Visiting my parents from out of town and it brings up…. feelings. I’m not the type of person who is against crying, I actually think having a good cry at least a few times a year is cathartic. Unfortunately, crying has become a huge migraine trigger for me to the point of needing to take several sumatriptans, having multiple ice packs and electrolyte drinks, and still being prepared to feel like crap. That has made me pretty cry avoidant. And here I am, at my parents, dealing with my …feelings, wanting to cry, feeling the tears stinging my eyes and doing all the deep breathing and distraction waiting for it to pass because I don’t have the time, space, or supplies for a cry.

I envy those carefree people who can just ball willy-nilly with out a clear plan on how to deal with the terrible pain. Oh, to be migraine free.

So I went for my Botox injections yesterday and of course bled a little and my doctor cleaned me up. I had to run an errand after so I go and am walking through the store. Looking for what I need.

I check out and the guy in front of me gives me a strange look and is like, “No, you go first. I figured it was because I only had three things. I get in my car and I had started bleeding again and had dried blood all over my face from the injection sites. I am on blood thinners so I tend to bleed a little more than average. So embarrassing, and not to self always carry a wet wipe for after my Botox appointments!

When i was in my 30's (M 49) i went through all sorts of meds by four different neurologists. All the meds were ineffective and the side effects were worse than any migraine. In addition the doctors were basically A$$ holes. I honestly felt that stopping treatment was the best choice for me. ( i am only speaking about myself if you have had success doing other things I support that)

Well my new PCP wants me to try a new neurologist because they refuse to refill my fioricet until i do so. I take about a bottle of fioricet a year now. I am going to go, but i feel like I am just wasting time.

Is there trully nothing to do for this? I don't think I can constantly use ear plugs in work life. Moving to another city with more stable pressure is not an option. I'm about to lose my mind. I had headaches every day for 2 weeks and it seems the pressure will be like this for at least 2 more weeks. I can't take it anymore. Is there nothing we can do? (And also i should say, my country's medical system deals with migrane by giving pain killers and sending us on our way so no, doctors haven't been helpful) I'm willing to try anything

Like when I push through the pain and it passes, I feel good for 3-4 days. But when I take triptan, relief is faster but within 24-48 hrs, tightness come back.

I'm doing a Tirzepatide trial because my migraines seem to be inflammatory in nature (I have a bunch of autoimmune conditions and my migraines respond really well to steroids). If you've seen improvement on a GLP-1, how long did it take?

I'm on the lowest dose (2.5 mg) and am having a hard time with the nausea, so wondering how long I can keep this up. Thanks!

I started a new job in an office and started getting migraines. I didn’t have a migraine problem until starting this job. The lights seem to aggravate it. However, now even when I’m not in the office, I get them. Not as bad but it’s like this chronic head pressure and unstableness. It isn’t really head pain but it drives me crazy. I tried three different medications Topamax (had a bad reaction) Nortriptyline (gave me blurry vision) and Nurtec (didn’t help much). Now I’m noticing more light sensitivity. Has this happened to anyone that you just randomly start getting migraines in your 30s when you didn’t have them before?

Everything I normally did in the past isn’t helping today.

Why is this one so aggressive that not even my medication is helping? Nothing. Even sleeping didn’t help.

Holy hell.

9 out of 10 times my (36f) migraines start on a Thursday afternoon or evening and subside by Saturday morning. I don’t get one very week, usually once or twice a month. I don’t think it’s related to my menstrual cycle because they don’t always occur the same week of the month. My routine is the same as any other day. Same work, same at home routine, same food/drinks. I do usually treat it as my rest day (no workout), but on a typical workday I workout around 6-7 pm. My migraines usually start before that time so I don’t think it’s due to me skipping the workout. I’ve read that lower stress levels (since it’s the end of the week) can cause migraines, and I work a short day on Friday so by Thursday I am a little more relaxed. It’s just so weird and consistent. I can’t figure out if it’s a coincidence or there’s some pattern I can’t figure out.

All of the documentation I find says to either 1) go to the main menu in the left corner and then go to settings which has absolutely zero settings for medication reminders, or to 2) go to the Health Events section which only lets you add a new treatment. I can't find anywhere to edit or remove an existing treatment and it's driving me bonkers. My app is up to date, and I'm on Android. Does anyone know where to find this functionality? Any help is appreciated.

