I feel like my migraines usually hit about a 6/7 on that scale. A friendly reminder that you can have migraines without a headache entirely and just have the other symptoms. Those are still migraine diagnosis :)).
It took from ages 4 to 17 for me to be diagnosed with migraines because they used to be painless. Every other symptom for about a week or two at a time, but no pain. I caked them Dizzy Spells until I was told at 17 years old that they're migraines.
I don’t know how, I just know that it is. Migraines without headache are a thing, vestibular migraine in particular can often not have head pain. Aura can happen without headache too. And it can all still be really miserable.
Head pain is not required for migraine, it's just one of many possible symptoms. It's like asking someone how they can have a migraine without being paralysed down one side of their body, or how they can have a migraine without vomiting. Just one of the many options from the migraine grab-bag. There is absolutely no single unifying symptom that we all share.
It's just unfortunate at this point that migraine and headache have become so intertwined that people think migraine *is* headache. Hell, it's even included in the headache manual. Migraine *without* headache is also included in the headache manual.
Headache is a symptom of migraine disease. Not everyone always gets the pain. I don't always. For me it's seemingly never ending aura with either no head pain or dull headache with trigeminal neuralgia.
No pain. It just started about 8 years ago, we were in a grocery store and the floor felt uneven, I was hanging onto the cart for balance. We ended up going to the ER and they had no clue, I had to really push to get them to do a CT. They thought it was my sinuses because they were congested and i have frequent sinus infections.
I followed up with my regular doctor at the time, they thought I had Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo and suggested I do certain exercises and take a medication for motion sickness. When this did nothing, they sent me to an ENT who first did an auditory exam, including something where they shot water at my eardrum, and then an MRI. He could not find anything and was basically like I don't know what is going on. He gave me the option of doing nothing or going to see a neurologist.
I did see a neurologist who thankfully knew something. He seemed to think it was migraines and suggested I see one of two other specialists who knew more about what I was specifically experiencing. I went to see one and after they reviewed all the tests I had and symptoms they told me I was experiencing vestibular migraines. They had me try topiramate, when I had some problems with the regular version, but then switched me to the extended release it has pretty well controlled my migraines for seven years with no side effects.
Same. I notice when I'm at work, I start getting dizzy and my balance goes to shit, especially towards the end of my shift. I near stumbled and fell over yesterday. I may be somewhat nauseous too and obviously have lots of aura, which makes me vision blurryI don't have headaches anymore, like at all. I do get a terribly stiff neck and shoulders though, that hurts like hell.
In office conference room, I used to feel like the room was really sloped. I would hate sitting back there for hour and a half meeting just wanting them to end so I could get out of there. One end of the room still bothers me, and I try not to sit at that end of the room.
Me too! When I’m at home and able to rest, this is the easiest part. If I’m out and about, it’s the most dangerous phase.
I usually get a headache in the hangover phase, probably from a lack of fluid and food.
Certain lights in some stores and restaurants would sometimes set me off, or being in a crowded space where there was a lot of talking and it was coming from all directions. I have it pretty well under control now thankfully.
When I was first was diagnosed I never had the painful migraines but I had multiple episodes a week where half of my face would go numb and tingly for somewhere between 30min to 4 hrs. Now I mostly get brain fog and a dull ache behind my right eye. It’s more like sometimes I have migraines that have headache, sometimes I have terrible brain fog, sometimes I have nausea, and sometimes I have tingling and numbness in parts of my body, but it’s all migraine.
Yes! I don’t know what to call or think about them. I will typically get an aura, and get different things, but typically will get a prodrome that involves a tidal wave of emotions followed by intense brain fog and confusion or inability to comprehend or find or speak words. I will also get a stiff neck/back, burning eyes, and other symptoms, but those are usually the worst of the symptoms.
