[quote]This might tread on a few toes but here goes. Based on some of the comments here, “migraine” is sometimes being used to describe headaches that are not the medical definition of migraine. Having a strong or frequent headache is not a migraine; and no amount of paracetamol will kill the knifelike pain of a genuine migraine attack.
[/quote]
That’s true. A lot of people use the owrd ‘migraine’ to describe a really bad headache, but they may have another kind of headache altogether. Here’s some symptoms to help reciognise a migraine:
The most common symptom is a headache (you’d think this would go without saying, but on reare occasions people have been known to have migraines without headaches). The headache is often/usually more on one side of the head than the other, feels like it’s at the front of the headache near the forehead, and is an intense sort of pain (not that dull pain of a head cold).
Second most common syptom is a visual thing called a ‘scotoma’. This is very hard to describe to people who haven’t experienced it, but the way I experience it is as if there was some glass in front of your field of vision and someone had scrathed an oval on it with a zig-zaggy line. Then this oval flickers and shimmers and gets bigger and bigge. This type is called a ‘spreading scintillating scotoma’. Visual syptoms usually precede the headache and other symptoms, in my case, by about 30 mins.
Nausea is very common, and I used to vomit a lot if my migraine went untreated.
Sensitivity to light and sound is another common symptom that I suffer.
Sometimes you can get cold.
I also occassionaly experience a strange ‘bad trippy’ mental symtpom. My thought processes get messed up and dream-like. This is really horrible (and hard to describe).
Another symptom (in myslef - I haven’t read about this or anything) that I only identified a few yearsa go is an inexplicable depression several hours after the migraine.
I also feel light-headed for up to a day after the migraine.
These are the symptoms of the classic (or is it common) migraine, that usually lasts a period of hours (in my case 3-5). There is also the common (or is it classic) migraine with similar syptoms, usually less intense and varying in intensity, ofr a period of a few days.
Well, there you go. Now you should know if your headaches a migraines or not.
Brian