Tons of ~ma for an end to migraines. But the sleuth/scientist in me wants to see if there is a common cause.

Mine are related to EDS. They were my first symptom apart from being a late walker, actually - started in my teens. For years doctors said "You don't get migraines, you get headaches." I finally got irritated and documented the symptoms, including the hours spent throwing up, the random visual stuff, the dizziness, the complete inability to concentrate on anything, and the 'pins and needles'. Then the docs admitted that these were not just headaches. At the moment I'm loath to take long-term medication for them, so I take triptans and painkillers, and go to bed a lot. If the frequency gets higher I'll have to get referred back to a neurologist (GPs here won't prescribe much themselves), but I'm trying to avoid that. I'm incredibly lucky - I don't think I get nearly the level of pain with them that some people do. It's the other symptoms that get particularly bad.

I'm with ita on the possibility that we're better diagnosed than most. Buffistas - we're canny and we don't take any crap.

Wishing you some solutions to your migraines soon, ita.

Spelling edit.

I've been getting headaches for a couple weeks. Only once last weekend was the pain bad enough that it made me cry.

I was going to add to what other people said, that those sound like they might be migraines. A headache bad enough to make you cry? Quite possibly a migraine. Also, migraines do come in degrees. I have the mild end of the spectrum, and absolutely nothing as bad as others on the list describe. I will occasionally get a bad enough migraine to lose a day, because the pain nausea won't let me do anything, but only once a month or less. I'm just really lucky to have such a mild case.

Here's my symptoms: I'm not very nauseus, but I have no appetite. My forearms ache. It feels like my brain is swollen and if I press on the outside of my skull I get temporary relief. Last weekend was awful, then I felt better for most of the week. Yesterday I woke up feeling yucky but today I feel almost 100% better. Very little ache but still no appetite. I have a huge jar of Jelly Bellies and I haven't even opened it yet!

At the moment I'm loath to take long-term medication for them, so I take triptans and painkillers, and go to bed a lot.

I don't even take triptans, because of the potential cardiac side effects -- I have a higher risk of getting them because of my dad's family's heart disease. My doctor really wants to avoid triptans for me as long as possible, and I don't get migraines often enough to try them.

The drug I do take is an older drug (Midrin) that isn't exceedingly effective, but if I take it right away, I can short-circuit 75% of them.

if I press on the outside of my skull I get temporary relief.

When I have a migraine, if I press on the cheekbone on the side where the pain is, the pain lessens for as long as I press on the cheekbone.

I got relatively bad migraines as a teenager, until I figured out they were pretty much entirely related to coffee drinking. Total blurring of my peripheral vision was the first symptom, then the pressure in my skull, then the nausea, with possible fun puking times, then the light sensitivity, then once the pain had gone, the tiredness for a good day or so. I do not miss those migraines, I never found a medication that helped. But, then, it was only three or four times a year, and they never lasted more than twelve hours or so, so I can't really complain.

I had a migraine about two years ago, but I didn't even realise it was a migraine because it was so different to what I'd had as a teenager - it was just a pounding pain on one side of my head, that went sort of wavey when I moved, and it lasted for three days or so. Weird.

OMG, I can barely touch the affected section of my head when I'm having a migraine. I know Betsy is the same way. I can't imagine pressing for relief. It sounds like anathema.

rth it. I tried weaning myself off Topamax last year, and my migraine frequency shot up from once every few months to once a week or more.

Heh. I'm cautiously optimistic about having weaned off topomax. But am taking several herbal type things--magnesium, riboflavin, feverfew, and coq10. And so far so good.

Mine involved sensitivity to light and vomiting, if they were bad, or just nausea or not wanting food, if mild.

I've been working on Hollaback Israel all day (almost there, dammit), when I saw this: [link]

Well, at the very least, all mallards. I love the one in the back.

OMG, I can barely touch the affected section of my head when I'm having a migraine. I know Betsy is the same way. I can't imagine pressing for relief. It sounds like anathema.

I can't have my hair in a ponytail when I have a migraine, but pressing on my cheekbone is okay. (Which, again, is why I thought they were sinus -- I mean, the cheekbone area is what hurts with sinus problems. TV commercials tell us so!)