Complicated Migraines

Complicated Migraines

Complicated migraines are much rarer than common migraines. Some symptoms of complicated migraines are difficulty talking, and difficulty using one side of your body!!!

It used to be that all migraines without aura were called common migraines because most people suffered with this type.And still, other migraines have symptoms that need to be addressed independently from the head pain. And with some complicated headaches there is a greater risk of strokes

A small percent of migraine sufferers suffer with auras that start before the migraine. But complicated migraines differ because the neurological deficits are with you during your headache phase, instead of before your migraine.

Although it’s agreed by doctors that headache sufferers that have complicated headaches should be on preventive treatment, it’s a toss up as to whether they should take triptans, and risk a stroke in some, due to the vasoconstriction action of these medicines.

Let’s go through some of the complicated types of migraines to give you an idea of them, and their symptoms.

Let’s start with a hemiplegic migraine. What is this one, and its symptoms?

As you know hemi means half, and these migraine symptoms are in half of your body.

Half of your body becomes weak during the headache phase. Migraineurs that have this migraine have a very strong family history of this condition.

You may have already seen this in Mom or Dad, so this migraine type may not scare you if you have it. The treatment for hemiplegic migraine is the same as complicated migraine.

Another disturbing migraine is the basilar migraine. The symptoms of basilar is like that of vestibular migraine.

You can have severe dizziness, balance problems, nausea, and vomiting. Although basilar migraine may not have head pain with it, the duration can be as long as the common migraine.

The worst problems with this migraine is the dizziness, and nausea which will have to be treated. Basilar migraine is one of the most disturbing migraines because of the symptoms that it has.

Ophthalmoplegic migraine is another rare migraine type.

This is a rare syndrome in which your eyelid droops (a common migraine can also make your eye draw), but you won’t be able to move your eye in one or more directions with this one.

Although the episodes are brief, there is much head pain with Ophthalmoplegic migraine.

Not all migraines hurt. You may have dizziness, nausea, or some other neurological deficit, but no pain.

This could be a acephalgic migraine, and could have everything in common with other migraines such as light, sound, and motion sensitivity.

Now this migraine should be diagnosed by a doctor. You may have to be given a preventive if your symptoms are frequent.

And as we discussed in another page there is also the retinal migraine which is a rare syndrome. The sudden loss of vision in one eye is associated with headache. It usually last less than an hour. This one is important to discuss with your doctor because in some cases the vision loss can eventually become permanent. No mater how brief it is, report this to your headache specialist.

Let’s mention one more before we close about complicated migraines.

Have you heard about a Hypnic headache? This is a unique headache that hits people between forty and eighty. It occurs at the same time each night, lasts somewhere between fifteen minutes to an hour.

The pain tends to be all over, and does not come with the usual headache symptoms such as runny nose or some of the other symptoms that migraines display.

The usual headache medications are not effective but specific treatments such as caffeine can be effective at reducing the pain.

Also hemicrana continua is another complicated migraine.

One last thing to remember that may be of great importance is the overuse of medications which accounts for up to 85% of chronic daily headaches. Although not a complicated migraine it can lead to someone wondering what is wrong, that they could suffer with pain everyday.

 

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