I have suffered migraines since I was 12 yrs old. I hit my head on a window in a car accident and I have relatives on both sides of my family that get migraines also. My father suffered 2 strokes before his death and I have one aunt, his sister, who suffers migraines and also has mini-strokes in her eyes and is slowly going blind. I have gone from periodic migraines to daily migraines that if I try to sleep during, because Ive been told thats a good thing to do, I wake up with ocular and or retinal migraines. I get charlie horses or muscle cramps in my neck and I would just about swear I can feel my brain shift in my skull. That I'm told is my either pinching or unpinching my occipital nerve. Is that whats acutally happening and should I be worried about having strokes myself along with strokes in my eyes and vision loss also?
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Hello, and welcome to HealthCentral's Migraine Community!
Your family history makes sense seeing as Migraine is a neurological genetic disease thought to be caused by overactive neurons in our brains and genetics.
One of the most important things is to get an accurate diagnosis. An accurate diagnosis will help simplify matters and make it easier for you to get information and treatment. To do so, doctors usually go by the gold standard for diagnosis, the International Headache Society's International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd Edition (ICHD-II). Although people often ask what “ocular” Migraines are, there’s no such diagnoses under ICHD-II. We do see it used, but doctors use it differently, so it really doesn't tell anyone what type of Migraine you actually have. You can read more about this Ocular, Optical, and Ophthalmic Migraines and The Type of Migraine Does Matter.
Since stroke is so prominent in your family, it is important to know the difference between the two. Teri just wrote a very good article on this; Migraine or Stroke? Delay in Treatment is Costly. At the bottom of that article there iis more links to information on stroke.
Neck pain can often be a symptom of a Migraine attack and even delay treatment. We have two separate articles on this topic; Those Frustrating Migraine Symptoms - Neck Pain (and its implications) and Migraine Treatment Delayed by Neck Pain.
Thank you for creating a SharePost. SharePosts are a form of blogging, and there are many things you can do with them. You can share an experience, suggest something that's helped you, use SharePosts as a Migraine and headache journal, and many other things.
We also have a discussion forum that you may want to check out. Especially if you have questions or are looking for information, you may find the interaction on the forum to be quite helpful. To get there, go to the Migraine home page and look on the left hand side where you'll see a row of boxes. The Forum box is at the very bottom. Click on it and scroll down to the bottom of that page, and you will see the log-in spot. Because our forums are maintained by a third party, you'll need to register for the forum. You can use the same information you used to create your community log-in if you like. If you want to go directly to the forum, you can click HERE.
Along with your personal "My Home" page and the discussion forum, you'll find links to a great deal of helpful information on the main page of our site, http://www.MyMigraineConnection.com. Under the Find, Manage, and Connect tabs on the left side each page, you’ll find a wealth of information – educational articles, tips, quizzes, workbooks, support and advocacy information, and more.
Do you have questions about Migraine? There are three ways to get answers – through our Ask the Clinician column, in our community Question and Answer Section, or through our forum. Just go to our Migraine Answers page HERE.
Our email newsletter will help you stay up-to-date on Migraine and headache news and new information published on HealthCentral's MigraineCommunity. To receive our newsletter, click the “Sign up now!” link in the navigation bar across the top of our site pages or simply click HERE.
Welcome again,
Nancy Bonk
Health Guide
HealthCentral's Migraine Community
PS: If you receive this message from more than one of us, please excuse the overlap. Thanks!
Hello Nancy,
Thank you for a very nice welcome and I have to admit I am both terrified and confused and more informed than I was two days ago. I have read some of the materials on this web site and find it scares me even more. I have alot of issues going on with my head and neck than I know what to do with. I spoke to a retired emergency room nurse a few years back, she was an aquaintenances wife who had dealt with migrainures in her er. She told me that when you get a migraine there is an amount of swelling that come with it. Well that sent me reeling, no one had ever told me about that and I've been dealing with this for more than 30 yrs. I can tell when there is swelling because the right side of my face swells, and my right eye turns in towards my nose, sometimes there is a loss of vision sometimes there isn't.
My doctor has put me off work, I can no longer work and medical treatment is at a stop and until something breakes for me I won't be able to be treated for the migraines, the depression, or the ptsd. If you have any more suggestions I would greatly appreciate them. Let me tell ya I had a friend tell me that his aunt had migraines and that she committed suiside and I also saw that we are more likely to attempt it which I have myself even before I had all this info, and let me tell you I get that! Unfortunately I get that too well, I even asked my father at one point to go out and buy me a gun because I watched my mom suffer because of them and I was at my lowest. I'm trying very hard not to be there right but I will admit I am having a really hard time doing that.
So your words, links, and infor is more appreciated than I can express I just dont know what to do any more to help myself and now I have a little bit of a jump off point to do that. So the sun will come up again tomorrow, and itll be a new day to find a new way. Thank you for everything, please keep it coming, my parents wouldn't want me to give up so I'm trying not to. I will keep reading and keep myself better informed than I was yesterday. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Kimmer N.
My pleasure Kimmer. I'm sorry you are more confused, what exactly is it that confuses you?
