silent migraines or painless migraines or pain in the butt!

When I read your title I thought, I'd take "painless" migraines any day over this stuff. Now that I read your decription I think I'll stick with what I have. I take Imitrex for my headaches. I was told by my doc that the pills are the weakest form of Imitrex (takes about an hour to work) , the nose spray is the next strongest (works in about 1/2 hour) and the injection is the strongest (took 15 minutes). I went in to the doc's office when I had a bad headach (let it come on to test the Imitrex). I was wearing sunglasses and even asked them to turn off the exam room lights and close the blinds. The doc gave me the injection and in 15 minutes I was like a new woman. If the pills don't work you might talk to the doctor about this.

I know what you mean about the fatigue. I get a headach on one side on one day and then on the other side the next day. I have one day after where I am a zombie with fatigue and then I'm fine....until the next one. Good Luck.

P.S. The weirdest symptom I get is that when I have a headach I crave protien, mostly red meat. Go figure.

Well it looks like it works! I was at the restaurant Sat morning for breakfast with my family and started to get chest pains and dizzyiness. Arm pains and confusion. I actually walked into the guys bathroom So I popped a pill and the symptoms went away. The Imitrex made me feel really crappy for about 2 hrs but It worked! YEAH. So I guess I have silent migraines.
Sorry to hear about your problems Babie but I must admit it is nice to hear I am not alone. Dor awhile I felt like I was going nuts. So I have a call into the R to see what the next step is. Thanks for the ear guys.

Mikelean

I have had a few silent migraines recently but nothing like you describe! I have the sensitivity to light and sound, and a little nausea. I sometimes get that light-headed feeling. But it all goes away after one dose of Maxalt.

Incidentally, I used to get terrible migraines all the time. I'd be sick at least 3 days every week, usually more. Turns out it was very much related to TMJ. I got braces (at age 42) to correct my overbite and haven't had a full-blown migraine since! It's been over a year.

We all are in the same boat. I have been having these eppisodes for 7 years now. Not as bad now with supplementation, but still annoying. I am hoping with age they dicipate(I have been thinking that for some time.) Has anyone else had success with any supplements? What type? How much? Jayhwler, Let us know if that surgery works for you. I heard of success stories....I wish you luck.

Wow, it helps to know you're not alone.  This scared the heck out of me when it first started 2 months ago and  I'd suffered from CMs a few years ago.

 

I've also been having some stomach problems...it seemed like delayed food allergies to some of my fave fruits  but a doc said it was probably mild IBS.  I'm a few weeks into an elimination diet and the stomach feels better if I avoid most fruits or eat in very limited amts.  I cut out foods with preservatives and went organic a few years ago.  It helped me get rid of CMs.

 

I don't really get the palpitations w/ mine.  I get really bad shaking, confusion, major dizziness and I move very forced and slow.  My temp drops below 96 usually too but that's the least of anything.  Extreme fatigue often follows but once in a while I can move around a bit after.

 

Good luck JayHawker!

 

What supplements are people taking?  I think it was feverfew I tried when I had CMs but it didn't help.

 

Just changed docs so I haven't seen the new one yet.  The old jerk just kept telling me to keep a headache diary but never asked what I'd found by keeping track.   If it kept happening "a lot" he'd think about medication and my fave was just before he walked out of the room he turned back and told me "You should exercise more...oh, yeah if you can with your other "thing"... then I fired him.

 

I've been working w/ an out of state Rheumy to figure out what my polyarthralgias are from for almost a year now and it's the reason I started seeing a doc in town.  I used to run 7-8 miles a day before all this and would give almost anything to get back to that.  Now I get up at 4am to get to work by 8am and give my dogs a long slow walk before I leave.

 

 

We found out recently the my 17 yo daughter has been getting silent migraines most of her life. She didn't know that having vision disturbances wasn't normal, she also has the 'Alice in Wonderland' syndrome.

My answer was Topomax to control my migraines. I had already pared down my diet to wheat, gluten, egg, dairy, corn free, red meat, lunch meat and pork. That does not leave much of a choice. I too am allergic to such preservatives as MSG and sugar supplements as aspartame, ACE K and anything thing that contains a sulphur in it. I am allergic to most meds that are of a aspirine derivitive or an opiate derivitive. I also have chronic pancreatitis which has been diagnosed as idiopathic - unknown. The same for my migraines they cannont give me an answer as to why I have them as bad as I do. When I get them...my left side goes numb, I walk into walls, I fall down, I have half of my face that has no feeling. My mouth feels as if it has been shot full of novacaine. I think in double, I speak in double and therefore if given a pen I write in double. I get bloody noses, I throw up, I don't eat, I slur my words, I wrap my head with a tight towel like vice to take away throbbing. The pain is out there.... The topomax keeps my migraines at bay for about 1 every 7-8 weeks and then I get a migraine and it can last for about 9 days.

To help with side effects from the Topomax I have just begun to take Coq10 about 160mg. This helped me with my memory loss, and energy level. It is something. I don't have a back up plan but I check this forum often for new ideas. I don't want to be on this drug forever because I hope the side effects are not permanent.

mikelean,
i have the same as you, do you still get them, how are you now?

