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- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Sensitivity to light, sound, smell, movement or touch
There are many other symptoms that may also be experienced which are described in some of the videos in more detail. Some of these may include:
- Visual disturbances
- Partial or temporary blindness
- Loss of balance
- Vertigo
- Motor weakness
- Numbness
- Stroke-like symptoms such as paralysis of limbs
Migraines are essentially a brain malfunction. They are the result of something that’s not working properly. They are often described in the medical community as ‘a common primary headache disorder’. Which means it’s a disorder that is not caused by another underlying condition.
Contents
What are migraine attacks really? What do they feel like?
Migraines are a severe and debilitating headache that is accompanied by a specific set of symptoms which qualify it as a migraine and not just a bad headache.
To summarise the criteria from the International Headache Society, if you are experiencing moderate to severe pain, on one side of the head, nausea or vomiting and sensitivity to light or sound then you may be experiencing a migraine.
10 signs you’re having a migraine
The below signs are common symptoms of migraines. You may experience some or most of these in a single attack.
- Moderate to severe pain
- Pain aggregated by movement
- Pain is one-sided in the head
- Pulsing or throbbing headache
- Nausea or Vomiting
- Sensitivity to light and sound
- Headache lasts 4-72 hours if untreated
- Aura or disturbed vision, light spots, stars, visual distortion
- Vertigo
- Numbness, weakness or tingling.
If you are unsure about whether you get migraines, review the diagnostic criteria here.
Migraines are under-treated and under-diagnosed.(1)
Surprisingly, most people have not been diagnosed with migraine and may not know they get migraines. And less than 50% of migraineurs see a physician.(2) As a result many with migraine are not receiving the most appropriate treatment.
If you think you may get migraine attacks or if in doubt, it is a good idea to check with your doctor.
Who gets migraine?
Migraine is one of the most common health conditions worldwide.(3) Migraine affects around 1 billion people globally.(4) Of those with migraine, just over half (54%) claim to experience one or more attacks per month. 13% claim one or more attacks per week.(5) If you do the math, that’s around 130 million people who get weekly migraine.
Migraines typically affect more women than men. Ratio’s vary depending on how broad or where the study is. Some claim that women are 2x as likely, others claim women are 3x more likely than men to experience migraine.(6) The reality is likely somewhere in between i.e. women are 2-3 times more likely to get migraine versus men.
Children can have migraine as well. They can start at any age but are most common in their early to mid-teens.(7)
Regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status or culture, you can still have migraines. See this list of celebrities and influential people today and throughout history with migraine.
Why do I get migraine attacks?
Why do I get migraine attacks and not my sister for example? Interestingly, no one has figured out exactly what causes migraine and why exactly they occur in some people and not others. Recently medical researchers have discovered a genetic link between migraine. This means that if your parents or grandparents had migraine then you are at risk of inheriting the susceptibility of migraine.
If a mother experiences migraine, the child has a 50% chance of inheriting migraine. If both parents experience migraine, the child’s risk jumps to 75%.(8)
Environmental factors also play a role. Several head injuries such as concussion, whiplash or trauma may set off migraine attacks. A lifetime of inadequate sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, high stress may also play role. Physical abuse or difficult childhoods may also be linked with migraine incidence.
What happens during a migraine?
Researchers still don’t know exactly what causes a migraine attack, which makes a cure that much more difficult to develop. The leading theories for the cause of migraine relate to hyper excitability within certain areas of the brain or a ‘glitch’ from the brain stem which triggers the migraine.
The brain stem is a small but extremely important part of the brain. It allows the nerve connections of the motor and sensory system to pass from the brain to the body. It covers all of our sensations and the ability to move our body.
At the start of an attack, chemical changes are thought to originate in the brainstem which starts a series of reactions causing the brain to react and cascade into a migraine attack.
What causes a migraine attack?
For someone who has a physiological tendency towards migraine there are a number of potential causes that can ‘set off’ a migraine attack. Unfortunately, these are different for everyone. And even in the same person, triggers can be different at different times.
Common migraine triggers such as stress, sleep, alcohol and hydration are used in this example. A migraine patient may go out on the weekend, have a late night out on Saturday night, not get much sleep and drink a little too much. The next day they experience a migraine.
However the same patient may experience a migraine during the week at work when they didn’t drink or go out late. Instead they had a very stressful day and forgot to drink enough fluids. This may be enough to trigger another migraine.
Because they are many different scenarios and many different triggers it can be difficult for patients to effectively control their migraine condition.
Some common migraine triggers include:
- sleep disruption or changing sleep/wake cycle
- stress
- dehydration
- menstruation in women
- visual factors such as bright or flickering lights, screens or fluorescent lights
More common migraine triggers and how to manage them are available here.
