Migraine

Hello,
I'm happy to have located your site and hope to learn more about Hemiplegic Migraines. My 16 year old daughter has sufferred with occassional migraines that sometimes require going to the ER for a shot but recently she woke up in the middle of the night and was unable to speak properly and one side of her body was numb, like a stroke. I called 911 and she spent the night in the ER. After the experience, she vomited a lot and was not able to communicate well for several hours. All of the MRI's, eeg's and catscan came back normal. She had been on a sulfa antibiotic for a bladder infection at the time but the Doctors say that it is not a reaction to that. It sounds just like what I'm reading on Hemiplegic Migraines but the Neurologist said that it most likely is not because we do not have a family history.

I'm really concerned about this happening again and leaving damage.
She did re-gain all normal functions within 24 hours but if it happends again, I wonder if it leaves damage. Also, should someone with this condition be able to drive a car? Thank you in advance for any input. Sincerely- Sher

Welcome Sher. That must've been very scary for your daughter and for you.

Here is a link describing HM. I hope it helps.

Hemiplegic Migraine - The Basics
Hemiplegic Migraine is a rare form of Migraine disease with symptoms that can mimic those of stroke, epilepsy and other neurological conditions.
http://www.healthcentral.com/migraine/types-of-headaches-38571-5.html

Hi Sher,

With a scary event like that I would make sure she has a full neurological workup to rule things in or out. It is imperative to get the correct diagnosis so your daughter can be on the right treatment plan if necessary. The link DebHOST gave you is excellent.

A Migraine specialist would be a very good thing at this point. A pediatric neurologist at the least.

I hope she is feeling better soon. Please keep us posted and let us know how we can help you further.

Hi Sher
Sorry to hear about your daughters experience.

If it helps you in any way I shall list my symptoms below but remember that we are all very different and individual diagnosis is paramount.

Onset - zig zag lines in one or both of my eyes
- Blurred vision - unable to read a numberplate or text
- Tingling inside the mouth or an lips

The duration of the above can be anything from 5 - 45 mins

This is followed by a period of calm and normality lasting anything between 20 and 50 minutes in my case.

Next stage - the feeling of numbness down one side of my face.
- Often but not always my eye will and mouth droop.
- This may last between 15 -35 mins
- The numbness then slowly moves down my body to my arm.
- My arms becomes paralised and my fingers can curl up.
- Already my speech has become very slurred.
- Bright lights are difficult to look at.
- Thinking become difficult. I know what I want to say but it doesn't come out right and I sound confused and talk in a jumbled up way.
- Sometimes but not always My gait (the way I walk) changes and I often limp and walk into things as co-ordination becomes worse.

- All of the above can last anything between 45mins to 3hrs or more.
- Next comes the headache which hits like a steam train is often intense throbbing and no painkiller seems to help.
- This is also followed sometimes by acute vomiting which is another reason why tablets are of little or no use.
- When the hemiplegia subsides my speech remains slurred for a while and I become very very tired.
Even after the headache subsides which can take several long hours, my head will feel sore for many days afterwards and is not dissimilar to a lumbar puncture headache I once had.
I will feel fragile for a few days and my short term memory suffers for anything up to 2 months after the event.

I hope I haven't missed anything and I hope this helps you in some small way.
I do know how frightening they appear to be and how little trained medical staff know about them. Proper medical diagnosis is an absolute must and hemiplegia does not have to Familial (family link).

A neurologist or specialist headache doctor is perhaps the best person to see.

I personaly would push to see one as misdiagnosis where hemiplegia is concerned can be dangerous.

Regards
Marc

Welcome Sher and Marc!

As far as the driving goes, that's best addressed with the doctors after establishing a firm diagnosis. I know that sometimes driving privileges are restricted for certain conditions (epilepsy comes to mind). And sometimes they're not, even if it might be better to do so. Sometimes it's an event-driven decision, such as not driving during an active migraine, but being okay to the rest of the time.

I've had a bizarre middle of the night event, too. A couple of years ago I woke up one night unable to feel my legs, and feeling kind of numb and buzzy all over, like I was vibrating deep inside. After a while sensation started to return, except that it felt like my legs were submerged in boiling lava, and they were sinking while the rest of me was floating. It took a good twenty minutes or so for that and all the weird neuro fluff stuff to start to pass, and I seriously thought I might be having a stroke of some kind. Then the migraine set in (one of my worst ever). It was certainly one of the scariest things I've ever been through.

I called my neuro's office a day or two later so they could put a note about it in my chart, and my neuro called me back. I'd been sick the few days before, and the best explanation we could come up with was that there was a cascade of things happening. Being sick, coupled with my diuretic dehydrated me. It also threw off my electrolytes. Being moderately dehydrated is probably what triggered the migraine and made it so snarly, and the electrolyte imbalance was probably the biggest culprit in all the neuro symptoms being as bad as they were, leading me to wonder about stroke, especially since I couldn't seem to get words out during the bulk of the attack (or I would've had my folks up and heading to the ER with me).

You might ask the doctor about the possibility of dehydration, considering the bladder infection and the antibiotics. Perhaps it's just a temporary imbalance from something related.

Whatever it is, I hope it was just a one-time thing, never to return. I hope your daughter's feeling better, too.

Hello,
I just want to thank Marc, Nancy and Deb for all of the helpful information in reply to my 10/24 posting. (my computer has been on the blink so I m just getting to read the replies. My daughters neuro work ups and all test had come back normal but the neurologist could not say that what she experienced was a hemiplegic migraine. Both the neurologist and her pediatric Doctor are in the wait and see mode.
I have read up on this condition but cannot seem to find any test that can diagnose it.
Marc's posting really nailed it. My daughter read what he listed as being his symptoms and said that she was relieved to know that she is not alone and she couldnt have described the symptoms any better.

I will plan to take her to a headache specialist.

Thank you all again. Sher

Thank you for the reply Sher, It's always good to be able to help even in some small way.

Just to let you know that I myself have undergone many many tests and scans and all have come back negative too.

This does not mean that I don't have my condition but that it simply shows no long term damage that is noticeable at present which is a relief in itself.

May I wish you both the very best of good health and Migraine free days.

Regards

Marc

Thanks for the update. I hope you and your daughter can find some help.

quote:

Originally posted by Sher:
Hello,
I'm happy to have located your site and hope to learn more about Hemiplegic Migraines. My 16 year old daughter has sufferred with occassional migraines that sometimes require going to the ER for a shot but recently she woke up in the middle of the night and was unable to speak properly and one side of her body was numb, like a stroke. I called 911 and she spent the night in the ER. After the experience, she vomited a lot and was not able to communicate well for several hours. All of the MRI's, eeg's and catscan came back normal. She had been on a sulfa antibiotic for a bladder infection at the time but the Doctors say that it is not a reaction to that. It sounds just like what I'm reading on Hemiplegic Migraines but the Neurologist said that it most likely is not because we do not have a family history.

I'm really concerned about this happening again and leaving damage.
She did re-gain all normal functions within 24 hours but if it happends again, I wonder if it leaves damage. Also, should someone with this condition be able to drive a car? Thank you in advance for any input. Sincerely- Sher

I had hemiplegic migraines all the time in in Junior and Senior High. I know these can cause small spots of damage in the brain that don't seem to cause long term effects. I am 36 and have no spots in my brain after years of these nasty stroke symptoms. My neurologist told me that the spots are so small that the brain compensates for these tiny damaged spots. Maybe she'll never have any damaged spots.