After a slight research
Oct. 30th, 2008 02:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyI do believe now that the mid-night sudden pains that I get are the result of stomach migraines. It was first mentioned by my ob-gyn when I described my symptoms and I have systematically confirmed that the medicine I have available for head migraines also work for the stomach version.
A couple of friends have seen me go through a normal migraine and more specifically 1-2 friends have watch me suffer the stomach version. It's not a pretty sight and I'm so grateful to have friends who care for me when they occur.
Normal migraines for me usually occur during the day, do not include aura that I can tell, and result in requiring a pitch black room, a bed, and no noise or head movement. My migraine medicine, a dissolvable Zomig pill, usually works within an hour of taking it and "gets rid of" a migraine in much the same way as aspirin or ibuprofen affects a normal headache. Ibuprofen never does jack or shit when I'm having a migraine, which is another way that I can tell the difference between a migraine and my cluster headaches, which I also get quite frequently. I tend to get the head migraine a couple times a year, whereas the cluster headaches come almost on a weekly basis to varying degrees of pain.
The head migraine feels like it starts as a cluster headache but quickly evolves into a very specific pain on one side of the head. After having the pain for a short while (~30-60 minutes) I tend to start feeling nauseas and may or may not feel like throwing up. In almost every case in which I have thrown up, the migraine seems to dissipate very quickly afterwards, but I'd hate to think that becoming bulimic is the route to my migraine salvation. Throwing up is not a preferable option.
The stomach migraine, though, has very distinctive symptoms. For starters, I can sense it coming on. Whereas as the head migraine tends to just be a cluster headache that morphs over a short period of time and I never see it coming, the stomach version seems to come out of nowhere. Even though I can't exactly pinpoint the feeling I get that provides warning, I can state for sure that it's coming within about 15 minutes of the first symptom.
That first symptom is a hot flash. As I mentioned, so far all of my stomach migraines have occurred during the night, and it is possible that it's brought on by something I eat for dinner or such, but I have yet to find a common thread in that direction. I have some nights where I wake up hot as I'm sure many people do, but this is a true hot flash in which I am sweating profusely and feel like standing under a fan naked still doesn't help. (Maybe stomach migraines are what causes spontaneous combustion *wink, wink*.)
The one time that I was awake at onset I was with a friend, and I was perfectly content just before the "feeling" and hot flash began. I was relaxed, in a comfortably temperate room, and there appeared no cause at all for the onset of the migraine.
The next and most severe symptom, which usually occurs within around 15-30 minutes of the hot flash onset, is a painful stomach cramp. Imagine when you have a stomach virus and feel like you need to throw up. For girls, combine that with your menstrual cramps and you now have an idea of the pain. A part of me wants to curl into a ball, but remember I'm having a serious hot flash as well and feel like I need to increase my surface area in order to cool down at the same time. Nothing works and the whole body starts to feel like instant flu body cramps.
The stomach/body cramps actually cause my neck muscles to tense so badly that I then get an accompanying headache. I think this is a natural reaction for my own body as I get tension headaches from just about everything, but from what I've read headaches are not normally part of a stomach migraine. I do note that unlike the head migraine in which the headache comes first, in the stomach migraine the headache occurs after the stomach seizing, which is another way that I can distinctly tell the difference in the two types of migraines. Nausea kicks in both from the cramps and the sudden tension headache. Again I feel like throwing up, which usually does not occur, but sitting on the cold floor in front of the toilet hoping that I'll hurl all the pain out still seems to be my favorite spot at this point in the progression.
The pain will simply continue until it dissipates, the timing of which is usually determined by whether or not I quickly take a migraine pill. At $20 a pill, these suckers aren't cheap and I don't waste them - if I'm even slightly not sure if I am having a migraine versus some other kind of issue then I will forgo taking one and instead try alternatives and just suffer through it. A non-medicated migraine for me last less than 24 hours, usually closer to 2-4 hours, but I do tend to need some recuperation sleep time afterwards. As I mentioned above, with medication the symptoms usually disappear ~30 minutes after the pill dissolves. This is much better than the ~1 hour it used to take with the non-dissolvable version of the pill. Every minute makes all the difference.
The last and final symptom shows up the next morning and usually only if I didn't take a pill. Diarrhea. So basically my stomach decides that if I'm not going to puke out the contents of the stomach and intestines, then it will just force clean out the areas in other ways. It really does feel like my body trying to vacate the area as though there was a bomb scare. Usually by mid-next day I'm fine and back to normal.
