Archive

Posts Tagged ‘migraine’

May
26

So you think you have a migraine and you want to know what the migraine symptoms are? As I migraine sufferer I can tell you that many people that claim to have a migraine really just have a bad headache. If you were experiencing a migraine like I experience them you will find yourself curled up in a little ball lying in bed and cursing any sounds or light. Now this may seem extreme but if you really do have severe migraine symptoms you know what I am talking about.
Soma in Mexico
The migraine symptoms I experience are often associated with a severe throbbing in my temples that is preempted by a loss of acute vision. By loss of acute vision I mean that my vision gets blurry and objects seem to jump, which starts in my peripheral vision and usually with just one eye at first. It eventually moves to both eyes and encompasses my whole field of vision. This is what is called an aural migraine symptom and is easily recognized. At this point there is nothing to do except close my eyes and begin praying to the migraine god for relief.

As I begin to accept that for the next 6 to 8 hours I will be incapacitated, I begin to wait for the other migraine symptoms to manifest. As an experienced migraine sufferer I know exactly what the next migraine symptoms are and when they will take effect. The next symptom will be a sudden lightheaded feeling, as if I were on an airplane that has just lost altitude. When this first happened I became very anxious because of the feeling of losing consciousness. I have since been able to control this feeling and no longer experience the anxiety associated with it.

The next migraine symptom is nausea that is brought on by the lightheaded feeling. It is this feeling that most people complain about and don’t know how to combat it. I immediately begin taking deep breaths and continue to breath deeply into my diaphragm. This has proven very effective for me and may help you also.

While I am recovering from the nausea I find that I can no longer tolerate light of any sort. It feels as though I am looking directly into the sun and I don’t have sunglasses on. There is an intense headache building up directly behind my eyes or on one side of my head. This varies and is not the same each time.

The next migraine symptom I like to refer to as the heavy rock syndrome. Imagine yourself at a Metallica concert and sitting against one of the 10-foot speakers that is blasting out at a decibel level that resembles a small earthquake. Each vibration, each minute sound wave coursing through my body like nails on a blackboard.

Once I reach this stage of frenzied agony I have officially left the land of the living and enter the realm of nightmare. There is no relief in sight except to pray that I am capable of falling asleep. It is through this level of unconsciousness that I begin to recover from my migraine symptoms only to awaken and start to begin, what I like to refer to as “migraine residuals“. These will last for several days, depending on the intensity of my migraine symptoms and include a headache, body aches and bouts of dizziness.
Mexican pharmacy prices
So you think you have migraine symptoms? If you do then I can totally sympathize with you. If you aren’t experiencing what I have just described then consider yourself fortunate. What I have learned to do is appreciate the times I don’t have a migraine. Gotta look on the bright side.

Apr
20

To begin we must first understand what is Botox. Also known as the botulinum toxin, botox is a medicine that is a neurotoxin. Neurotoxins are the medicines that attack our nerve cells. Botox was actually made & approved by the FDA in order to fight back the conditions of hyperactivity of the muscles. Actually the theory of Botox is to weaken or paralyze the muscles by inhibiting the release of acetylcholine in the person’s body. Further, the acetylcholine is an ester of choline that plays an essential role in the transmission of the nerve impulses at the synapses & myoneural that is the muscle nerve junctions. With the inhibition the release of acetylcholine, one’s nerves can not cause the muscle contraction and hence the muscles get relaxed. This drug is given by injecting directly in to the affected muscles.

This drug is quite effective in relieving the pain of migraine. Hence, botox is great relief to headaches. Now the researchers are trying to use botox as a treatment to the chronic headaches, especially the tension or stress headaches & migraines. Usually stress or tension headache is caused due to self induced stress that further causes the tightness of muscles that leads to mild and / or moderate pain across your forehead, at the back of your head, and / or through out your head. Migraines of all sorts tend to produce a pulsating or pounding pain on one side of your head. These are frequently accompanied by nausea, visual disturbances, and / or sensitivity to light and / or sound.

Botox is now a commonly suggested drug for almost all migraine patients these days. Besides the neurosurgeons, now the plastic surgeons are also suggesting their patients to take Botox as the drug helps reduces the wrinkles on the face and reduces the headache in those patients as well.

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Mar
20

The day of my first attack was during the latter days of summer in 1957. I was in my first year working for the old London Trustee Savings Bank, which was situated in Poultry in the City of London. My position as accounts clerk meant I was placed next to the vault below ground and directly under the main bank floor. I shared this space with a senior accounts clerk, who was nearing retirement. We were both working merrily away writing up the old type account cards and ledgers (long before computers came in) from all the deposit and withdrawal slips sent down to us from the Cashiers. This was a regular daily occurrence.

