I've experienced migraines since I was 14 - I don't think I had them as badly as my mother used to (as I remember days and days of her being unable to do anything other than lie down in a dark room with the children being super-quiet). But I have had some migraines for extended periods of 3 days... in 2 cases, for more than a week... but usually one-day migraines or two-day migraines. I am subject to two different types of migraines - I call them different types because of their onset, not because of anything else.
Type I: instant and overwhelming effect. No time to brace myself; no time to take medication before the full-blown scale hits. If this happens when I'm driving, I immediately have to go into survival-mode - I have one thought on my mind, and that is to maintain control over the car and get off the road immediately.
Type II: I feel a sort-of tentative wave of pain and prickling of my eyes. It lasts for a few seconds and recedes. This is the precursor; I immediately take medication and hope I've acted quickly enough to minimise the coming migraine which hits at full strength within the next few minutes.
Symptoms: excruciating pain; disorientation (I can't tell left from right, or gauge distance properly); white lights fracturing my sight; loss of coherency (I cannot even think clearly, let alone speak fluently); etc.
Ways to prevent migraine: avoid triggers. I get far fewer migraines as a result of avoiding those definite triggers. Whereas it used to be every couple of weeks, it's now down to no more than 3 a year as long as I avoid the triggers.
Ways to treat migraine: hard to treat. Pain-killing medication, yes - but for the very worst, it doesn't seem to help. At least... if it DOES help, I can't gauge the effectiveness because the level of pain and incoherency seems just as bad to me. It may well be that there are degrees of the intolerable.
Aftermath: weirdly, like some migraine sufferers, I experience one of two distinctly different feelings after the full migraine has gone. It's not related to the type of onset, either. Reaction 1: feeling of immense fragility, as though I'd shatter like a thin glass eggshell at any moment. I feel heavy-eyed and tentative. Reaction 2: feeling of vitality and extreme energy, as though sunshine is running through my veins and happiness is exciting all the neurons of my mind.
.....
It's almost beyond belief that anyone would create a forum which induces such symptoms in any member.
I should mention that I differentiate between headaches and migraines. They are different. I have had an increase in headaches for a while, but that's related to other things. I've gone back to chiropractic treatment, and I have every expectation of that helping!