Except for later today, in which I'm going to be tired as hell since I stayed up typing this while waiting for the medicine to kick in, which it did about 30 minutes ago, but I really didn't want to leave this unfinished and I really wanted to see exactly how long I could make this last run-on sentence, just because I can.
A couple of friends have seen me go through a normal migraine and more specifically 1-2 friends have watch me suffer the stomach version. It's not a pretty sight and I'm so grateful to have friends who care for me when they occur.
Normal migraines for me usually occur during the day, do not include aura that I can tell, and result in requiring a pitch black room, a bed, and no noise or head movement. My migraine medicine, a dissolvable Zomig pill, usually works within an hour of taking it and "gets rid of" a migraine in much the same way as aspirin or ibuprofen affects a normal headache. Ibuprofen never does jack or shit when I'm having a migraine, which is another way that I can tell the difference between a migraine and my cluster headaches, which I also get quite frequently. I tend to get the head migraine a couple times a year, whereas the cluster headaches come almost on a weekly basis to varying degrees of pain.
The head migraine feels like it starts as a cluster headache but quickly evolves into a very specific pain on one side of the head. After having the pain for a short while (~30-60 minutes) I tend to start feeling nauseas and may or may not feel like throwing up. In almost every case in which I have thrown up, the migraine seems to dissipate very quickly afterwards, but I'd hate to think that becoming bulimic is the route to my migraine salvation. Throwing up is not a preferable option.
The stomach migraine, though, has very distinctive symptoms. For starters, I can sense it coming on. Whereas as the head migraine tends to just be a cluster headache that morphs over a short period of time and I never see it coming, the stomach version seems to come out of nowhere. Even though I can't exactly pinpoint the feeling I get that provides warning, I can state for sure that it's coming within about 15 minutes of the first symptom.
That first symptom is a hot flash. As I mentioned, so far all of my stomach migraines have occurred during the night, and it is possible that it's brought on by something I eat for dinner or such, but I have yet to find a common thread in that direction. I have some nights where I wake up hot as I'm sure many people do, but this is a true hot flash in which I am sweating profusely and feel like standing under a fan naked still doesn't help. (Maybe stomach migraines are what causes spontaneous combustion *wink, wink*.)
The one time that I was awake at onset I was with a friend, and I was perfectly content just before the "feeling" and hot flash began. I was relaxed, in a comfortably temperate room, and there appeared no cause at all for the onset of the migraine.
The next and most severe symptom, which usually occurs within around 15-30 minutes of the hot flash onset, is a painful stomach cramp. Imagine when you have a stomach virus and feel like you need to throw up. For girls, combine that with your menstrual cramps and you now have an idea of the pain. A part of me wants to curl into a ball, but remember I'm having a serious hot flash as well and feel like I need to increase my surface area in order to cool down at the same time. Nothing works and the whole body starts to feel like instant flu body cramps.
The stomach/body cramps actually cause my neck muscles to tense so badly that I then get an accompanying headache. I think this is a natural reaction for my own body as I get tension headaches from just about everything, but from what I've read headaches are not normally part of a stomach migraine. I do note that unlike the head migraine in which the headache comes first, in the stomach migraine the headache occurs after the stomach seizing, which is another way that I can distinctly tell the difference in the two types of migraines. Nausea kicks in both from the cramps and the sudden tension headache. Again I feel like throwing up, which usually does not occur, but sitting on the cold floor in front of the toilet hoping that I'll hurl all the pain out still seems to be my favorite spot at this point in the progression.
The pain will simply continue until it dissipates, the timing of which is usually determined by whether or not I quickly take a migraine pill. At $20 a pill, these suckers aren't cheap and I don't waste them - if I'm even slightly not sure if I am having a migraine versus some other kind of issue then I will forgo taking one and instead try alternatives and just suffer through it. A non-medicated migraine for me last less than 24 hours, usually closer to 2-4 hours, but I do tend to need some recuperation sleep time afterwards. As I mentioned above, with medication the symptoms usually disappear ~30 minutes after the pill dissolves. This is much better than the ~1 hour it used to take with the non-dissolvable version of the pill. Every minute makes all the difference.
The last and final symptom shows up the next morning and usually only if I didn't take a pill. Diarrhea. So basically my stomach decides that if I'm not going to puke out the contents of the stomach and intestines, then it will just force clean out the areas in other ways. It really does feel like my body trying to vacate the area as though there was a bomb scare. Usually by mid-next day I'm fine and back to normal.
Except for later today, in which I'm going to be tired as hell since I stayed up typing this while waiting for the medicine to kick in, which it did about 30 minutes ago, but I really didn't want to leave this unfinished and I really wanted to see exactly how long I could make this last run-on sentence, just because I can.
