Migraines

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I have a migraine right now.

I can't convince my doctor to give me occipital nerve block injections so I'm just prescribed Imitrex. It works most of the time.

Sometimes I resort to wrapping a stretchy fleece blanket around my head, tying in into a knot at around eye level and tighten. Seems to provide some temporary relief.

I've gone some time without caffeine, trying to quit that habit. Gone like a month or so. Last night, I did have a Coke with my dinner. Is it possible that after a time without something your body craves or used to crave, a little taste of it is all your body needs to say, "I want MORE so here's a migraine!"

Do you get them? How do you deal with the pain and nausea and vomiting? Those are my only symptoms. Light and noise I'm okay with - when having a migraine. I mean, it doesn't exacerbate the problem. I generally don't like a lot of light and excessive noise to begin with.

I usually have really bad migraines depending on how much caffeine I consume. It sometimes becoms so terrible that I get very nauseous and vomit.m Noise, road trips, and light definitely exacerbates my migraines. Sometimes it helps me when I put icy hot on my forehead after I take Ibuprofens, I use icy hot for them every half an hour whenever the migraine comes back. The icy hot normally relieves the tension and pain that I have.

I get them. I started getting them when I was about 18 or 19. Three or four times a year it would be so bad that what I had at home to take didn't help and I had to go to the ER for a shot. Back then I went to the hospital my mother worked at (which I had volunteered at for years and also worked at before this and then years later again) and the ER doc gave me a shot of Demerol and Phenergan. Bingo, problem solved in about 20 minutes. It would stop hurting, I would go to sleep and sleep for about 12 hours and the next day I would be ok.

I went through that cycle with taking Midrin or Vicodin or Darvocet when I would get the headaches at least once a month, and still going to the ER several times a year for a shot, until I got pregnant with my first baby at 24. Suddenly they stopped. Well, they slowed down and spaced out to about two a year and maybe having to go to the ER for something every few years. Because OTC meds never fix a migraine I would take something else for pain I had left over or get something from someone I knew or my mother who had something for pain left over. Nothing too strong, but strong enough to make it stop when I would go lay down.

I didn't have them like I did when I was young until several years ago when I started getting ready to go through menopause. My periods got irregular and the migraines came back with a vengence. I get one about once every month or so now, or at least the months when I have a period, and I go to the ER three or four times a year. However, this ER doesn't give narcotics unless you have been in a serious accident. Thats their policy because so many stupid rednecks come in faking impossible to verify type pain for shots or pills. The staff puts everybody into the catagory of drug seeker when you come in with your main complaint as "pain". They treated my 79 year old mother that way a few years back, and my mother is one of those people who doesn't even take two Tylenol at once or even a whole Lortab. She simply wanted an xray of her hip and the boy told her to go see her own dr on Monday, that they didn't treat "unverifiable pain complaints" there.

I try to keep a few pain pills of some sort around handy for when I get one, because I know that the ER is absolutely useless. They won't even give me Tramadol (which doesn't help my migraines anyway).

Yup, I can go for years and have NO headaches or migraines, then I test the waters and think it is ok to hop back on the caffeine train, and man it messes me up, right back to the anxiety, moodiness, paranoia, you name it.....
Unfortunately, caffeine is a drug, and a bad one..... I have learned by trial and error enough times that if I wanna indulge, I will have way worse consequences than drinking..... I quit that too though when I am happy, lol.

I have a migraine right now (the tablets have kicked in or I couldn't be online). I find that when I have them I get nausea, and can't coordinate myself at all. I also feel shaky and weak.
I've noticed that pressure helps, so it's interesting that you've found that too.
I have an eye mask that fits quite tightly, and helps with both the light sensitivity and the pressure. I also find listening to audio books on cd whilst having my eyes closed helps a bit.

i have gotten near-daily migraines for about a decade, so i feel your pain (literally). i have tried a lot of things to combat them. this is my current regimen, which has reduced them to about once or twice-weekly:


-vitamin B2/riboflavin - 400mg a day (source)

-daily Topiramate for prevention (source)

-adjusted refresh rate on monitor. made sure it was as far away from eyes as possible. every 20 minutes, i look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds (it's like a 20/20/20 prevention)

-take Almotriptan Malate (link) as needed, but i sometimes try acetaminophen or ibuprophen first because if i take it too often it can cause rebound headaches.

-reduced allergens like dust, which improved sleep

-lost weight, which also improved sleep

-reduced anxiety to manageable levels

-mostly eliminated food triggers like nuts and coffee


but really... this is a lifetime struggle. i work, i manage to hold down jobs, but i miss a lot of days due to illness. i don't know if i will ever be free from pain.

funny thing - after suffering so long i noticed an interesting side effect! brainfreeze from ice cream or cold drinks doesn't hurt very much anymore. i am so used to dealing with very similar pain and working through it that it hardly registers. it's a stupid bonus, but i'll take it anyways.

I am confused about this because caffeine is what I use to get rid of my migraines. I've found that soda does not work, however. I have to drink coffee.

Have you ever tried taking caffeine when you have a migraine? I only take caffeine for migraines, so my body is not used to it, and is in fact sensitive to it, so maybe that's why it works for me. Also, your migraines sound worse, maybe that's it.

I have had a bad migraine once in my life due to really bad stress. I had to lie down in a dark room very still to help decrease my nausea. Today I have a mild headache I would say and it most likely due to the construction noise that was outside my office for a large part of the day and maybe also due to stress. I have only had a true migraine once in my life unless the headaches I get from construction noise and stress are mild migraine headaches.

Daily doses of magnesium oxide and vinpocetine seem to help decrease the length of time my migraines hang around when they do hit.

I used to get the aura visual type of migraines a lot. Turns out after being miserable for so long that it was concluded that I am sensitive to estradiol containing birth control. Now I am on a mini pill (progesterone only pill) and have only had one migraine since.

They've just taken me off the pill for the same reason.