Migraines

Migraine Pain

Imagine living for a year or two or thirty with migraine pain that interrupts your job, your free time and your family. Then imagine your life without migraines. The longer you live with chronic migraine pain, the closer you get to permanent pain. That is why I help people suffering from migraine headaches to have more days without pain and better concentration by taking a timeline history and performing a functional and anatomical exam.

Migraine headaches can be debilitating. I have had patients who have family carry them into the clinic while they are in the fetal position crying from pain. Most sufferers try and manage the headaches by avoiding a long list of triggers, or with meds such as Toradol or Haldol shots on terrible days. They just hope they don’t miss too much work. It begins with a dull achy pain in your temple or a funny squiggly line in your vision that makes it hard to read and concentrate. It can end up putting you in bed in the dark with your head covered, missing work and family time. Most people who develop migraine headaches have a very hard time getting rid of them. They are usually felt on the sides of your head or right behind your eyes, and they cause you to see lights or to see squiggly lines called prodrome. You may feel tingling in your face or arm as well. Other more severe conditions can cause a migraine like intense headaches, such as a stroke or brain tumor.

1 These are emergency situations but are not what I would consider a migraine. Migraine headaches may seem to come with no rhyme or reason. Other times you know exactly what triggers them and you can feel them coming like watching a car wreck coming at you from the rear view mirror. Migraines get in the way of your work; they get in the way of family time, and they get in the way of having fun. They are an unwelcome guest that you hope you can find a way to get rid of or at least hush up for the rest of the afternoon. But what we want is to be free of migraines. We don't want to have to worry about going to someone's birthday party with a terrible headache. We want to enjoy ourselves in life where having a headache is a distant thought, not something we have to plan around. We don’t want to apologize for staying home

1 The Migraine Trust: Stroke and migraine

https://www.migrainetrust.org/about-migraine/migraine-what-is-it/stroke-migraine/ because we feel terrible. We don’t want to call into work with another migraine, but our headaches are so much more intense than “normal” kinds of headaches that we end up toughing it out, and making due when other folks would take the day off. 2 It’s pretty hard to work when you have light and sound sensitivity or nausea. It’s also hard to work when you can’t think. Migraine headaches are bad all around.

Migraine Headaches Part One

Migraine Headaches Part Two

Migraine Headaches Part Three

Migraine Headaches Part Four

Talk to Dr. Wingrove