Understanding what migraine is and learning more about how and why they occur will help control them. Sometimes simply realizing you have migraine is a challenge in itself.
Once you have been diagnosed with migraine, there are a number of helpful videos that take us deep into the brain to describe the hypothesized pathophysiology or mechanics of migraine.
Important Note:
The content and accuracy of these videos may vary. They may be based on information which may be incomplete, controversial or recently outdated. The science is moving very rapidly and changing our understanding of migraine.
The purpose of these videos is to illustrate different perspectives of potential migraine mechanisms so that patients might gain a better understanding of their condition.
Still today scientists don’t fully understand migraine, which makes developing a cure difficult.
Understanding what happens during a migraine attack [videos]
This is probably one of the most updated and in-depth animations of a migraine from this collection. It was published more recently in December, 2016.
If you want an indepth understanding of what you are experiencing, this is the video to watch.
This next video is a general introduction to migraine from the UK. It might take a minute to get used to the pronunciation of “migraine” as it is spoken differently there. It also refers to the controversial vascular theory of migraine which some experts argue has been disproven.
What is a migraine?
Why do we get migraine attacks?
This video reinforces the suggestion that migraine links all the way back to what we saw during childhood:
This next video below is a slightly older perspective on the pathophysiology of migraine.
Still curious? Here is yet another video from a different publisher with slightly different information.
Migraine biology
Here is a great video to show your family members who don’t really understand what a migraine is. It also discusses the migraine links to serotonin and genes.
This neurologist is also a migraine patient
This video was developed by a migraine patient who also happens to be a certified neurologist.
It’s not just in your head
If you’ve watched these videos then you should now have a better understanding of what may occur during a migraine attack and why you might be experiencing them.
Which video explanation did you like best or which makes the most sense to you? Let me know in the comments below.
Article References
1. World Health Organisation & Lifting the Burden. ATLAS of Headache Disorders And Resources in the World 2011. 2011.
2.Pavone, Banfi, Vaiani & Panconesi, Cephalalgia. Sept 2007.
3.World Health Organization. The Global Burden Of Disease: 2004 Update.
4.Vos, T; Flaxman, AD; Naghavi, M; Lozano, R; Michaud, C; Ezzati, M; Shibuya, K; Salomon, JA et al. Years Lived With Disability (Ylds) For 1160 Sequelae Of 289 Diseases And Injuries 1990–2010: A Systematic Analysis For The Global Burden Of Disease Study 2010. Dec 2012.
5.Steiner et al. Cephalalgia. 2003.
6.Alexander, L. Migraine – ‘A Common And Distressing Disorder’. headacheaustralia.org.au/headache-types/17-migraine-a-common-and-distressing-disorder. Accessed 1 Aug 2013.
7.Goadsby et al, Migraine — Current Understanding and Treatment. New England Journal of Medicine, 2002.
8.National Headache Foundation http://www.headaches.org/education/ToolsforSufferers/Headache–FrequentlyAskedQuestions. Accessed 2 Aug 2013.
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I started getting severe headaches and vomiting in my early thirties. I put it down to alcohol. Gave up smoking, alcohol and coffee migraines persist with them now being chronic. I take 200 mg of Topomax daily. 150mg of Endep daily. I take a reliever when one hits but as I don’t get an aura often not much use. I take Endone for pain relief, try not to though. Sometimes they can hang on for a week at a time. The longest I have gone without one over the last ten or fifteen years is about two weeks. I am now 57 years old.
Hi Rosemary, it seems your migraine condition greatly impacts your quality of life. Interesting that it started relatively later in your life in your 30’s. I hope you find some answers here.
hi my migraines started 30 years ago and i ahve them about 3 times every fortnight and major headaches between this time…. so it took me about 20 years b4 i had any idea what to do or that i even had migraines i thought it was all diet related but having tried to solve that it is only part of the problem … i eat very little variety enough to live a reasonbly healthy life,…… i live my life in a shell not much going out, very little excitement, when i get excited invariably i get a headache after…i take 10m endep but am very sensitive to all drugs and foods, so always small doses almost. also take disprin forte x 2half, also take immigran spray as taking the pills makes me sick.. after that i just have a quiet dark room and no movement times to help manage my pain.. the impact on my l;ife is huge rarely go out cant eat barely anything that is on offer in the shops… i walk through supermakets like a ghost not looking at 95 % of whats there as i cant eat it..cant work properly, my life has shut down since this all began.. everyday is a struggle and their seems to be no end in sight… my only relief comes from constant management of every facet of my day to day existence….. i am 56 years old….
