Thump. Thump. Thump. As I am trying to enjoy dinner with friends, I can feel the tension starting to increase. My shoulders have felt tight all day, but the tension is finally starting to build into the left side of my head. I am pressing on different pressure points around my head, massaging my shoulders, trying to get a little bit of relief. While talking to my friends, I am attempting to figure out if I am having just a normal headache or a migraine. The problem is weighing between the two takes time and the more time I wait, the worse the migraine could be and the more vigorous my head starts to throb. The entire process is like a time bomb that could explode at any second.
Headaches are fairly common among the general public and many people claim to have "migraines." The true diagnosed migraines are not just a "bad headache," but they are debilitating to those experiencing them. On several occasions, I have missed class, work, and social events because I have been bedridden due to a migraine. Migraines are unique to each person and can be caused due to just about anything. Stress, foods, physical activity, changes in sleep, or excessive sensory stimuli can all lead to migraines. Personally, mine are due to stress. If I am having a stressful day, my shoulders begin to tighten and over time my head begins to ache. From there, I can either have a normal headache or it can progress into a migraine in no time at all.
As I talk to my friends at dinner, I can feel my tongue start to thicken and it becomes more difficult to talk. I start to lose my peripheral vision and my ability to see has significantly decreased. I start to become unbearably nauseous. I call my sister to bring migraine medication to the restaurant because at this point in time I can't drive. My field of vision looks like this:
I have only been able to take one bite of dinner because the nausea and pain has been overwhelming. After a while, the nausea gets so bad that I end up getting sick. I check my eyes in the mirror and my pupils are dilated to a point where you can barely see the color of my eyes. At this point I call it a night and have someone pick me up from the restaurant because I am in no state to drive because of my vision loss and I am not sensitive to light. I leave my car overnight and come back in the morning. At this point, my only hope is to take my migraine medication and try to sleep through it. This migraine is so bad that it takes double my normal dose to even curb the pain.
Just as the cause of a migraine can be different from person to person, so can the symptoms associated with a migraine. For everyone, a pulsating pain on one side of the head is pretty normal for the diagnosis, but extra symptoms often go along with it. Most people experience sensitivity to light, sound, or smell and some people experience all three. Nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, fainting, lightheadedness, numbness, difficulty speaking, and vision disturbances are a large number of other things a person could experience. These are the factors that make migraines more than just a bad headache. Not only is the pain immense, but there are several other symptoms that make it a debilitating experience.
The next morning I wake up and it feels as though my head is bruised. My shoulders feel as though I spent all day lifting in the gym. The aftermath of a migraine is like a hangover plus a baseball bat to the shoulders/neck region. The current issue is that the cause of migraines is unknown. We know what triggers them, but we do not have a clear idea on how or why they happen. Genetics do play a role (thanks, Dad) and maybe environmental factors as well, but outside of that it seems to be at random. There are several thoughts as to the cause of a migraine, such as expanding blood vessels or drops in serotonin levels, but the cause is also unknown. What scientists do know is that migraines are not "just a bad headache."