This is very much like what I deal with, in addition to abdominal migraines . I do get headaches sometimes w them, usually they are hormonally triggered, but the actual headache pain pales in compacomparison to the rest of the symptoms that make me feel like I’m having a stroke and want to DIE
How does it impact your life? Do you work?
I find work to become unbearable towards the ends of my shifts because of this. I feel like I walk around, almost like a zombie with the aura and all . When I come home from work, everything is spinning and I feel unwell and dizzy, sometimes my hands shake too. My vision is blurry. I also have stiff neck and pain so I'm basically knocked out on a cocktail of OTC, unable to function for the next hour or so, while I come down. I actually ended up on sick leave and I'm back part time now. It's so deliberating I don't know how this is supposed to go on. I'm also concerned about overusing OTCs. I've basically become a OTC pill junkie. Like I can't just take it every day for the rest of my life.
Honestly, they just started last year and I’m just trying to understand them. They’ve been getting worse lately and I’m out on FMLA right now. I’m currently in a love/hate relationship with Topamax - on one hand, it gets rid of the tension on my neck/spine, the pain on my eyes and gets rid of the pulsatile tinnitus, but then I have a constant brain fog and fatigue. There’s like a brief sweet spot of a couple of hours between doses when I feel good and when I need to take it again. No clue how people do it.
This is my experience too. I can count on one hand the number of times it was greater than a 5. But over the counter meds would do nothing and the pain can last days or sometimes weeks and I would just muddle through.
Yes. Mine are always a 3-4. Diagnosed atypical migraine. I’ve had only two in my life that got to 8-9 on the pain scale, and that was before I had triptans and was only using ibuprofen. I had to go to the ER because nothing would stop the pain and they had to give me the migraine cocktail. Needless to say, those OTC meds don’t work anymore, and I now use triptans, which are a godsend. But despite my lack of ability to use OTC, the actual pain levels still only reach a 3-4. Thank. God.
How frequent are yours? I feel like my worse will be 2-4 days in total, but I also feel like I’ll have some mini versions that will come and go every day or every other day for a few hours or so, if that makes any sense?
At my worst I was having them most days so yes what you are saying makes sense. I take a daily preventative now that I’m still trying to get the dosage right on, so luckily they are much more rare for me now.
What type of preventative do you take, if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve tried Diamox and Topamax and both are giving awful side effects. I think I’m going to try to adjust my supplement regimen instead and up my magnesium more to see if it helps.
I’m on topamax 100mg and I haven’t had bad side effects but my body definitely keeps adjusting to it, so I’m a little worried I’m just gonna max out. It works well for me while it works but it also seems to stop working pretty quickly too. I know I still have lots of room to go up though so I guess we shall see. I have been on it since the end of March and it’s the first I’ve tried. My migraines only went chronic in January.
I take magnesium glycinate, B2, D3, melatonin and I do think all that helps some, particularly the glycinate. I have felt more clear headed since being on it a month+ and it’s the first form of magnesium I’ve been able to tolerate nausea-wise. I take 400mg a day of that.
Good luck to you! I hope you can fine something that works for you.
When I was on a particular medication for a while I used to get what would have been migraines but I wasn’t in pain. Like I’d have some brain fog and a weird feeling in the area where I usually have my migraines and just had this sense that I should be having a migraine at that time but wasn’t getting the full sensation.
This was a while ago and I don’t remember the exact med it was but I stopped taking it for other reasons (I wasn’t on it to treat my migraines — I actually don’t get them frequently enough to qualify for most preventatives.)
Yes. When I first started getting migraines, it took a bit to figure out what they were.
For me, the pain can vary, but a quiet dark space makes it pretty manageable most of the time. The other neurological symptoms are much more problematic for me. I get blurry and/or tunnel vision, nausea, dizziness, clumsiness (today, it took 5 tries to get my hand to open a sliding door), and I lose the ability to speak sometimes completely, more often I speak very slowly and stutter. It is awful.
