Migraine

Hi everyone,

What a wonderful community.

My name is Jackie and I'm a 26 year old student from beautiful Vancouver, Canada. I've lived with migraines every minute of every day since 2002. Before then they were more sporadic.

I'm looking forward to connecting with people, especially with people in the Vancouver area.

Jackie

Hi Jackie, and welcome!

The moderators will be along shortly to give you lots of great information, but I thought I'd jump in and say hi. I'm not sure if we have any members from Vancouver BC, but I'm in the Seattle area (hi neighbor!) and we do have one member (who hasn't been around in a while) in Vancouver WA. I'm also one of the younger members here, 26, same as you.

Let us know if you have any questions and feel free to take a look around the forum. Glad that you found us!

Hello and welcome to our forum family, Jackie! Our goal is to provide everyone with the information and support that we all need to manage our Migraines and/or headaches. To that end, we consider this a “safe harbor,” where nobody tries to sell us anything, and we all use “family-friendly” language so parents are comfortable letting their children read the forum with them.

Please take a few minutes to review our policies and guidelines along with the other information in the START HERE folder. For information about Migraines, a good article to begin with is Learning About Migraines - Where to Start

I never knew I had migraines until they went rampant and daily. Before that, mine were sporadic, too, and Excedrin and sleep were perfectly adequate. Now I know they were migraines.

Are you "diagnosis sure" that you're having migraine every single day? I ask because besides migraine, there are other headache types that involve daily pain. Some of them include Chronic Daily Headache, Hemicrania Continua, Medication Overuse Headache (MOH), and New Persistent Daily Headache. There are also Transformed Migraine and Status Migraine. Any of these might be something well worth asking your doctor about if your are experiencing daily pain. To make it easy, rather than post a bunch of different links to each of these things, I'm going to give you a link that sends you to a page that shows all of them and more. You can find it by clicking HERE.

We look forward to getting to know you, Jackie. If there's anything you are trying to find and can't seem to scare up, ask away, and we'll do our best to help.

Hi Jackie! Please add my welcome to the pile

A great tool to have is a Migraine and Headache Diary. It can be used to track triggers, the effectiveness of medications, and any patterns to your Migraines and headaches. I keep mine on my computer for easier editing. I bring a copy of my Diary to all of my doctor's appointments and my doctors love being able to have all of my information in one place.

Have you been able to identify any of your triggers? Mine are changes in the barometric pressure, lack of sleep (which I've been having problems with a lot lately), not eating and some strong smells like bleach or perfume. Here's some information on triggers that you can take a look at:

Common Migraine Triggers

Again, welcome to the forum! Be sure and stop by the Tea Room and let us know how your day is going. We love to get to know our new members

Hello everyone,

Thanks for the warm welcome. I was diagnosed with classic chronic migraine by several migraine specialists years ago and know my triggers very well (mainly fragrances but really virtually everything else too such as just standing up). Migraines and research around migraines is a topic that I am, unfortunately, all too familiar with. Until now, however, I had not found a good web community to support me. I do have excellent in-person support, however, and have had the opportunity to work with a psychologist who focuses on chronic pain. It's good to know that everyone else's story here is so similar to mine - makes one feel less lonely.

Jackie

Hi jackie,


I'm a so glad you've found us! There is plenty of support and information here. I hope you don't mind, I'm going to give you a bit "light" reading


According to the International Headache Society's International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd Edition (ICHD-II) "Classic" chronic Migraine. Under ICHD-II, there is no diagnosis of "classic" chronic Migraine. We do see it used, but doctors use it differently, so it really doesn't tell anyone what type of Migraine you actually have. You can read more about this in Ocular, Optical, and Opthalmic Migraines and The Type of Migraine Does Matter.

Chronic Migraine may start out being episodic, then change to chronic Migraine; and medication overuse may also play a role in chronic Migraine. Another type of headache is Transformed Migraine, which is when you start with episodic Migraines, and progress to daily headaches punctuated by debilitating Migraine attacks. Only a trained doctor can diagnose you though. It's impossible via the Internet. You can read more about transformed Migraine in Transformed Migraine - The Basics.

I wonder how many days a week are you taking something to relieve your Migraines and headaches? If you're taking Migraine abortive meds such as triptans or any kind of pain med more than two days a week, a big part of your problem may well be medication overuse headache (MOH), aka rebound. See Medication Overuse Headache - When the Remedy Backfires for more information on this. If you're in an MOH situation, nothing you take is going work, neither prescription nor "natural" medications. If that's the case, you need to work with your doctor to stop the medications causing the problem.

One more important thing (for now!) is even though you've seen a Migraine specialist or two, if you are still getting more than 3 Migraines a month it is time to make some changes; medications, lifestyle or yep - doctors. If your doctor isn’t able to help you, it may well be time to consult a "true" Migraine and headache specialist. It’s important to note that neurologists aren’t necessarily Migraine and headache specialists. Take a look at the article Migraine and Headache Specialists - What's So Special?. If you need help finding a Migraine specialist, check our listing of Patient Recommended Migraine and Headache Specialists.

I hope this helps some,
Nancy

Thanks Nancy! Aside from my regular neurologists I have seen Dr. Robinson who runs the Headache clinic in Vancouver. He agreed with the assessments made by my other doctors. Unfortunately. I wish there were lifestyle changes I could make beyond those extreemes I'm already going too. I understand the effects of medication overuse. I used to take medication (usually only imitrex) max once a week. Robinson suggested that I could up that and since I've been taken the drug ca. twice a week my migraines are better. Seems I was actually undermedicating. I've done lot of the reading you're suggesting before but will look into all of it again for sure.

Thanks for the tips!

Jackie

I'm so glad toh hear that. Sometimes we aren't sure what folks know and don't know, so we tend to run overboard at times, at least I do!

We are glad you found us and look forward to hearing more from you.