Random thoughts, observations, and opinions of a software engineer in corporate America.
Well, That May Be A Bit Dramatic
Published on July 18, 2004 By CS Guy In Health & Medicine
As I child I used to get horrible headaches. These headaches persisted through high school as well. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, but I did discern a particular pattern. I played baseball through junior and senior high school, and after every game I would get a headache. I played soccer as well, but rarely had a headache after those games.

The difference between these two was that baseball was in the spring/summer time frame, while soccer was in the fall/winter. It seemed that whenever I exerted myself under the sun I would get a headache. Even playing golf with my grandfather induced headaches during the summertime.

I didn’t really understand what caused these headaches until I was 23 years old. I was taking a public speaking course in college and a girl was giving a speech on migraines. She talked about the symptoms: nausea, vomiting, auras (light spots), sensitivity to light and sound, numbness, difficulty in speech, and severe semi-hemispherical head pain. I soon realized she was talking about my headaches!

I went to a doctor, and not wanting to influence his diagnosis I described my symptoms but did not tell him I thought I was having migraines. He started asking me questions about my mother. Did she have bad headaches as well? So bad that she was incapacitated in the same manner that I was? Thinking back, I realized that she did have the same kind of headaches that I had suffered all my life.

The doctor told me I most likely have the migraine disease, which is a genetic disorder passed primarily from a mother to her children. This was something I did not hear in the public speaking class. I called my mom and asked her about it. Her response was something like, “Oh yea, I knew I had migraines, but I hoped your headaches were something different.”

So I started learning what I could about migraines, in the hope that I might be able to find relief. Unfortunately, many people can only mitigate the pain, and at varying degrees of success. Drugs have had little effect on my migraines, so I generally have to sacrifice 8 to 12 hours of my life to recover.

Over the years I’ve had many people offer their “cures” for migraines. Thing is, there is no cure. Migraine is a true organic neurological disease, and if you are born with it you are stuck with it.

So, in the spirit of education, I’d like to share some facts about the migraine disease with you.


  • Migraine is a disease; a headache is just one symptom. Migraine pain is caused by expansion of the cranial blood vessels (vasodilation). Traditional headache pain is caused by contraction of the blood vessels (vasoconstriction). Because of this, many treatments for traditional headaches actually make migraine pain worse.

  • Migraine is a genetically-based disease. You have about a 50% chance of inheriting this disease if one of your parents has it. According to Dr. Stephen J. Peroutka, M.D., Ph.D., President & CEO of Spectra Biomedical, Inc., a group of research physicians dedicated to understanding the genetic illnesses, “This susceptibility is neither psychological nor induced by environmental causes."

  • A migraine is induced by various triggers. Some examples of triggers are weather patterns, menstrual cycles, bright light, certain foods, chemical smells, second-hand smoke, alcohol, and heat/cold. The triggers are generally different for each person, and an attack may require multiple triggers. Some people claim stress is a major trigger, but some doctors disagree with this. My triggers tend to be second-hand smoke, excessive body heat, sunlight, and, it seems, stress. One of my mother’s triggers is cheese.

  • Migraine causes a severe heightening of all of a person’s senses. A Migraineur (a person with the disease) is more sensitive to their environment to the point of pain. Light hurts, sound hurts, taste is enhanced, and even touch. During a migraine attack the person can actually feel atmospheric pressure against their skin.

  • Migraine can be life threatening. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, "migraine can sometimes lead to ischemic stroke and stroke can sometimes be aggravated by or associated with the development of migraine." Twenty-seven percent of all strokes suffered by persons under the age of 45 are caused by Migraine.


There is more, but this is getting to be very long and I think I have covered my desired points.
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Comments (Page 1)
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on Jul 18, 2004
Like I said in a different article. I too have suffered with headaches. Mine started when I was 5 and have worsened. Before if I threw up I'd feel A LOT better. But now, its to the point where all I can do is just sleep. And even that doesn't help. My doctor thought I had something more wrong with me than just having a migraine so they did MRI's and things on my brain. My brain was completely normal other than I had a hormone blood vessel like thing in the middle of my brain, which stops secreting the hormone after you reach a certain age. So my doctor shrugged it off, and put me on medicine. So I take Inderall every day. Which the Inderall is only to make my Migraines extend further out. Like I used to have a headache 5 days out of the week. And the Inderall make it so I only have 1 or 2 a week. I haven't been home enough this week and I wasn't taking my medicine, so it'll take me another month to get my migraines under control again. I'll probably have to take Inderall all my life even though it doesn't cure me, it just helps me to not have them so often. And for when the Inderall allows me to have an awful headache. I have Axert which helps me handle light and things.

I tried Imitrex one time, it made me jaw lock up really bad. Then I felt worse than I had before. So I quickly stopped taking it. Now things seemed to have settled. Most of my work is done on the computer, so I wear my sunglasses when the Axert doesn't help with the light.

