Migraine

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum. I live in Hong Kong (orignally from England but been here 20 years). I have suffered with migraines for years but only the headaches (none of the other stuff). Last week it changed when I had a very strange 'attack' which affected my speech (confused) and vision (loss of peripheral vision in one eye, dimness and flashing lights) but absolutely no sign of a headache. I was taken to the ER and had to stay there for 2 days with a suspected TIA. I had read about atypical migraines and did mention this to the neuro and he agreed it is most likely what happened. I need to take aspirin daily just to be on the safe side.

I'd love to hear from fellow sufferers especially anyone who has suddenly developed different types of migraines without the headache. I still don't really know what an 'aura' is.

Hi Wendy,

Unfortunately we cannot diagnose you, only give you clues as to where you may turn to for answers.

In order to be diagnosed with migraine, your attacks need to meet certain criteria according to the ICHD classifications: Migraine Classification: ICDH-II

A migraine isn't just the headache, it's also accompanied by neurological deficits as well. Migraine IS a neurological disorder. It may be that if you have migraines your symptoms are changing. If you aren't keeping a diary of your pain it's likely you are missing certain clues.

Aura is a warning sign of migraine. It can come in many forms; numbness, tingling, visual scotoma, audio/olfactory hallucinations, and a type of migraine, Hemiplegic, may mimic strokes. Some of us lose speech, walk stupidly, get clumsy, slur speech, etc. You'd be surprised at the list of symptoms one can get over a migraine.

It certainly sounds like you had a migraine aura but you don't necessarily have to have headpain for the attack to qualify as a migraine. These are called "acephalgic" or silent migraines.

A neurologist or specialty doctor must diagnose you first off...Not all migraineurs with aura will have aura every single time. When I first developed full-blown aura as a child it was never followed by pain. When I hit puberty that changed. Now, I have chronic migraine and permanent aura.

Here are some articles for you!

Migraine with Aura: The Basics

Acephalgic Migraine

There are plenty of medication and therapy options for you if you need them. Please keep us posted and welcome to the forum!

Hi Wendy!
I get aura without an actual headache alot.Sometimes I feel like the aura never completely goes away. It is very odd.I also feel like I'm having a stroke. Always seems to be the right side of my face and body that are affected.My mouth and eye will actually droop a bit.The last migraine put me in the ER overnight. My doctor diagnosed me with atypical/complicated migraine with aura when this all started. All my MRI's had been normal until the last brain mri that was after the worst migraine ever in my life. . It showed 15 spots .The neuro said it looked like I had 15 TIA's.I go back to the neuro next week to see where we go from here.I know exactly how you feel.Good luck& Take Care.....

Thanks for your replies. I've learned a lot about migraines today from all the links provided. I had never realised that you could have one without a headache.

Up until her death last month, my mother had migraines on a daily basis and my 13 year old daughter has them around the time of her period. I guess they run in the family.

Hello and welcome to our forum family, Wendy! 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 see that Leeloo's been rather busy scrounging up all the good links I had in mind when I read your post. (Thanks, Leeloo!)

About the only thing I can think to add, other than some smooshes, is that you want to be very careful with the aspirin daily as a preventative. I have heard of it being used that way a long time back, but I'm pretty sure it's fallen out of favor over the years as we've learned more about rebound, which aspirin can contribute to. Here's a link to an Medication Overuse Headache (MOH), a.k.a. Rebound for you.

Hi Wendy! I just wanted to pop in and add my welcome to the pile too

I see you've been given plenty of links to get you started so I'll only add our link to a Migraine Diary. It's a free, downloadable diary and it has a couple of different formats to choose from. It will be useful to track triggers, the effectiveness of medications, and any patterns to your Migraines and headaches.

Your Migraine and Headache Diary

Welcome again! I look forward to seeing you around the forum and if you have any questions, just ask.