Sunday, January 11, 2009

What they are like

In the beginning...
I don't really know what an "aura" is, in the migrainous sense, so I'm pretty sure I don't have it.
I don't find myself particularly light sensitive, but at time I know a migraine is in the offering because I become painfully sensitive to noise and odors.
One time, riding in a male friend's car, his personal odor became so overwhelming I could hardly stand it. I had to breath through my mouth to keep from gagging (this was a very fastidious and clean person, who normally did not smell bad to me).
I also notice that a lot of colors and things moving around cause distress -- during the opening sequence of the movie "Twilight" there's some kind of chase sequence I actually had to close my eyes during because it made my head hurt.
The Pain:
I get very frustrated when doctors ask questions about the pain: where is it? what does it feel like? Does it throb? Pulsate? Is it sharp? Dull?
I don't know! It hurts, okay!!
However, after going through this a few times, I've tried to pay more attention to the specific qualities of the pain, when I'm laying there hoping for a merciful death.
So... normally, I feel the pain behind my eyes. In fact, when it's coming on I can often be seen pressing my fingers into the hollows on either side of the bridge of my nose (sometimes I pull my hair too -- it doesn't make the pain stop, but for a moment it distracts me from it)
If the headache advances, I often notice a sort of center to the pain on one side, just behind my eye -- normally the right side, if I remember correctly. One part of the trouble is that pain can be disorienting and I have trouble remembering things about it.
Yes, it does throb. If that's different than pulsating, I'm at a loss.
Quite a lot of the time it's a dull pain, but dull kind of like a mallet as opposed to a knife or needle.
I can work through a certain amount of pain, but there comes a point at which it is literally impossible to continue to function. And I know that the more I push it, the worse it will be later.
I feel like people might think my headache really isn't that bad because I can continue to talk and even joke when I have one, but it's really just that I'm used to it.
The icky part
I normally get nauseated, but I don't usually vomit unless I try to keep working or driving or doing an activity. Of the handful of times I've vomited (from a migraine), twice I was at work and should have gone home; once I was on a 250 mile drive and really should have stopped and checked into a motel; once I was on a day trip to Houston with a friend and didn't want to disappoint her.

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