Migraines , who suffers from them here?

I used to suffer crippling migraines when I was younger. Despite what people say, there is no real known cause for migraines. So, avoiding caffeine, chocolate, cheese or whatever advice given, doesn't actually work.

Just take some codeine and sleep it off.
 
I get the particularly frequently at the moment, and incredibly painfully but can't for the life of me work out what from.

Years and years ago when I was, I (and my parents) can't remember, mabey 7-8 years old would wake up in the middle of the night every few weeks with unbelievably bad pain. Then continued to get quite frequent mild headaches for years and one incredibly bad migraine type one 1-2 times a month. Then mid teens maybe I'd forgotten all about them, late teens/early twenties they again came back in a 1-2 a month scenario then went away for a few years.

IN the last 18 months I've gotten them for a few months at a time often 3-4 times a week, particularly bad if I'm moving around and lying down seems to make them worse, trying to sleep all I can focus on is incredibly painful throbbing in my head, sitting as still as possible seems to calm them down with pain medication. Nurofen years ago helped, in the last 18 months anything short of Codeine doesn't even touch it. 2-3 pills, sitting still for a while and they mostly calm down but rarely go. In the past 6 months I'll quite often get a headache throughout the day, take painpills, go to sleep and wake up in the morning still with the headache.

Not a fan of migraines at all. Thing is, I've tried to narrow it down to almost anything, my diet has changed completely, several times throughout my life and in the last 18 months, gaining weight, eating badly, losing weight eating stupendously healthily and cutting out everything bad, then headaches got worse and I along with several other things I ended up eating badly again and still had the headaches.


Stupidly frustrating trying to find a "trigger" for them, even more frustrating is trying to find out what causes migraines, for every person that says there are triggers, there are loads who say they don't, for every medical study that thinks it has something to do with blood vessels contracting, other studies says it has nothing to do with it.

For something that effects so many people, and lots of them very frequently, it seems to have very little research going on in to it. :(
 
Badgi said:
Just take some codeine and sleep it off.
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codeine is probably the worst thing you can take for headaches or migraines, trust me, I know. Codeine is metabolised as morphine and therefore just 'numbs' the pain and doesn't actually take it away. Plus, codeine can often cause worse headaches.
 
used to get them quite a lot from my early teens to early 20's, not had a bad one for a while though now. They used to trigger from eyestrain (bad light, looking at something with regular patterns with no deffinition to focus on etc).

would start either with a slightly sickly feeling on its own or with pins and needles in my right hand (usually trigger in school/work, so thats mouse/pen action finished). that would spead up my arm, sickness would start kicking in big time, then my face would go numb down one side. in full flow it feels like ive been stabbed in the head, cant think straight or speak (if i try, its slurred and i cant remember language at all, words escape me).

pretty much im left that i can walk, use left hand but thats about it.

If i feel my hand or head going now i take a break and pill myself up, and switch to doing something else with less focus (if im at home i go to bed for an hour).

even thinking about it make my hand numb and feel sick, hate the things :(
 
Tefal said:
By any chance have you been stabbed in the head any time in the last 4 years?
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I just had a quick feel all around my head, no sign of a knife.

I did wonder if I'd cracked my skull while drunk or something, I don't remember having fallen, or maybe getting into a fight, but I used to get seriously seriously black out drunk at uni not too long ago. Had some stuff done by docs to check for more serious stuff, xray first to check for anything like a hairline fracture, ct to look for anything "really" bad. Nothing showed up and considering I've had these headaches on/off for over two decades now I doubt its anything more recent :(

If it was at least I could do something about it. Apparently a lot of people grow out of migraines, though it tends to be around your 40's :( Thats ruddy miles and miles away still.

I would just stay hopped up on codeine to avoid headaches but I really don't like how I feel on drugs, they aren't very strong but still just makes me unable to concentrate or focus on anything at all.
 
Andre said:
Had one for the last 6 years (and I don't mean just a single day, I mean six years :eek: )

Medication takes the edge off, but nothing has fixed it so far
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That's called a wife not a migraine.

