Despite variations in my experience, there are many symptoms that frequently occur. I’ll start with the most obvious- the agonising head pain.
Generally I get a searing pain behind my right eye that spreads up and over the right hand side of the head, down into the neck, and deep into the right shoulder. The throbbing pain is often so intense and vice-like that my brain looks for ways to minimise the pain, so I imagine I’m tunnelling my way underneath it to escape it. But there is, actually, no escape. Which sounds strange I know! I can only liken the head/neck/shoulder part to severe whiplash.
Still related to the head, my brain races, it feels like synapses getting trigger happy with thoughts and songs whirring at pace. It is a sense of intense cognitive and emotional disquiet resulting in a terrible sense of impending doom.
But, migraine doesn’t just involve pain in the head; an attack is a whole body experience negatively affecting each and every one of the five senses. All of the senses become heightened:
- SIGHT: I develop an aversion to light and to movement. At times I have been unable to see the other half of things or can experience vision disturbances such as zig zag lines, a snowstorm or the rotating wheel of doom. It is not possible to read.
- SOUND: every sound becomes magnified. Music that would normally be stimulating or soothing becomes intolerable noise. Absolute quiet is required.
- SMELL: my sense of smell is intensified too making normally pleasant fragrances such as perfume or garlic nauseating. It’s very like morning sickness.
- TASTE: everything tastes stronger and, again, nauseating. My mouth feels incredibly sensitive to heat and there’s a nasty metallic taste that refuses to go. And yet, despite this, when I experience an attack I need to eat. It must be something that’s sugary, protein-based and/or stodgy.
- TOUCH: my body and joints ache as if I had flu. I feel hot and cold.
Nausea is extremely common with my migraine but what I really fear is being physically sick while it feels like my head is being beaten to a pulp. Fortunately for me, this is infrequent.
At times I also experience vestibular migraine which involves a degree of vertigo that’s hard to describe. The world falls away in a spiralling vacuum as though I’m falling through space never to land back on earth. Imagine drinking two bottles of wine, feeling sick, the room spinning, then being forced to drink another two bottles…it’s a revolting feeling.
An attack might last one to four days, then there’s the migraine ‘hangover’ that, again, can last for days. I typically feel crushing fatigue, nausea and brain fog. There’s often a residual headache with accompanying neck and shoulder pain. My body and mind feel as though I’m recovering from having been beaten up.