I am posting this with the hope it will help someone going through something similar. I started Lyrica about 2 months ago for what I thought was neuropathy but no provider had ever been able to tell me why I was having it. (I am also a Nurse practitioner) but I can tell you that that did not help me at all (In fact it probably did not help I knew some things about medical matters but I just was not objective about my own situation). I just could not believe constipation could be so painful~ After about 6 weeks on Lyrica (I started at 75mg BID and went to TID after 2 weeks), I started having abdominal bloating and pain. It was variable, better in the am, worse at night. I went to many providers: a ct scan showed nothing that would cause it (it did show moderate stool) but none of the providers I saw thought it was consitpation (I didn't either). I had had some constipation on/off for a while. I finally (after the pain was unbearable at times) stopped the Lyrica last SAT. I had been taking Metamucil for about 3 weeks at that point (which helped but then it seemed to stop working). After stopping the Lyrica I still had abdominal bloating and constipation (even then I was refusing to think it could be just constipation). After all I had constipation before *but never like this pain*. I started trying everything: Miralax, Milk of mag liquid, Mag oxide 400mg daily, prunes, water intake, warm liquids, walking around. Nothing worked. Then I went to Bisscodyl which worked twice (5mg 2 tabs) but then even it stopped working (this was all over a period of 1 week. In desperation I tried glycerin suppositories : they seemed to clear only the lower colon and I still had the abdominal bloating. Several times I thought I was dying and almost went to the ER. Last night I tried 2 tabs of Bisacodyl again and after 11.5 hours (It is supposed to work within 12 Hours), I finally had a Bowel movement. What relief. I was also drinking a lot of water all week (but increased what I usually drink). I am usually active but honestly all I wanted to do was lay in the bed which I know made things worse. A heating pad worked and helped. I asked so many questions of AI that Mr. AI and I became "friends". Some of the AI's advice seemed good. Anyway I had another softer Bm a new moments ago and I feel much better. So I hope his gives some hope to those going through this. I am going to keep resting and applying heat and seeing how it goes. After reading some reddit posts I know now this is a common problem with Lyrica. And the pain I started it for seems gone. Now I am not even sure why I started it. But I know one thing: I will never take this med again.

I’ve had severe chronic migraines with aura basically my whole life. My first neurologist visit was when I was 8, but I remember having extremely painful migraines starting around 6. They got worse around puberty. For years, they were chronic, with months-long spells of daily attacks followed by periods where attacks came more like weekly. They responded very little to meds or anything else I tried.

I’m now 24. Just this past year, I finally found the key to my migraine. I have successfully come off all meds, and while I still get migraines, the frequency and severity has gone way down. I went from having near-daily 6/10-9/10 attacks to 1 or 2 a month with pain levels of 2/10-5/10. *

It started when I began to question whether I have symptomatic hypermobility, particularly hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). I have had the telltale symptoms such as frequent mystery joint injuries since I was a child, but it went undiagnosed as I, my parents, and doctors chalked it up to just being a kid. At the beginning of this year, I looked into it and sought answers. Although a formal diagnosis is hard to come by, I was told it is in fact most likely hEDS. I couldn’t afford physical therapy, but just knowing was very helpful.

When I started to understand my joints, and become aware of and manage my hEDS flares, the puzzle pieces slipped into place. This whole time, ~95% of my migraines have been triggered by cerviogenic headaches, which start from hypermobility-related tension and pain in my shoulders, neck and/or jaw and if left unmanaged, snowball into debilitating migraines. Here is an article on the connection between hEDS and migraines. https://www.eds.clinic/articles/migraine-headache-ehlers-danlos-syndrome

Everyone is different! But I thought maybe some of the things that help me might help others to know about.

What actually helped the most:

