Migraine Headaches Support Group
Migraine is a neurological disease, of which the most common symptom is an intense and disabling episodic headache. Migraine headaches are usually characterized by severe pain on one or both sides of the head and are often accompanied by photophobia (hypersensitivity to light), phonophobia (hypersensitivity to sound) and nausea.
Hi everyone! I have just joined this site and I am really excited to have a group to connect with. I am 21 and realized my freshman year of college I was suffering from migraines. I feel like I only know a bit about migraines and want to learn how to magage or prevent them if possible. I've have very debilitating episodes causing a great disrutption to my college classes, missing work meetings, and spending time with people. I am sure you all relate. I have realized how difficult it is to find what triggers my migraines and hope I can learn from others here. I try to track them but would like to know what you all do. Most recently I had a migraine that lasted 3 days and was so bad I almost threw up in my college class and ended up walking into our student health center for nausea medication. It was the same day I was going to drive home for Easter weekend (I hadn't been home since Christmas) but there was no way I could manage a four hour drive I felt so awful that day. I was able to drive home the next morning. Anyway, I'm glad to find people to talk with and learn from who may be able to give me advice and share experiences. I feel pretty alone because I feel most people don't understand what migraines are when I tell them and they think I am making excuses. Glad to find the site!! :)
I dont have a primary doctor right now and I use a student health center that is affordable but my first advice I'm looking for is how to bring up with a doctor that your migraines interefere with your life and is there medication that can help prevent them? Or what should I know going into an appointment about this (track migrains/ how often/ know triggers etc.)?
I would like to naturally try to prevent them everyway possible as I am someone who cares about fixing the cause more than using meds if possible and there is so much info online about what not to eat/drink I don't know where to start realisticly.
If you begin to keep a diary, write down everything....what you eat, what the weather is like, how stressful your day was, and if a migraine follows any of those events you may begin to see a pattern as to what triggers your migraine. In that sense, you may be able to control some migraines with that information.
I don't want to be a debbie downer about this, but your student health center is not going to be able to do much for you. Primary care doctors don't even know that much about migraines, but are a bit better than health centers. You need to be on preventative medications, and then you need abortive medications for when you get a breakthrough headache. Your health center isn't going to have a clue as to preventitives.
Until you can get to PCP, you can start taking magnesium supplements, CoQ10, and I think B6 (I have to look that last one up). They may or may not help. But bottom line, you need a doctor, especially if they are as debilitating as you say they are. I know what you are going through. Mine were so bad in college I ended up dropping out. I just couldn't handle it anymore.
Please feel free to ask as many questions in this forum as you need to. Good luck!