migraine than a caffeine withdrawal headache. Had one of those a few months ago when I went to an all-day wedding celebration where there was nothing caffinated, and was further delayed in getting home by being involved in a minor car crash. I was seriously praying for death before the solpadeine (UK migraine concoction consisting of codeine, tylenol, and caffeine) I smuggled back from London to kick in. Even then I had to go lie down with an icepack on my head for hours. I think the difference isn’t in the amount of pain, but that my migraines are usually confined to a spot in the corner of my right eye, whereas the caffeine-withdrawal headache spread over my entire head and felt like FIRE. So if you’ve ever had a massive caffeine withdrawal headache, congrats, you’re prepared for migraine suffering. :)
LGRooney
@Crusty Dem: The trick is to drink it right before you go to bed, if it helps. That way, the caffeine hasn’t had time to attack your nervous system and you’re already asleep.
Again, this is advice for those with caffeine addictions a/o those for whom coffee helps a headache (or a hangover).
I am fortunate enough that caffeine does little for me and I can have an espresso after dinner, as dessert, and still get to sleep a few hours after. Yeah, me!!
Kathryn
One thing I’ve found quite unexpectedly, is that if you wrap your hands in a very hot heating pad for about 15 mins, it is surprisingly effective. I’d say about 50% of mine I can now head off that way with nothing else. Non-technically, it has to do with a sudden call from the body for blood to cool the extremities, and equalizing blood flow, since some migraines are about engorged blood vessels in the brain.
The rest require Butalbitol.
asiangrrlMN
I have ’em, too. I can tell when I’m getting them. I am always sensitive to light, noise, smells, etc., but when a migraine starts, the sensitivity turns to pain. The sun hurts my eyes. A too-sharp smell hurts my nose. And, personally, I feel drained of color. Then, I get nauseous and sometimes I get vertigo, and if it’s not too bad, I can sit quietly at the computer and type. When it’s really bad, dark room, no noise, no sound, no nothing, lying very very very still. Then it’s tolerable.
Athletes who play with migraines…damn. That’s hardcore.
@Jager: Well, at least the announcers are pretty sympathetic during games. Migraines are no joke.
JenJen
I used to have absolutely debilitating migraines as a young adult. They started sophomore year in college, were incredibly intense for about 5 years, and didn’t subside completely until 10 years after they started. There were times when nothing but a dark room and a cold compress would help me, but I had to soldier through a lot of those horrible episodes just to get my degree.
I can’t imagine a professional athlete going through the same thing.
As an aside, I was practically jumping up and down when I read this post, perhaps inappropriately? Because all I could think was “Yay!! Letang!! Hockey thread!! Hockey thread!!”
Everyone always ignores my favorite sport. :-(
handy
@RossInDetroit:
I get those too (verrrrry occasionally). First couple times I got them it freaked me out. But turns out teh google was my friend.
Ruckus
40 year sufferer here. Not regular, sometimes in clusters, can be food related. All siblings suffer as well.
Throwing up very rare, total blindness with no pain has happened.
Dr once gave me Ultrem. Migraine gone in 15 min but the hallucinations made me want to take this only when absolutely necessary. I could see everything actually going on just had alternate translucent pictures layered on top. But NO pain.
Now I use Zomig inhalers. Pain gradually goes away 20-30 minutes with little side affects but they last for 2-3 days.
That’s whats always been the thing for me, after a migraine it takes 2-3 days to feel OK again. And in a cluster situation that feeling doesn’t come back.
Ruckus
Ran out of time editing.
My older sister had migraines much worse than me and told me once while she was in remission from cancer for the third time that she’d much rather have cancer as far as pain was concerned. She frequently had to be sedated to get through a migraine as nothing else seemed to work.