Yes, the majority of my migraine attacks are silent migraines, so zero head pain. I don’t even feel any pressure or discomfort or anything like that, I only get a (very stereotypical) aura and that’s it.
Do you take any meds that work to prevent that? I'm really struggling to find something that targets the aura specifically. Most triptans and such only abort the headaches.
No, even though I get them frequently they're not disabling enough to be worth using preventatives, since an aura only lasts ~30 minutes and other than being annoying isn't really that difficult to manage
Since aura is migraine, abortives should work on an aura, the only issue is that the aura is over before those medications can be absorbed.
I see. I have had aura all day every day for 10+ years now. The aura just never go away ever. I'm at my wits ends. Most of the times it's just annoying, but it does affect my work by being distracting when I try to focus:/ how distracting depends on how active the aura is.. but it's always there.
If you don't have something definitional like scintillating scotoma or fortification spectra you might want to consider whether this is actually an aura at all, or perhaps even a migraine. Because per the diagnostics, aura lasts 60 minutes maximum and usually more around 15-30. There can be other neurological symptoms like brain fog, dizziness, etc outside of aura too, and the other phases wouldn't be subject to time constraints like aura is.
The only reason I believe it's got something to do with migraine is cause I see zig zag lines and dots in my vision, and I used to have terrible headaches that could last for hours or even days, that triptans helped with in the past.
Does it look anything like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow_syndrome#/media/File:Vs_with_descriptions.jpg)? (static image)
Scintillating scotoma will be a singular lightning bolt C-shape that slowly expands and moves to one side. Multiple lines would sound more to me like floaters or some other visual issue, and dots could be anything. A lot of issues that could cause these symptoms also have migraine as a common comorbidity, so previous migraine headache doesn't narrow it down
So that is Visual Snow Syndrome. A lot of people have visual snow (no syndrome), basically like a static-y overlay on everything. But some unlucky folks get a bunch of other symptoms as well, including lots of extra visual symptoms and things like tinnitus and brain fog. It doesn't appear to be migraine, but migraine is a common comorbidity. Everyone has floaters but VSS has more. I'm not aware of any real successful treatments for it.
Yeah..maybe I've been confusing it for being migraine related because I have had terrible migraine headaches in the past also with aura.
It's also really difficult to get help from a doctor because it's such a diffuse thing to describe.
This is my struggle. I walk around with aura and other symptoms daily, but no headache pain. This has led to my doctor's not taking me seriously, or putting me on medication, like triptans and blood pressure meds that are supposed to prevent the headache portions of the migraines that I don't even have. Ugh..
I mainly get vestibular migraines which often come with no pain at all. They are completely debilitating though because they cause really bad vertigo, lack of balance and extreme motion sickness. My occular migraines come with little to no pain as well
Yes, my migraines usually start with fatigue and brain fog and a dull feeling over my eye. Sometimes the pain comes only hours later. If I am lucky, I take meds quickly enough to stop most of the pain. The problem is realising you have to take your meds when you have brain fog and only a hint of pain. And if you wait too long, you need more meds and/or they won't do anything. I know it sounds better than being in a lot of pain, but I get migraines so many days of the month now, I am basically in a constant state of brain fog and fatigue, and that's no fun either.
I’m two months into taking Ajovy and most of mine are somewhat like that. Still frequent but it stays more like a 4-5 unless I’m under bright lights. The other symptoms are still pretty disabling tho.
Same here. The pain is usually not that bad. Every few years I have the ones that get into the 6-7 range. Frustrated at the moment since I didn’t get treated for years after my head injury because my non neurologist MD kept dismissing my vertigo and mood swings (which I get during postdrome) since I wasn’t vomiting and crying in a dark room.
i’m diagnosed now with migraines but doctors before have told me i don’t meet the specifications for migraines bc my headaches are rarely severe, only occasionally. they just happen every day and they’re scaled from maybe a 2-6 starting shortly after i wake up and i’m always foggy and dizzy and nothing makes it go away. i think maybe it’s just different for everyone because now i’m on nurtec which is for migraines and it helps a little.