In this thread and elsewhere in the forum I read (today) stories of people similar to mine. I dont have a diagnosis yet and sometimes question if the first ENT I saw is right and my symptoms are related to panic attacks. I had anxiety since I was a little child but began suffer mild vertigo attacks at 15. They happened at the same time as seasonal hayfever and apart from having blocked nose the problem dent cause me much problem. Also nasal voice so people didn't understand me well. Then several years back I had the mild vertigo attacks again during hay fever season this was in my early thirties. It didn't warrant looking for help. Then one day a lid from a tube where I carry large drawings from art college came off as it was badly made and hit me in the ear with force. It hurt and I bled a bit from outer ear for about 5 days. On day 6-7 I fell suddenly when standing near my easel in the college, the room was spinning and I felt scared and nauseous. I went to my General Doctor who said it was a problem in m ear . He did ECG it was normal. In 2 hours it went away. Then in 1 month time I had similar episode and walked into a wall. I didn't feel anything else amiss jus vertigo, nausea, reduced hearing and some noises in one of ears. I couldnt my head if I did vertigo would get worse I had to focus on one spot like ceiling lamp and keep head and eyes still. After few attacks I was given stemetil which helped. The attacks were out of the blue. With time I felt mildly off balance mos of the time, for days weeks and even months. I nearly failedy course. At the time I also began to suffer what Gp told me was sinus and ear infections and I was treated with several courses of antibiotics. I asked for referral to specialist ENT who together with his colleagues saw nothing wrong in their department. Normal CT scans with at times evidence of swollen turbinates ( they did endoscopy of nose and it also proved allergic looking inside of nose), second CT normal, no contrast MRI normal. He wrote to gp that anxiety is main part of my presentation and told me I was not an ENT patient. I was advised by one of the main Dr's colleague to see a neurologist as I described some pains he said could be a type of headache. I continued to go to another GP he also said sinusitis plus conjunctivitis as I developed eye pain and watering. After another course of antibiotics referred to new ENT who also agreed I'm not their patient and suggested it may be migraine variant. I now was given pizotifen for migraine prevention. I dont have typical pain just uncomfortable or medium pain in front sinuses and around eyes.

hi i m a 31 year old women.I just gave birth to my fourth child in April,Before i got pregnant i used to suffer bad headaches or migraines at least three days a week.Then when i got pregnant i never had one migraine.It was a nice break,but since i have had my son i have been feeling very weird a lot of the same symptoms you all are feeling.i have a pressure on the back of my neck that spreads to the back of my head.My left arm and face goes numb.i get very dizzy and cloudy feeling, sometimes i feel like i m going to pass out.there are times i have chest pains.sometimes it feels as though someone is sitting on my chest.there are also time were my throat will feel swollen and my nasal cavities also feel blocked but then when the episode is done the symptoms go away.It happened one day in June then it lasted three days in July.then in august it lasted a week and now its been everyday.which is making it hard to live my day to day.I have seen a neurologist and she said that she found a few little spots on my brain and she is taking other test she hasn't diagnosed me yet.I was wondering if any of you have had the spots.I know i have read on some sites they have had the same thing.I don't know if this makes sense but just had to let some stuff out.I m really scared and sometimes feel like i m crazy so i haven't talked to anyone about it.I just hope the doctors figure out soon what i do have.For you guys with these silent migraines is there help and medicine to stop these migraines?will i have to live with this forever?

I was diagnosed with silent migraines. I was dizzy and having vertigo spells almost every day for over a month when they firgured it out. It would have been diagnosed sooner, but I also have a heart defect and they wanted to make sure that was not causing it. I went to a D.O. neurologist after I had trouble with Topomax side effects. He told me there had been research done showing that magnesium and riboflavin (B-2) after taken three months shows the same relief as Topomax. It takes three months to build up in your system, and then you take it everyday. It has worked wonders for me. I went from having problems everyday to down to one silent migraine once every few months.

I alternate between painless migraines, and very painful migraines.

With the painless migraines I tend to get much more extreme aura symptoms. I very rarely get queasy with a painful migraine, but I'll feel sea sick with a painless one. My vision distorts more, my hearing messes up more, my sense of smell becomes so sensitive it's unbearable. I'll get dizzier, I get the "word salad," thing happening, and generally feel really disconnected from reality.
(I get dizzy, and feel slightly disconnected with the painful migraines, but nothing as extreme as the painless ones.)

The first few times it happened it was terrifying. Even now it takes me a while to figure out what's going on. Apparently the first thing to go with my migraines is the ability to realize I'm getting a migraine. 22 years of experience with them, and they still sneak up on me. It's only after the migraines gone that I look back and say, "probably should have seen that coming..."

I was quite lucky with my diagnosis. I started out with classic migraines when I was 7. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 12, but I had a medical history of migraines before the painless ones started in my late teens.
It gave my doctor at the time a starting point to work from, and while I still had to be tested for everything under the sun (I was getting diagnosed with CFS at the same time. I'm pretty sure I hold some sort of record for the number of medical tests in a month) it was all done from the stand point of "We're sure it's migraines, but we need to be certain," rather than "it could be X,Y, or Z... We have no idea."