On the particular day in question, we were well up with our entering and it was getting near to closing of the Bank. Then suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, my head felt like it was exploding and my eyes lost their vision. Then the feeling to my left arm disappeared and I had this great feeling to be sick, although I wasn’t. I had no alternative but to place my head on the massive ledger and shout for help. My senior accounts clerk called up to those in the main bank building and the Manager came down and started to ask me questions about what was happening to me.

IT WAS AT THIS TIME I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE!!

Fortunately, as the minutes progressed the vision in my eyes started to return, but as it did there were great flashes down the outside of each eye, which resembled zigzag lightning. This stayed with me for the whole time the vision was getting back to normal, about half an hour. By this time the Bank was closed and I was now almost able to move from my seat with my arm ceasing to be partially paralysed. I was now sufficiently mobile to be able to catch the underground train from The Bank back to The Oval (Kennington) where I proceeded to walk to my doctor’s surgery.

Upon gaining entry to the doctor’s surgery and relating my recent experiences to him, especially about the bit where I said I thought I was going to die, he had the audacity to start laughing aloud relating the reasons for why I had had all these symptoms and felt as shocking bad as I did. Not what I was expecting to receive from what I would think to be a professional man.

Although when I analysed what he had said, it did not bear any resemblance to a diagnosis, as to what I had suffered almost alone and at the tender age of 16. He tried to put the blame on the cheese sandwiches I had had for lunch, followed by the four fingers of kit-kat chocolate. OK, at the time it might have sounded plausible, as others did say similar to me over the following attacks. But during my 50 plus years of suffering migraines, these two components (cheese & chocolate) would not be my reasons for the migraines interrupting my life at regular intervals.

IN FACT, I AM HAVING A MIGRAINE AS I AM WRITING THIS NOW!! So what is the reason for this? As yet nobody will be able to tell me. No cheese or chocolate has passed my lips, the whole day.

As I mentioned above, I have been getting migraine attacks for almost 52 years and during that time they have taken their similar course, but not always exactly. There have been times when I do not get pins & needles throughout one arm or the other, there are other times when I do not feel sick, not even slightly.

But the THREE main protagonists are always there, firstly the vision in my eyes goes, then the exaggerated flashing zigzags (although sometimes it is to the outside of one of the eyes only) and then the violent headache, this comes as regular as one day following another. The recovery time is always different, with sometimes a more rapid return to normality than some others. The worst being those long hours in a darkened room, under the duvet with the pillow also over your head. Not knowing when you will become NORMAL again, like other non sufferers.

Another cause of my migraines is the sudden flash of the sun off a car or lorry windscreen, this happens when you least expect it or you are not wearing sunglasses. It can also cause the most concerns, as because it affects my vision, so it will affect my view when driving. Fortunately for me, the vision it impairs is my short range vision, so I am still able to drive the car to a safe place to park and then rest up while my vision returns and I can continue my journey, having taken my tablet to relieve the headache bit.

There have been many times when I have suffered multiple attacks in the same day, the most being four. Only the other day I experienced three following very quickly after each other during one morning and this was after having an attack the previous day. In my present position with medication I would not have been too concerned because I have at last found a tablet which nullifies my headache completely and after all these years I can put up with the vision loss etc but I was down to only three tablets and was not able to get my repeat prescription because the manufacturers were not supplying them again until December -PANIC. So my doctor prescribed me some alternatives, of course no where near as good and after taking them for one day, they drove my bowels crazy with four visits to the toilet in that day. Needless to say I spent most of the day and the following night in bed (apart from the visits to the WC).

As we all are aware, we are always at the mercy of the dreaded migraine attack, not really knowing when it will happen and how bad they will be. We are also no given much encouragement from the powers that be, in that they will never know the reasons why we have to suffer. I suppose we are in a similar category to those who suffer badly with the common cold – No Remedy. Although that is no consolation, we must always take the positive view that our migraines are not usually life threatening.

So as we sufferers always do, we survive the current attack and wait for the next one to happen, because as we are certain, the next one will arrive but unlike buses, there is no timetable.

This last round of attacks was the reason I sat down and wrote this article, because although I had been suffering, I was sure there were many thousands of others suffering in a similar way.

Therefore, in closing, I will stress (there’s another good reason for an attack) that the article in this article has been written on only some of my own personal experiences (to put all of them would be boring and drive you all to a migraine). Many of you who read this may have similar experiences to me, but whatever your symptoms perhaps you would all put pen to paper and write your experiences down and then send them to me by email at the address shown below.

In this publication I have put the bad sides of what has happened throughout my 52 year migraine life, but I have also tried to implanted a little humour throughout, as we must not get ourselves into such a tunnelled existence, as migraines can send you, if you let them.

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