Yes, and it took a while to figure out what was going on because I also don't experience auras. No meds worked to get rid of these "headaches" until we figured out they were migraines.
My pain level is generally a 4-6, with 8-9 migraines occasionally. I only get nauseous when they are really bad.
My dad gets what are called silent migraines where his vision goes wonky and he gets visual auras (which is usually his worst symptom) and doesn’t usually get a headache. If he does, it is usually not bad and can be helped by taking Aleve. I’m kind of jealous that those are his only symptoms because mine are pretty much the complete opposite of that
I did not get diagnosed with migraines for years because they tended to be in this "silent migraine" category" and migraines seemed to be trigger by environmental allergies. I did go through headaches for a short while and did a neurologist referal, but I tend to get neck pain, left eye pain, aura (clear wavy vertical lines), tinnitus, brain fog, fatigue.
With these, I often noticed that taking a shower made me feel 10x worse I assume the balance, water sensation, noise was more than body could handle.
I have gotten help from some of the preventatives and triptans. So, it is definitely the case these are migraines.
So as you'll find in this subreddit, a migraine is a complex neurological disorder that can be disabling. It's not just a headache, in fact it doesnt have to be a headache at all. Often times when children have migraines they're abdominal migraines.
So yes, lots and lots of people are diagnosed with migraines that aren't super painful. You'll find a lot of people in here who do have pain but it's not their worst symptom by a king shot as well!!
I feel like my migraines usually hit about a 6/7 on that scale. A friendly reminder that you can have migraines without a headache entirely and just have the other symptoms. Those are still migraine diagnosis :)).
It took from ages 4 to 17 for me to be diagnosed with migraines because they used to be painless. Every other symptom for about a week or two at a time, but no pain. I caked them Dizzy Spells until I was told at 17 years old that they're migraines.
My migraines do not cause pain, they make me have vertigo. I feel off balance, feel like the ground is tilting when it is not.
No pain at all? No throbbing or aching? How is that possible?
I don’t know how, I just know that it is. Migraines without headache are a thing, vestibular migraine in particular can often not have head pain. Aura can happen without headache too. And it can all still be really miserable.
Vestibular migraines are the worst. No pain. Just absolute hell
Head pain is not required for migraine, it's just one of many possible symptoms. It's like asking someone how they can have a migraine without being paralysed down one side of their body, or how they can have a migraine without vomiting. Just one of the many options from the migraine grab-bag. There is absolutely no single unifying symptom that we all share. It's just unfortunate at this point that migraine and headache have become so intertwined that people think migraine *is* headache. Hell, it's even included in the headache manual. Migraine *without* headache is also included in the headache manual.
Headache is a symptom of migraine disease. Not everyone always gets the pain. I don't always. For me it's seemingly never ending aura with either no head pain or dull headache with trigeminal neuralgia.
No pain. It just started about 8 years ago, we were in a grocery store and the floor felt uneven, I was hanging onto the cart for balance. We ended up going to the ER and they had no clue, I had to really push to get them to do a CT. They thought it was my sinuses because they were congested and i have frequent sinus infections. I followed up with my regular doctor at the time, they thought I had Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo and suggested I do certain exercises and take a medication for motion sickness. When this did nothing, they sent me to an ENT who first did an auditory exam, including something where they shot water at my eardrum, and then an MRI. He could not find anything and was basically like I don't know what is going on. He gave me the option of doing nothing or going to see a neurologist. I did see a neurologist who thankfully knew something. He seemed to think it was migraines and suggested I see one of two other specialists who knew more about what I was specifically experiencing. I went to see one and after they reviewed all the tests I had and symptoms they told me I was experiencing vestibular migraines. They had me try topiramate, when I had some problems with the regular version, but then switched me to the extended release it has pretty well controlled my migraines for seven years with no side effects.