Hi Paul, thanks for your comment. I’m sorry to hear how much of a toll migraine has taken. From what you mentioned above it sounds like you experience a number of different triggers. The good news is we know a lot of the common triggers or ‘suspects’, The not so good news is that there are so many of them, each migraineur is different and often behavioral and lifestyle changes are required to see sustainable results that are not derived from medication.
There are a number of options available but without knowing what you’ve tried and more about your particular condition it makes it tricky to make useful suggestions.
Let me say firstly, that there is always hope.
There are many, many avenues to improve your condition. But typically before going and seeing more specialists and paying a fortune for their therapy often the lowest hanging fruit is right in front of you. Like what time you go bed each night? How well do you sleep, stay hydrated, exercise, manage your stress/meditate etc etc. These are fundamental to other therapies in improving your condition and breaking decades of chronic illness pattern that your body seems to be now following by default. Almost every single person in our recent study underestimated the impact these factors had on their migraine condition prior to participating.
To learn more about how to participate in clinical research for migraine, visit https://migrainepal.com/participate-in-migraine-research/
you know something , i hate reading but when it comes to migraine i read everything and i never get bored .
i’m nadyah , nursing student at ksau-hs.edu.sa and a migraine sufrrere. i’ve experienced it since the age of 16 and now i’m 21 🙁 . i visited doctors many times , everytime i go they just serve me a panadol . and i ignored the doctors prescription . and yea i experiance it almost every day . i tried the morning exercises and it works sometimes to relieve ( i usually exercise in the morning and the deep breathing exercise ) . or sometimes i go to the clinic and get voltaren injection . now i used to take the exylin syrup (cause it makes sleep and forget the pain ) . and always i turn off my bedroom lights and my parents get mad at me becuz of that and they don’t understand what i’m being through .
this migraine interfers with my daily activties and i hate that 🙁 .
I started getting migraines at age 12 though not frequently, as i got older had them more often, when i dont have one i i say to myself why am i feeling so light and able to concur the world? Wow no migraine today!! My father suffered with them and im sure i inherited his gene
I agree with you Rosanna, migraines make you appreciate any good health you can enjoy outside of the attacks. I would also say just because you inherit migraines doesn’t mean you can’t control your condition or have less migraines than your father.
I like the "Knowledge is Freedom…" and especially "A Day in the Life of a Neurologist…"
I don’t know who put together the "Migraine Pathophysiology" video, but having Flashing Lights running across the brain was not a good idea. I now have some of my early-warning symptoms even though I could not watch to the end.
Good point Hazel… I hope you didn’t end up with a migraine. When working on the screen or watching the TV I always have the brightness and contrast turned turn and/or set to "warm" which helps me.
I was recently told that narcotics is a no no in treating migraine but how is it low dose morphine helps me, my neuro is hesitant about helping me and I wish I knew of somewhere else to seek help. I’m fed up with the pain, I hope any and all don’t suffer like I do.
Narcotics is generally seen as a last resort. It’s dangerous… they are often the most likely to cause issues, problems and very serious ones including death.
There is always hope BJ… don’t give up! There are treatments and approaches which can reset your response to medication. See the article on medication overuse headaches: https://migrainepal.com/rebound-headache/
Very interesting and informative, but I also had to look away from the screen while the electrical signals flashed their way across the brain!
Thank you for compiling these. I’m sure I will refer back to them.
Glad you found it helpful Anne. I will add a warning on the video. Which video was it that affected you?
As a migraine sufferer, most "normal migraine treatments" do not work on me. What can I do?
Lots!. So much that there are entire books and websites are dedicated to the topic.
The reality is that there is no one magic solution for everyone. It’s a messy, confusing and complex struggle that requires a proactive effort on your part to work with your physician, make lifestyle and behavioral changes, evaluate both natural and medicinal options.
Generally speaking, you want to be working on uncovering triggers, understanding your condition, keeping a diary, having a strategy in place for acute attacks and a robust plan in place for prevention.
I hope this helps Helen.
I’ve just watched the videos & found them very informative, but, like Hazel, I also had a reaction to the flashing lights & am now in the early stages of a migraine.
Oh no! Which one caused the migraine? I’ll put a warning up!
Excellent info. I found useful and enlightening info in each video. Thank you for putting this great resource together.
My pleasure Tyoka, I’m glad you found it helpful.
Hi to all, as I am in fact eager of reading this blog’s post to be updated on a regular basis.
It consists of nice stuff.
Thank you Waverly, I appreciate your kind feedback. Make sure you join the regular newsletter or grab a guide off the site to keep up to date.
Ooh, sir thanks for telling me about a migraine.
My pleasure, I hope it helped.