Dog is My Co-Pilot
I’ve suffered from migraines since my mid 20s. I’m 50 now and still haven’t quite grown out of them. I take prescription meds and one of my biggest fears is that I’ll run out of them… they are not cheap. I used to get migraines so bad I had to lie in a very dark room, no noise, no smells, nothing. The biggest symptom was the nausea. You’re right – anyone who has never had migraines could never understand what it feels like. They are incredibly disruptive and I have had many weekends plans totally ruined because of them. Most of the sick leave I use through my work is solely due to migraines.
rreay
Cluster Headaches here too. Twice a year for about 3 weeks I’ll get 3 30 to 60 minute headaches a day. Clusters are very like migraines but have a different root cause. They have the same light an noise sensitivity, aura’s, all that, except that they make you nervous and antsy as well so I can’t lay down in a dark room and stay there.
After a variety of treatment I ended up with an Oxygen tank. 5 minutes of 100% oxygen knocks it down.
geg6
@nalbar:
My co-worker (poor thing!) did that and she and her neurologist poured over it and cut out all kinds of foods. At one point, there were only a minuscule number of foods she was allowed to eat.
Sadly, like all the migraine meds, this did nothing at all to alleviate hers.
Tax Analyst
Ditto, John. Fortunately it only lasted for the first few months of puberty. Any light or noise or anything else going on in the room was agonizing.
Bill in Portland Maine
I get migraines once in awhile. I’m still not sure exactly why, but they tend to hit when I’m either really bored—like, at a function I can’t get out of but which I am utterly disinterested in—or when I’m on sensoory overload. I got a terrible migraine early in the afternoon of Obama’s inauguration day, and spent the rest of the day in bed—dark, quiet, only one position I can lie in without feeling worse. It really is awful.
But I have to give a shoutout to Excedrin Migraine. For me it’s as good as gold…if I take it early enough.
–
Jo
After suffering through them for almost 30 years now, I have been fortunate to find a couple of neurologists who actually listened and understood that I was the one having the headache, not them, not their nurse, not their medical assistants (who all want to offer advice, unsolicited). The “triptans” are pretty awesome drugs and work well but as someone upthread said, you have to try them all and see what works for you. I have almost 100% success with Zomig Nasal Spray and Maxalt, but both are expensive and I have to rely a good deal on my Dr having samples because I can’t afford close to $300 for six doses of Zomig (the only way it’s dispensed), or even the $90 for three doses of Maxalt.
Angela
My migraines started at puberty and were almost daily. Finally, a doctor who was a family friend got me into a trial treatment on a daily dose of phenobarbital. It worked, although my high school years are a bit of a daze.
When my oldest son started having migraines, I took him to the New York Headache Clinic. He had a negative reaction to most of the meds, so they also taught him bio-feedback. He controls all his migraines with bio-feedback now. It was amazing to watch him change his body temperature though changing his vascular flow.
Interrobang
I get migraines too from time to time — decreasing now that I’m in my thirties, thankfully. My major trigger seems to be certain types of strong smells, and MSG (it makes my hypersensitive sense of smell even more hypersensitive, so any strong smell shoves me into migraineland). The most hardcore thing I’ve ever done while having a migraine was writing a French final exam in university with tunnel vision and memory impairment so bad that for all I know, I could have written “Je suis un grenouille. J’ai une grande pamlemousse!” all over my paper…
fucen tarmal
@Jager: it does if my girlfriend hears me say it.
Ruckus
@Angela:
Did the bio-feedback in my twenties. It can help if I start early enough in the migraine progression. Otherwise no great help. But I can knock back my heart rate 4 to 5 BPM no mater what I’m doing, resting or hard physical workout. And my hands and feet get warm. Nice bar trick.
And Jo is absolutely correct, the good stuff is bloody expensive. I don’t use it unless death feels like a good alternative.
There is one thing that sometimes helps. Eating a whole bag of ruffles cheddar potato chips. I thought it was because of the salt, increasing the blood pressure, but other brands/flavors don’t work. Nor does other salty foods. And like every other home remedy it doesn’t work all the time.