Same. I notice when I'm at work, I start getting dizzy and my balance goes to shit, especially towards the end of my shift. I near stumbled and fell over yesterday. I may be somewhat nauseous too and obviously have lots of aura, which makes me vision blurryI don't have headaches anymore, like at all. I do get a terribly stiff neck and shoulders though, that hurts like hell.
In office conference room, I used to feel like the room was really sloped. I would hate sitting back there for hour and a half meeting just wanting them to end so I could get out of there. One end of the room still bothers me, and I try not to sit at that end of the room.
Me too! When I’m at home and able to rest, this is the easiest part. If I’m out and about, it’s the most dangerous phase. I usually get a headache in the hangover phase, probably from a lack of fluid and food.
Certain lights in some stores and restaurants would sometimes set me off, or being in a crowded space where there was a lot of talking and it was coming from all directions. I have it pretty well under control now thankfully.
When I was first was diagnosed I never had the painful migraines but I had multiple episodes a week where half of my face would go numb and tingly for somewhere between 30min to 4 hrs. Now I mostly get brain fog and a dull ache behind my right eye. It’s more like sometimes I have migraines that have headache, sometimes I have terrible brain fog, sometimes I have nausea, and sometimes I have tingling and numbness in parts of my body, but it’s all migraine.
Yes! I don’t know what to call or think about them. I will typically get an aura, and get different things, but typically will get a prodrome that involves a tidal wave of emotions followed by intense brain fog and confusion or inability to comprehend or find or speak words. I will also get a stiff neck/back, burning eyes, and other symptoms, but those are usually the worst of the symptoms.
This is very much like what I deal with, in addition to abdominal migraines . I do get headaches sometimes w them, usually they are hormonally triggered, but the actual headache pain pales in compacomparison to the rest of the symptoms that make me feel like I’m having a stroke and want to DIE
What are abdominal migraines like?
How does it impact your life? Do you work? I find work to become unbearable towards the ends of my shifts because of this. I feel like I walk around, almost like a zombie with the aura and all . When I come home from work, everything is spinning and I feel unwell and dizzy, sometimes my hands shake too. My vision is blurry. I also have stiff neck and pain so I'm basically knocked out on a cocktail of OTC, unable to function for the next hour or so, while I come down. I actually ended up on sick leave and I'm back part time now. It's so deliberating I don't know how this is supposed to go on. I'm also concerned about overusing OTCs. I've basically become a OTC pill junkie. Like I can't just take it every day for the rest of my life.
Honestly, they just started last year and I’m just trying to understand them. They’ve been getting worse lately and I’m out on FMLA right now. I’m currently in a love/hate relationship with Topamax - on one hand, it gets rid of the tension on my neck/spine, the pain on my eyes and gets rid of the pulsatile tinnitus, but then I have a constant brain fog and fatigue. There’s like a brief sweet spot of a couple of hours between doses when I feel good and when I need to take it again. No clue how people do it.
This is my experience too. I can count on one hand the number of times it was greater than a 5. But over the counter meds would do nothing and the pain can last days or sometimes weeks and I would just muddle through.
Yes. Mine are always a 3-4. Diagnosed atypical migraine. I’ve had only two in my life that got to 8-9 on the pain scale, and that was before I had triptans and was only using ibuprofen. I had to go to the ER because nothing would stop the pain and they had to give me the migraine cocktail. Needless to say, those OTC meds don’t work anymore, and I now use triptans, which are a godsend. But despite my lack of ability to use OTC, the actual pain levels still only reach a 3-4. Thank. God.
Yup. I get the aura and all the horrible neurological symptoms but thankfully the pain is the least of my problems. Usually a 4 at worst.
How frequent are yours? I feel like my worse will be 2-4 days in total, but I also feel like I’ll have some mini versions that will come and go every day or every other day for a few hours or so, if that makes any sense?