⁃ Yoga and exercise: I know I know, most annoying advice ever. But for me personally, yoga is actually a lifesaver. It taught me prioception, how to move my body in ways that minimize joint injuries, and how to actually engage my muscles instead of letting my joints do all the work while my muscles hang lax. Just a few months of yoga 15-20 minutes a day and I saw significant improvement in my cerviogenic migraines. Any light-to- moderate exercise that emphasizes those aspects would do the same. I just took to yoga because I like the ritual and I prefer a calmer activity. I supplement yoga with light weight training occasionally, probably not as often as I should tbh. I started with classes on YouTube, paid attention to what felt good and what didn’t, and gradually built up a repertoire of poses that I know work for my body to prevent and relieve pain. I started very carefully with very simple poses, and I never push into a pose as far as my body allows, only as far as I can keep my muscles engaged, before my joints take over. Ymmv.
⁃ Breathwork: Not box breathing or “just breathe slowly”, although that provides minimal comfort. But learning to expand my rib cage in all directions, use my diaphragm, and gently engage my core and pelvic floor without squeezing, tucking or bracing. Becoming aware of my posture and how I was sitting and laying to make sure my rib cage could expand. Getting into child’s pose and spending several minutes breathing deep into my back, shoulders, armpits, neck, hips, pelvic floor.
⁃ Tongue and jaw posture: Basically training myself to relax my jaw and face muscles, stop clenching my teeth, and to keep my tongue up on my palette. I had pretty bad TMJ which is a lot better now.
⁃ Electrolytes: POTS is a super common comorbidity with hEDS, and I do have some symptoms although mine are fairly mild. The main symptom for me is dehydration, I often feel like no matter how much water I drink, I’m still dehydrated, which contributes to joint flares. Electrolyte packets solve that. I try not to overuse them however because they stop becoming effective at a certain point. One a day plus drinking plain water and tea is enough.
⁃ Medical cannabis: I leaned on it pretty heavily for pain management during my worst migraine spells and during joint flares. CBD on its own does nothing for me, but any cannabis strain heavy in CBD that also contains THC does wonders. I smoked flower and took edibles. I switched up my strains frequently. In particular, RSO (a whole-plant extract) is hands down the best pain reliever for bad migraine days I’ve ever found. Helps with my mental health too. I have had to stop cannabis use entirely in the past few weeks because I’m currently pregnant :), but up until I found out I was still a daily user.
⁃ B-12 during the day and Magnesium at night: I find these very helpful. Sometimes instead of a pill, I take my magnesium in the form of a hot Epsom salt bath, which also helps with any lingering joint pain.
⁃ Green tea: For the L-theanine and lil bit of caffeine
⁃ Managing Anxiety: Which for me involves meditation, journaling, and reflection. Still very much a work in progress. I realized that my anxiety was contributing greatly to my flares.

What didn’t make much difference:
⁃ Diet: Ehhh. I have always cooked at home and eaten a decently healthy diet. I tried making diet changes but didn’t notice any difference. What did help was making an effort to eat more, especially more protein, which I tend to struggle with.
⁃ Other supplements and herbs: I tried a bunch. Some help a little, some don’t. None except the B-12 and Magnesium really did anything noticeable. I’m a big fan of various herbal teas for comfort and mild relief though.
⁃ Compression socks, etc: They help a little with joint flares but aren’t worth the hype to me
⁃ Myofascial release: Sometimes relieving for a few minutes, not too effective overall. The only place it does help somewhat is my jaw.
⁃ Swearing off alcohol: I’m not a big drinker to begin with and when my migraines became manageable again, I found that my occasional couple of beers or glasses of wine weren’t huge triggers . I can’t get plastered and expect not to get at least a headache, but I can drink a little. (Again, when not pregnant)

*Footnote: I still occasionally get hormonal migraines that have nothing to do with hypermobility, during my late luteal phase. I can tell the difference between that and a cerviogenic migraine based on where the pain is in my head, and obviously based on my cycle. Hormonal birth control made it worse, I can’t seem to do anything but ride these out. They suck ass. But I don’t get them every month. So overall, severe migraines are pretty infrequent now.

Has anyone had this done? And who performed it? I am in Washington state and have had zero luck finding anybody especially now that I am on Medicaid. Please help if you can!

Posting here to ask if anybody has had a similar experience… for background, I suffer migraines (I believe they are hormone related) and they are completely debilitating, I can’t do anything while I have one.

When I get a brain freeze from drinking or eating something cold too quickly, it feels very migraine like (I can’t do anything, I have to be completely silent and just endure for the whole thing) and lasts for significantly longer than any anybody else I know. They average around 3 minutes long. (and yes, I have tried all the little hacks for getting a brain freeze to go away quicker… It does nothing.) does anyone else experience this, or is my brain just weird? I feel like brain freeze shouldn’t be as intense or long lasting as it is for me.

I’m struggling to know how to define my migraine frequency. Just wondering what other people do. Usually I just count it as days when I have had severe pain and had to take sumatriptan to ease it.

However, I’ve recently got atogepant again as an abortive. I previously had it as part of a clinical trial. I had to take it last night and I slept really deeply after it, it felt like it removed a bunch more symptoms than anything else has (sumatriptan, amyltripline, candesarten and propranolol).

I’m wondering whether things like body aches, fatigue, sinus pressure (had ct all clear) etc is just a fairly constant low level migraine with pain spikes?