Thanks for writing about your migraines. It helped me to realize I'm not alone with these stupid things.
Emma
on Jul 18, 2004
One of my principal migraine triggers is red meat. Stress is another biggie.
on Jul 18, 2004
Stress gives me headaches too. Chocolate too.

Emma
on Jul 18, 2004

I've had migraines since I was 25.


I've been on every medication known to medicine....and they still keep coming.  There seems to be no reason for them, no trigger than I can see (or my physician can see; I've kept headache diaries before).  Right now I'm not on any meds at all, and I'm under more stress than usual ......and as yet (touch wood) no headache.


I destest Imitrex.  Hate the stuff.  I feel like shit when I need to take it anyway, and it makes me feel worse, so therefore I don't.  If a physician I'm unfaliliar with suggests Imitirex, I tell them I'd rather take nothing and suffer than take that crap.  Zomig works slightly better, as does Maxalt, and they don't make me feel as bad.


I can totally relate to the 'unable to do anything except lay in bed and puke for hours and sometimes days' scenario, tho.

on Jul 18, 2004
I can totally relate to the 'unable to do anything except lay in bed and puke for hours and sometimes days' scenario, tho.


Thats how I was when I was little. But now, I can't puke, and when I lay in bed, it doesn't do me any good. but the sometimes days part. Really hits me at home.

Emma
on Jul 18, 2004
Before if I threw up I'd feel A LOT better. But now, its to the point where all I can do is just sleep. And even that doesn't help.

I was the same way. If I could throw up I would feel somewhat better. Sleep is really the only thing I can do, and the only reason that helps is because I am unconscious.
on Jul 18, 2004
the only reason that helps is because I am unconscious


me too. But when I wake up, its still there. And some times worse.

Emma
on Jul 18, 2004
I find it interesting that so many people here are Migraineurs, and so many people that I would characterize as intelligent. I encountered this when I was a lecturer. Probably a third of my university's computer science department faculty had migraines.
on Jul 18, 2004

My daughter just got diagnosed with migraines this summer.  She's a straight 'A' student, if that assists your therory any.


I find too that the Migrainerus that I know tend to be more 'cerebral'.


I find that the only thinkg that really helps me is sleep.  Sometimes that sleep has to be induced by large doses of narcotics, but that's really the only thing that is successful.

on Jul 18, 2004
I find that the only thinkg that really helps me is sleep. Sometimes that sleep has to be induced by large doses of narcotics, but that's really the only thing that is successful.

My process is to take some excedrin migraine (it sometimes helps a little), take a long cold shower, make sure my bedroom blinds are drawn, put on an Enya CD playing softly, crawl (slowly) into bed, and try not to think.

I was actually wrong before when I said my only relief is unconsciousness. Ever since I was little showers have been my silver bullet as far as pain is concerned. I will start a cold shower, and lay in the bathtub such that the shower falls around my head. I get this image in my mind of a tropical waterfall, and peace overcomes me. It's purely endorphins, but it will relieve just about any pain I have: from sunburn to muscle ache to physical trauma to migraines. Although for migraines it only works for a short while (maybe 20 minutes). So the key is for me to stay in the shower long enough to make most of the pain go away, then hope I can get to sleep before it returns.
on Jul 18, 2004
My daughter just got diagnosed with migraines this summer.

She has my condolences.
on Jul 18, 2004
excedrin migraine is, in my opinion, the best OTC med to allow you to function on a day when you otherwise couldn't.
on Jul 18, 2004

She has my condolences.


I'll pass them on.


She got them at school (she was having a lot of problems with another student and a teacher; I think she was really stressed), and we finally went to the doc after she got sent home 3 days in a row.  He gave her morphine...she got a CT scan, which was clear, and so the diagnosis by default was migraines - which is typically how it happens.


The one thing that really does aggrivate me to no end is the amount of people who will clssify a tylenol headache as a "migraine". It's not.  If my headaches could be resolved by simply taking a tyenol, I'd be jumping through hoops.  Migraines, as you accurately described in your article, area a completely different animal than your common-or-garden headache.  The physiology is different, the symptoms are much more intense and complex.....it's so completely different.  I wish sometimes that I could give people a taste of a migraine at it's worst so they would be able to understand and feel for theselves the huge difference that exists between headache and migraine.

on Jul 18, 2004
The one thing that really does aggrivate me to no end is the amount of people who will clssify a tylenol headache as a "migraine". It's not.


Right. A Migraine is much more than a headache. It's a complete wipeout.
on Jul 18, 2004
Right. A Migraine is much more than a headache. It's a complete wipeout.

I've literally been laying on the floor, fetal position, wishing that someone with a shotgun would come by and blow my head off. But since no one was that kind I had to settle for weeping for hour upon hour.

One of my problems is that I have learned to block a lot of pain through concentration. But you can't do that with a migraine because the act of concentrating is itself painful.
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