At my worst I was having them most days so yes what you are saying makes sense. I take a daily preventative now that I’m still trying to get the dosage right on, so luckily they are much more rare for me now.
What type of preventative do you take, if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve tried Diamox and Topamax and both are giving awful side effects. I think I’m going to try to adjust my supplement regimen instead and up my magnesium more to see if it helps.
I’m on topamax 100mg and I haven’t had bad side effects but my body definitely keeps adjusting to it, so I’m a little worried I’m just gonna max out. It works well for me while it works but it also seems to stop working pretty quickly too. I know I still have lots of room to go up though so I guess we shall see. I have been on it since the end of March and it’s the first I’ve tried. My migraines only went chronic in January. I take magnesium glycinate, B2, D3, melatonin and I do think all that helps some, particularly the glycinate. I have felt more clear headed since being on it a month+ and it’s the first form of magnesium I’ve been able to tolerate nausea-wise. I take 400mg a day of that. Good luck to you! I hope you can fine something that works for you.
I had a migraine with aura once that didn't hurt at all. It was weird as hell. Only one time.
When I was on a particular medication for a while I used to get what would have been migraines but I wasn’t in pain. Like I’d have some brain fog and a weird feeling in the area where I usually have my migraines and just had this sense that I should be having a migraine at that time but wasn’t getting the full sensation. This was a while ago and I don’t remember the exact med it was but I stopped taking it for other reasons (I wasn’t on it to treat my migraines — I actually don’t get them frequently enough to qualify for most preventatives.)
Yes. When I first started getting migraines, it took a bit to figure out what they were. For me, the pain can vary, but a quiet dark space makes it pretty manageable most of the time. The other neurological symptoms are much more problematic for me. I get blurry and/or tunnel vision, nausea, dizziness, clumsiness (today, it took 5 tries to get my hand to open a sliding door), and I lose the ability to speak sometimes completely, more often I speak very slowly and stutter. It is awful.
Wait.... migraines can come in the form of brain fog? Oh shit...
Unfortunately 🙃
Yes, the majority of my migraine attacks are silent migraines, so zero head pain. I don’t even feel any pressure or discomfort or anything like that, I only get a (very stereotypical) aura and that’s it.
Do you take any meds that work to prevent that? I'm really struggling to find something that targets the aura specifically. Most triptans and such only abort the headaches.
No, even though I get them frequently they're not disabling enough to be worth using preventatives, since an aura only lasts ~30 minutes and other than being annoying isn't really that difficult to manage Since aura is migraine, abortives should work on an aura, the only issue is that the aura is over before those medications can be absorbed.
I see. I have had aura all day every day for 10+ years now. The aura just never go away ever. I'm at my wits ends. Most of the times it's just annoying, but it does affect my work by being distracting when I try to focus:/ how distracting depends on how active the aura is.. but it's always there.
If you don't have something definitional like scintillating scotoma or fortification spectra you might want to consider whether this is actually an aura at all, or perhaps even a migraine. Because per the diagnostics, aura lasts 60 minutes maximum and usually more around 15-30. There can be other neurological symptoms like brain fog, dizziness, etc outside of aura too, and the other phases wouldn't be subject to time constraints like aura is.
The only reason I believe it's got something to do with migraine is cause I see zig zag lines and dots in my vision, and I used to have terrible headaches that could last for hours or even days, that triptans helped with in the past.
Does it look anything like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow_syndrome#/media/File:Vs_with_descriptions.jpg)? (static image) Scintillating scotoma will be a singular lightning bolt C-shape that slowly expands and moves to one side. Multiple lines would sound more to me like floaters or some other visual issue, and dots could be anything. A lot of issues that could cause these symptoms also have migraine as a common comorbidity, so previous migraine headache doesn't narrow it down
Yes very much like that! Like the floaters and mouches.