As far as the swelling goes, the nurse may have been talking about the vascular theory of Migraine, which is no longer current. It is true, that we can experience the symptoms you've described, but a complete neurological exam would be in order to make sure nothing else is going on with your eyes.
I'm a bit concerned that you are not being treated at the moment. There are options for people who don't have health insurance depending on where you live.
There may well be free or low-cost health care services available in your community. Check with your county health department and the closes office of your state Department of Health and Human Services. Also, there are federally-funded clinics that base their fees on your income level. To find out more about them and see if there's one in your area, see HRSA Health Centers Can Provide Basic Migraine Care.
Also most of the pharmaceutical companies have patient assistance programs to provide free medications to patients with no insurance who meet their income guidelines. This is a great resource and members here have used it -the guidelines are pretty generous. Try going to www.pparx.org to check on all of your medications. You list all of them on the site, and it will tell you which ones have programs you qualify for. It will then even take you through the process to fill out the application forms and print them. You then take them to your doctor for his or her signature and send them in.
Try to stay positive, as hard as is it - one day at a time - no one wants you to give up and the better educated about our disease we are the more empowered we become. Please let me know you are ok and we'll keep in touch!
Nancy
Hi Nancy,
I did visit the free clinic two towns over during the summer but didnt feel comfortable with the way I was treated and unfortunately going there is an all day ordeal. When i tried to get treatment for the migraines I was given a naproxin/magnezium mix pill to take and all that did was make me bleed, and when your already haveing 2 periods a month thats becomes a problem and an expense I cannot afford.
I have been dealing with the last 3 days actual swelling in the right side of my head and in my face. And I havent figured out how to get that down so the migraine will go away too. I know that alot of the problem is from the car accident and actually had those x-rays done of my skull but like I said, getting my doc. to look at the physical pictures and the paperwork from the d.o. that I saw after the accident is like pulling teeth. What I dont understand with him is he at one time treated my mom so it would stand to reason that if she had them at least one of her children would end up having some form of migraines. But I'm not the one with all the letters behind my name either.
I also recieved a phone call from my one of my godmothers who is the migrainure who has had strokes in her eyes, she is my dads sister, other brother, my other godfather, who also is a migrainure and has had problems with ruptured blood vesseles in the brain, which runs in my family also, has had seziers also. I also am unfortunately under quite a bit of stress for more that a year now and that doesnt seem to have an end in sight.
My doctor put me off work itll be a year August, and because I cant pay his office visit I cant be seen by him. Maybe the swelling is from way too much info at one time I dont know but I almost feel like I should just get it done with instead of dealing with all of this crap and lack of help for the rest of my life. Ya know I remember my mom being told by doctors "oh, its all in your head" and yeah it is thats where all the pain is make it stop and if you cant or wont why don't I make it stop. My doctor once told me, when I was on the depo shot mind you, that when I hit menopause itll get better. So I asked him, wait my body thinks its either pregnant or in menopause and my migraines are getting worse. Believe it or not he had nothing to say to that just kinda shrugged his shoulders.
By the middle of Feb. Ill know weather or not my social security was approved or not but when I was sent to see a shrink it was just the same fool with a ph.d that got me denied for medicade not a shrink that I could have asked to help me with the depression and the ptsd. But I walked out thinking to myself that I am gonna be out of luck on that one too and am gonna have to fight that also and to be honest I have spent so much time fighting for myself that I am truely tired. I will though look into those sites to see what I can get into but with the loss of my dad, sunday markes a year, way long story there, I know the antidepressent I was on was no longer working I was on it about 10 yrs. so that doesnt surprise me. What doesnt help is that from Aug.2011 to Jan. 2012 I lost everything I had spent my life earning along with my dad. So times have been really difficult for me and whats left of my family so please forgive my lack of fight.
I will however see what I can get into with the info you sent me today but Im not going to get my hopes up because being out of work doesnt allow me any wiggle room. I thank you for your time and your help and dont want to monopolize your time, there are other people out there who need the help as much as I do but I cant tell you how nice it is to feel like Im not nuts, that there are other folks out there who are struggling like I am. Thank you again for your time and help and info it is MUCH appreciated.
Hi Nancy,
I looked into those links you forwarded to me. When I went to them I got either the page has expired, cannot be found, or cannot be displayed. I did try to take one of the quizes from the website and went from question 2 to question 9 couldn't answer that one and then the page has expired. I don't know if the problem is with my puter as it is just a laptop, or with the sites themselves.
Please help.
Kimmer
Hey there,
First, please don't worry about taking up my time, that's what we are here for, to support and try to help. I just wish I had better answers for you. I know when I didn't have insurance and money was more than tight, I had to do some serious strick budgeting to get the money together for medication and doctors and even then it wasn't easy and sometimes didn't happen.
You have had a very difficult year, and please accept my condolence on the loss of your father, I cannot imagine how devastating that must have been.
As far as the links go, I just tried them and they worked ok for me. You may want to clear your 'cookies' and cache on your computer or try a different browser, sometimes that helps.
Is there are university hospital anywhere near you? That may be something to investigate. New doctors, current knowledge and they won't have any history so you can start fresh. Just an idea.