I tend to get migraines. I used to get them more often, now about one bad one once every 2 months or so.
 
buckeejit said:
codeine is probably the worst thing you can take for headaches or migraines, trust me, I know. Codeine is metabolised as morphine and therefore just 'numbs' the pain and doesn't actually take it away. Plus, codeine can often cause worse headaches.
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Codeine is not necessarily a bad thing to take for migraines. Some medication works for some people and others not so. I've had migraines for years. Generally the best way to get rid I find (again this is for me) is to go to bed, dark room, cold flannel on the head and now I usually take 2 x ibuprofens and 2 x paracetomol. I've also found Diclofenic (<yep undoubtedly spelt wrong and can't be bothered to look up) and Codeine are also effective sometimes but usually only when taken with paracetomol or ibuprofen. The problem with Codeine is that for some people it can cause constipation. It's acutally used to treat IBS and my g/f uses it for this. I find it "bungs me up" so can't take it anymore. Did use to work well for pain when your body is not used to it.

Anyway I'm waffling, Migraines do suck yeah. I hate it when people just keep asking if you drink enough and get enough sleep. Yes I do drink enough and no I never get enough sleep. :)
 
jaybee said:
Anyway I'm waffling, Migraines do suck yeah. I hate it when people just keep asking if you drink enough and get enough sleep. Yes I do drink enough and no I never get enough sleep. :)
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it's actually been proven that codeine is basically useless for migraines/headaches but ah well lol.

I know mate, people who say that you ain't sleeping enough etc. clearly don't get migraines lol.
 
I get migraines when I am low on serotonin. This usually occurs within a month of a bad hangover and the chance subsides after I have built it back up by walking around in the sunlight etc....the usual indicator that I am low on serotonin is that the muscle under my left eye will twitch.

I seem to get more of the aura than of the actual headache/pain. I will get random brain functions basically shutting down, initially feeling weird and not being able to read due to a blind spot, then about two hours of general weirdness like forgetting how to spell and how words are put together, not being able to remember phone numbers etc. and intrusive bursts of old memorised numbers, then finally numbness working its way up on one side or both from my fingers eventually to the back of my tongue and my nose. After that it's usually a pretty bad headache on one side or both which can be solved with a couple of paracetamol....clearly not as severe as other migraine sufferer's headache portion.

Thankfully I only get these once every couple of years.
 
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Yup, was diagnosed when I was 12. Most are random but I can get one I I don't eat enough.

The only thing I've found over the counter that touches them is nurofen and codeine. That and a dark room + cold compress.
 
I've had a few. One massive one when I was knocked out at about 12, lasted a full 4 days :(

The rest have been random or seemingly brought on by other illnesses. I get an ear infection, then I also get a migraine etc :(
 
buckeejit said:
codeine is probably the worst thing you can take for headaches or migraines, trust me, I know. Codeine is metabolised as morphine and therefore just 'numbs' the pain and doesn't actually take it away. Plus, codeine can often cause worse headaches.
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I know what codeine is and that's the point, hence why I said, "take codeine and sleep it off". You can't cure a migraine, so you may aswell numb the pain.

If you buy "migraine medication" all you are buying is codeine and paracetamol.

Sp00n said:
cold compress.
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These are pretty effective for hangovers aswell. ;)
 
buckeejit said:
codeine is probably the worst thing you can take for headaches or migraines, trust me, I know. Codeine is metabolised as morphine and therefore just 'numbs' the pain and doesn't actually take it away. Plus, codeine can often cause worse headaches.
Click to expand...

Most painkillers numb the pain but don't remove what causes the pain, thats primarily what they are designed to do. How is that the worst thing, there isn't anything out there that effectively "treats" migraines, firstly most doctors won't agree on what causes a migraine, secondly, most treatments are pain medications that do nothing but treat the pain. Theres a few things out there that can treat the actual symptoms, but various people have various symptoms, the pills with serotonin in only work for some people, because it would seem only some people with migraines have that as a cause.

ANyway the worst thing you can do for a migraine, is take the pain away?

Option 1, have migraine, have head splitting pain, just put up with it.

Option 2, have migraine, have head splitting pain, take codeine to stop "feeling" that pain........

yeah, option 2 is obviously the worst thing you can do.
 
Badgi said:
If you buy "migraine medication" all you are buying is codeine and paracetamol.
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I actually got prescribed these wafer thingies that you put on your tongue and they boost your serotonin and defeat the migraine that way.

The only problem was I had to have someone else open them because I can't get the things open when in the early aura stages of having a blind spot and I can see everything except what I am trying to look at.
 
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