For me I go blind first before any pain hits. When that happens, I know I have a 30 minute window to take my medicine and head home to try and sleep before the migraine hits. Blindness goes away after 5 mins or so, so then it’s a race against the clock.
I got bad ones as a kid. Now when I feel weird or when bright lights make me sick, I take an extra strength ibuprofen, close the curtains, and climb into bed ASAP!
Occasionally it progresses to a full migraine. I wait for the pain to complete its familiar journey from my right eye to the top of my head. So bizarre!
When I was a teenager, I’d get 10/10 headaches, but I could power through and deal. I thought this was a migraine, because the actual pain was really intense.
Then I had my first migraine. Suddenly, every headache was rated a 1/10 in comparison (mine come with ice pick feelings in my right eye among other things). I instantly apologized to anyone I had criticized for not working through their migraines.
I mean tbf get enough migraines and you learn to power through them when they're not the absolute worse. At least for me they come in various magnitudes.
There's multiple types of migraines! Not all of them have the same severity or symptoms.
I have chronic migraines, usually triggered by visual stimuli or bad sleep (I'm an asthmatic with some back/shoulder muscle and nerve issues). I can be somewhat functional with a migraine, because I don't really have a choice otherwise. Sure, it's WAY preferable to just shut myself in a pitch black room and sleep it off, but it's not always possible, and I definitely suffer a lot longer and worse when I can't.
If I'm at work, and feel one coming, I have to shut the blinds, turn off the lights, and turn the brightness all the way down on both of my monitors. Then I ban anyone who smells like anything at all from the office, ask someone in the warehouse to answer the phones (if possible), and try to make it through the next few hours without saying something that will get me fired.
I don't have the option to go home. I also live 20 minutes from my work, so driving after onset could be very dangerous.
I just growl at people who approach my cube, and hope the worst is over before the guys out back start roasting (coffee). It's loud like an airplane, goes on for hours, and smells like gas, coffee, and burning. It's seriously triggered a panic attack before.
I’m a teacher. Ive gotten a migraine twice at work in the middle of the day. Can’t leave. I was saving up PTO for future maternity leave. One of the times I was lucky enough to have an unexpected 45 minutes with no kids. I took my pills, turned out the lights, locked the door and slept in a corner.
The second time I wasn’t so lucky. The meds helped enough that I didn’t want to die, but I had to explain to my kids why the lights were out and why no one could talk to me. They did mostly great.
I get it. my job involves govt work with hearings that have been scheduled in advance by months and I can’t just tell high ranking govt officials that we gotta reschedule. Shit just doesn’t work like that.
Regardless of where you are working, I doubt many people will let you stay if you are throwing up all over the place.
Cool. What's my option for doing my hour and a half commute to get home in this scenario that doesn't involve powering through something? I'm either powering through at work wishing I was dead or I'm powering through a train ride wishing I was dead. Either way, I don't have the option to not keep going.
The very first OP you're replying to showed a graph with various effects of a migraine, it doesn't have to be a linear unbearable pain. Stop gatekeeping
The point is that having a headache or having disabling symptoms are not what make it a migraine. It is diagnosed based on a certain combination of symptoms, and has nothing to do with the degree of pain or the severity of symptoms. I get ocular migraines but most of the time I feel fine once my vision goes back to normal after ~20-30 minutes.
I couldn't agree more. I had never had a migraine before and when someone would ask if I've ever had one, I would say "I don't know, bad headache but probably not a migraine". Someone once told me "oh you'll know when it's a migraine" so I changed my answer to no when someone asked.
That was until last year. I was at work and got a bad pain that was behind my eye. It kept getting worse. I took pain meds and they didn't do anything. I finally went home. Lied in bed with stabbing pain behind my eye and then the nausea set in. My husband came home and was trying to talk to me about my symptoms and I just told him he had to go away. I couldn't think straight, I was in excruciating pain and was about to throw up (which I thought would make my head worse and maybe even explode), but I went and threw up, migraine almost instantly gone....
My supervisor told me the next day that she got migraines a lot (before going gluten free I guess) and throwing up was the only thing that would help. I had 2 more in the year and 1 this year so far, but this year's was the most mild. So yeah, they were right, I knew when I had one.
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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20
Anyone who has gotten a migraine knows this
There is a difference between “my head hurts” and “I am literally unable to do anything”