<p>Just a quick question-is nausea common with migraines? If so I think I might have them once in a while.</p>
<p>I get the little “spangles” in front of my eyes like someone just took a picture of me using the flash and then I get a whopping headache and really bad nausea. Sometimes if I take out my contacts it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. Can’t figure out what causes it though. It doesn’t happen often, but often enough that I recognize it when it happens.</p>
<p>I became a member of the club after our first child nineteen years ago. I thought I was getting the stomach flu quite frequently in those early years - headache and nausea and vomiting. Eventually, I was told that those symptons, along with the auras that had developed during the pregnancy, were migraines. The course of my migraines has changed over 19 years. I rarely get auras any more and, thank God, the nausea and vomiting have also become less frequent. I have been told that medication help can vary greatly from one person to another. I was presribed Imitrix which was worthless for me. For a while a combination of caffeine and asprin or acetaminophen was effective. Currently, Extra strength tylenol at the 1st hint of trouble is working. The best help I have found is a chiropractic appointment and therapeutic massage at least every 3 weeks. (My chiropractor is a fellow sufferer.)</p>
<p>HisGrace: Yes, nausea is very common with migraine.</p>
<p>For everyone with migraines, I can’t say this strongly enough: ** Go see a NEUROLOGIST** who is up-to-date on the latest meds and who sees a lot of migraine patients. Do not rely on primary care, internal medicine, or Ob/Gyn.</p>
<p>^Crap.</p>
<p>Is it bad that I’m already getting them and I’m only 17?</p>
<p>HisGrace, in women migraines are often hormonally related. I was a teenager when I started getting them.</p>
<p>^Good to know. 
I’m glad I’m not the only one.</p>
<p>I have been getting the auras followed by headaches for about 13 years, but my headaches are never horrible. Unlike other people I know, I can continue to operate. </p>
<p>WashDad, be aware that you may still have a headache in the morning. Triggers for me are skipping a meal, stress, and trying to focus on a distant point in artificial light. For example, if I’m stressed and I go into a store looking for a particular item and I strain to read a sign, I might get an aura which is followed by a headache about 20 to 30 minutes later. The aura can be very disturbing if I’m trying to drive. Mine are also hormonal and I feel like I get them more in the spring (and less in the summer).</p>
<p>Good luck…When I first started getting them (when I was expecting my third child) I also thought it was a stroke or detached retina. </p>
<p>Since they have never been horrible (although very annoying!), I have never been to a doctor about them. I did take extra strength excedrin once, and I feel like it made it worse (maybe because I don’t do well with caffeine).</p>
<p>I definitely think wearing sunglasses helps!</p>
<p>Good luck WashDad!!</p>
<p>I had my first migraine at 4 with vomiting and visual disturbances. They continued occasionally until high school when they became much more frequent. When I had them the worst (late teens through late 30’s) they were definitely hormone related. Birth control pills made them much worse. </p>
<p>I had visual disturbances as a warning most of the time (mine were more like strobe lights, and real strobe lights could trigger one). Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night with one. I also occasionally smelled oranges right before the onset. Some would last for hours, others for a day or two. Darkness and silence, along with an ice pack on my forehead and a heating pad on my neck.</p>
<p>I was completely migraine free during both pregnancies! (My OB suggested I stay pregnant through menopause.) They became less frequent through my 40’s. I rarely have one anymore. I still have headaches, but only 1 or 2 migraines a year.</p>
<p>I had 2 neurologists and we tried everything over the years, including Imitrex and another drug, biofeedback, yoga, massage, etc. Unfortunately none of this provided complete relief. Prescription pain pills helped some, but made me so fuzzy-headed I hated to take them. Birth control pills made them MUCH worse. For the last 15 years or so I have had good luck with Excedrin. It isn’t a miracle drug, but helps a lot with the pain.</p>
<p>Hormones, stress, red wine and MSG triggered mine. My father and gradfather also had them, and one of my boys had them in elementary school. See a neurologist. Migraines can really have a negative impact on your life and there’s no need to suffer needlessly.</p>
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<p>No. It happens to different people at different ages, that’s all. My daughter had her first one at age 10.</p>
<p>over30: I had forgotten about the strobe light trigger! Just a few minutes of that is enough to start my brain twitching.</p>
<p>WashDad, welcome to the migraine club. I have been a headache/migraine sufferer (and I use that word on purpose) for almost 30 years now. I definitely would urge you to see a physician, preferably one who specializes in headaches and pain. (I know others have suggested neurologists, but I have to be frank and admit that I never got any help from neurologists. The best help I have ever gotten was from internists who specialize in pain.)
The tyramine-free diet does help some people (tyramine is the chemical that is in things such as chocolate, aged cheeses, snow peas, etc), but it did not make a difference for me, as I am a hardcore migraineur. But it is worth a try. You might also get your hands on a copy of David Bucholz’s “Heal Your Headache” and see if his recommendations help.
The good news is that there are meds that can help bust these headaches once they begin, and there is always good, old fashioned pain medicine (such as codeine) that also can help you get through these. You also may be one of the lucky ones who never will get another one as long as you live. I hope that’s the case. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. :)</p>
<p>Menopause has put a major dent in my migraines. Yeah, for menopause!!! Sorry, Washdad - that is not likely to help you… 
I found the David Bucholz book, while wildly and annoyingly optimistic and self-laudatory, to have a useful diet plan. Useful, but boring. I noticed a big reduction in headaches when I followed the plan.</p>
<p>anxiousmom, I am glad it worked for you. I also think the book is, um, annoying. As I read it, I kept thinking that in order to follow Dr. B’s plan, I would have to take a leave of absence from work of a few months, at least, as he has his patients go off ALL medications, including tylenol, motrin, etc. My migraines are only in control because I take therapeutic (for me) doses of Zomig twice a day and a dash of caffeine in the a.m. Were I to go off the Zomig, I would have the Rebound Headaches From Hell and it would take me weeks and weeks (during which I would not be able to function in any semblance of normality) to recover. No thanks.</p>
<p>Poor you! My migraines were less severe, and I never needed daily meds. (And as I mentioned, menopause has helped a lot! Still have headaches, but not as often and not as badly.) Migraines suck, and I feel for all of you who are still experiencing them.</p>
<p>I just realized that I have not had a migraine since June, when I had my cancer surgery–removal of a chondrosarcoma in the knee (cartilage cancer).</p>
<p>Surely, there can’t be a correlation. But how weird that I hadn’t noticed–after years and years of them (from age 40 until last June (age 52)). I wonder if three months of heavy narcotics (oxycodone, for the recovery pain) changed my brain chemistry in some strange way.</p>