So that is Visual Snow Syndrome. A lot of people have visual snow (no syndrome), basically like a static-y overlay on everything. But some unlucky folks get a bunch of other symptoms as well, including lots of extra visual symptoms and things like tinnitus and brain fog. It doesn't appear to be migraine, but migraine is a common comorbidity. Everyone has floaters but VSS has more. I'm not aware of any real successful treatments for it.
Yeah..maybe I've been confusing it for being migraine related because I have had terrible migraine headaches in the past also with aura. It's also really difficult to get help from a doctor because it's such a diffuse thing to describe.
Head pain/headache is one of many symptoms of a migraine attack. You can have an attack without the pain. Doesn't make it any less valid.
This is my struggle. I walk around with aura and other symptoms daily, but no headache pain. This has led to my doctor's not taking me seriously, or putting me on medication, like triptans and blood pressure meds that are supposed to prevent the headache portions of the migraines that I don't even have. Ugh..
I mainly get vestibular migraines which often come with no pain at all. They are completely debilitating though because they cause really bad vertigo, lack of balance and extreme motion sickness. My occular migraines come with little to no pain as well
Yes, my migraines usually start with fatigue and brain fog and a dull feeling over my eye. Sometimes the pain comes only hours later. If I am lucky, I take meds quickly enough to stop most of the pain. The problem is realising you have to take your meds when you have brain fog and only a hint of pain. And if you wait too long, you need more meds and/or they won't do anything. I know it sounds better than being in a lot of pain, but I get migraines so many days of the month now, I am basically in a constant state of brain fog and fatigue, and that's no fun either.
I’m two months into taking Ajovy and most of mine are somewhat like that. Still frequent but it stays more like a 4-5 unless I’m under bright lights. The other symptoms are still pretty disabling tho.
Same here. The pain is usually not that bad. Every few years I have the ones that get into the 6-7 range. Frustrated at the moment since I didn’t get treated for years after my head injury because my non neurologist MD kept dismissing my vertigo and mood swings (which I get during postdrome) since I wasn’t vomiting and crying in a dark room.
i’m diagnosed now with migraines but doctors before have told me i don’t meet the specifications for migraines bc my headaches are rarely severe, only occasionally. they just happen every day and they’re scaled from maybe a 2-6 starting shortly after i wake up and i’m always foggy and dizzy and nothing makes it go away. i think maybe it’s just different for everyone because now i’m on nurtec which is for migraines and it helps a little.
Yes, and it took a while to figure out what was going on because I also don't experience auras. No meds worked to get rid of these "headaches" until we figured out they were migraines. My pain level is generally a 4-6, with 8-9 migraines occasionally. I only get nauseous when they are really bad.
Most of my migraines are without pain, just visual disturbances.
My dad gets what are called silent migraines where his vision goes wonky and he gets visual auras (which is usually his worst symptom) and doesn’t usually get a headache. If he does, it is usually not bad and can be helped by taking Aleve. I’m kind of jealous that those are his only symptoms because mine are pretty much the complete opposite of that
I did not get diagnosed with migraines for years because they tended to be in this "silent migraine" category" and migraines seemed to be trigger by environmental allergies. I did go through headaches for a short while and did a neurologist referal, but I tend to get neck pain, left eye pain, aura (clear wavy vertical lines), tinnitus, brain fog, fatigue. With these, I often noticed that taking a shower made me feel 10x worse I assume the balance, water sensation, noise was more than body could handle. I have gotten help from some of the preventatives and triptans. So, it is definitely the case these are migraines.
I get all that awful aura stuff, and often no headache.
So as you'll find in this subreddit, a migraine is a complex neurological disorder that can be disabling. It's not just a headache, in fact it doesnt have to be a headache at all. Often times when children have migraines they're abdominal migraines. So yes, lots and lots of people are diagnosed with migraines that aren't super painful. You'll find a lot of people in here who do have pain but it's not their worst symptom by a king shot as well!!