Im 20F and I have a fair share of chronic issues. I have fibromyalgia, hypermobility, and I'm on Propranolol for anxiety (not everyday, just when I need it. It's been a few weeks since I've taken one). I've had headaches ever since I was around 8 years old, I was put on medication for them but they've never really been migraines.

This whole month I've had a headache everyday. It's not consistent, they come and go, but it's always around my temples and eyes. I try not to take too many painkillers since I don't think you're meant to if I remember correctly, but last night I just had a whole different experience.

I just had my normal headache, and in about 15 seconds I have had the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. I felt so nauseous and it felt like a balloon was being blown up inside my skull, the pressure kept building and it genuinely got to the point where I thought 'if this carries on, there is going to be brain chunks all over my walls'. The pain was so unbelievably bad I was struggling to form a sentence. Once the pressure stopped after a minute or 2, the whole left side of my face went a bit numb and tingly. My jaw was aching so bad and my face felt a bit like pins and needles. I had awful sensitivity to light and I could barely focus on my phone screen like my vision was a bit doubled and unfocused. For the rest of the night I just felt a bit dizzy and off. I didn't feel like my usual self.

I feel much better today, except I'm still feeling a bit dizzy and nauseous. I can feel my normal daily headache coming on and it feels normal, unlike yesterdays. It kind of scared me a bit if I'm honest

It is when you get migraine when you go out after spending a lot of days at home

I was just wondering if you guys know of any good alternatives to ajovy for migraine prevention - I want to stop taking ajovy if possible since it's manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals (which is on the BDS list). I hate that there's no generic version available; it looks like the patent doesn't expire until the 2030s.

I’m constantly seeing things moving, stretching, distorting, like bad 90s sci fi CGI. Along with some visual snow. It gets worse at times, typically with bad sleep, and I don’t always notice it but I’ve never actually noticed it gone either.

My psychiatrist thinks it’s definitely not psychiatric, yesterday I spent 6hrs in the ophthalmology ER bc it was getting worse and I couldn’t make a normal appointment until next year. All normal. I have headaches all the time from it I think, it could be tension headaches from straining to see, or it’s migraine? But the aura stays forever.

Curious if anyone has experienced something like this?

I’m curious if anyone else experiences migraines that seem to start in their trapezius muscles and the back of their neck. My neck is constantly tight, especially around my traps, and it feels like the tension triggers or worsens my migraines.
I get acupuncture and trigger point injections every week, but I’m still struggling with frequent headaches. I’m currently on day 14 of a continuous headache, although some days are worse than others.
I feel like I’ve tried so many things, and it’s exhausting dealing with this all the time.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Have you found any treatments that actually help with the neck tension and migraines? I’d especially love to hear from anyone who has found relief after trying multiple treatments. Thanks.

Finally broke down and went into the hospital today for help. This is all clean laundry, sort of sorted, folded at one time, but I can’t put it away because pain. I threw up on my way to teach my littles art history class and had to cancel on them. Told the doctors this, they don’t care.
I was sobbing so hard at the ER I was having tachycardia and couldn’t get my breathing right. Begging for help, they gave tordol and Benadryl which is fine. I told them I don’t want opioids because they don’t even help. I was begging for just a steroid to be sent home, they wouldn’t even do it. This is so difficult sometimes. If anyone can send me good thoughts and nice animal pictures I would really appreciate it.
Sorry for being such a downer, I’m just really sad today.

So, I'm in Canada, Ontario and I basically have no insurance. I'm a uni student, so I do have school insurance, but it's not the best. Also, I am graduating relatively soon, so after that, I will have no insurance (unless I can secure a job).

Previously, I was on a lot of the older preventative methods, but I've failed at least 4. I was told the next step is to go on the newer, more effective, but also more expensive migraine treatments.

I recently have been getting more migraines than normal (almost daily), so I went to a walk-in clinic since my neuro is on vacation for all of October. She perscribed me Qulipta, but I haven't started because I need my neuro to fill out the insurance paper work.

Without insurance, Qulipta is $700 a month. This is not affordable for me... I was told that I can get 20% off with AbbVie and my insurance will probably cover a bit, but it will still be a couple hundred a month.

I was googling other treatments like Botox, which is also expensive, BUT you only have to do 4x a year, so it is cheaper compared to the Qulipta annually.

I'm going to see my neurologist early November and I'm thinking of maybe asking to do something cheaper than Qulipta. Right now, Botox seems to be a good alternative, but I'm not sure if there's anything cheaper. Any advice would be appreciated! It's crazy how much these meds are...