It begins with a momentary disorientation. “What is that?” I say. Then I realize that the “that” which I have been unable to identify the thing that I am looking directly at. A blind spot has manifested at the exact focus of my vision. This is the vanguard of the demon’s attack.
I blink. Several times. The blind spot does not go away. I can peripherally see what I’m looking at, or at least rapidly rotating my vision around it to change the focus enough to allow the visual data to move in. And my recognition of what may be underway comes instantly with a feeling of dread, annoyance, and a small bit of fear.
Over the next two or three minutes, the blind spot grows until it takes up about five degrees of my focus. By now, it is usually C-shaped. It appears like the “digital fuzz” that a television program places over a person’s face or other body parts to obscure them from vision. Closing my eyes does not make this obscuring fuzz go away. It brings the sharp, glowing edges of the blind spot into focus.
By now, five minutes into the precursor, the spot has grown, typically in a C-shaped formation, to one side or the other. In this instance, it expands to the right side of my vision, spreading like water on a not-quite-level tabletop. Other kinds of activity, especially those requiring visual focus like reading or driving, become quite difficult. Closing my eyes to refocus them does no good.
The glowing fuzzy blob of blindness remains in my vision even when I close my eyes. The blob is not happening in my eyes. It is happening in my brain. I’ve little doubt that if I were wearing a fMRI device, it would register massive levels of activity at the point where my optic nerve enters the brain. That is the highway which the demon has stolen from me for his own use.
Now the precursor is over and the primary event begins. The pain starts. A low level buzz, which feels as though it radiates out in three dimensions from within my brain towards my skull. Not intolerable at first, a “2” on a “10” scale.
At this point, I have a 50/50 chance. “Go away, migraine.” I will it to myself. I use The Force to push it back down into my cerebellum, into the spinal cord where it seems to have come from. I know, as a matter of science, that it does not really come from there. But the visualization helps my exercise of will. “I don’t have time, I need to do something now. Come back some time when I am sleeping.” Weak as this weapon is, it is really the only one I have. Aspirin or acetaminophen or caffeine or any combination thereof have proven hugely ineffective in the past.
Today, I fail. The tormenting demon vanquishes the guardian of my mental power and reaches into my eyeballs. The light of the sun feels painful. I must turn my eyes away from first the sun and then any areas directly illuminated by it. Too bright, too much stimulation on my retina. I can feel the demon’s reach, because it causes pain, on the backs of my eyeballs and into my cheekbones, where his ethereal knuckles protrude.
I feel disorientation and fatigue. At this point, I am tasked with preparing dinner for my wife and mother-in-law. I have promised them a rotisserie-roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. What is normally a simple enough task — stringing up the chicken and mounting him on a skewer — is complex and challenging. I must concentrate hard on each segment of each task and find myself uncertain that I have completed it properly when it is done. But with no choice but to proceed, I start the grill and start the bird roasting. I know my speed in the kitchen is not what it is when I am at full capacity, but hopefully I can at least do things properly.
The demon’s tendrils then reach into my ears and the pain dial within my brain is slowly creeping up from “unpleasant” to “that really hurts.” They do not go into the eardrums, but instead cradle them, just below. Again, where he has reached out, there is pain, but the true problem is not the direct pain — at this point it is still tolerable — but the sensitivity it causes. Loud noises, loud conversation, clatters, car horns, exclamations. Not merely distractions but pain-inducing events. Soon even normal conversations at normal social distances will produce within me the same reaction that sitting in traffic next to the guy with the super-enhanced car sound system blaring hip-hop with an audible radius in excess of a quarter-mile would have with you.
I am now feeling fatigue and disorientation. What ought to be ordinary tasks seem complex and difficult. Tonight, my wife and mother-in-law are counting on me to make dinner. I must complete this task to feed them; similarly, I must fight the impulse to be irritable and unpleasant with them because of what is happening within my skull. That I could abandon the task and ask them if they want to go get a pizza or something on their own seems an intolerable solution, though in retrospect it would have been wiser. Instead, I continue trimming the chicken and mounting it on the rotisserie skewer.
The demon usually picks one side or the other of my head. Now, again as a matter of science I know that I have no nerve receptors inside my brain, that the only places I actually can feel pain in my head are the muscles and skin outside my skull. But without needing any visualization, my brain feels like a vegetable — cauliflower, of course — being boiled within a confined space, pickling in its own juice, with pressure and pain instead of heat catalyzing what feels like it can only be permanent damage inside. Dark thoughts of half-understood medical trauma to which brains are susceptible — aneurysms, strokes, tumors — begin to move through my consciousness.
The pain has now grown to a point that I am literally dizzy and I stumble and stagger from time to time as though I were slightly drunk. Call it a “7” on the ten-point scale. Were I driving, it would take a force of hypnotic concentration to reach my destination safely, or a need to find a safe place to park and seek out a suitable place to ride out the wave of the attack.
That place would be dark, quiet, cool, and have access to a toilet. The toilet is important because nausea is the final symptom, the weapon the demon deploys against me last. The nausea does not always progress to vomiting but it might. Today, gratefully, the nausea is light, and overcome by my own hunger and the smell of the roasting garlic and potatoes boiling in chicken stock. The demon’s seat is in my brain, but the rest of my body can function normally when he does not interfere.
As a practical matter, the only thing that I can do now is to sleep through the rest of the event. Sleep, at least, causes me to be able to ignore the symptoms. This is not yet possible for me. I’ve completed the potatoes and go to check on the chicken. It is burned all over its outside, ruining my skin and my coat of seasoning. Checking inside the drumsticks confirms my worst fears — I have set the heat too high and it has not had time to penetrate into the bird. He is inedibly charred on his outside, and inedibly raw on the inside. I’ve ruined my chicken.
Compounded by the pain in my skull, this produces a wave of awful depression and sorrow. I have let my family down. I have failed, failed in a task which ought to normally be well within my skill set. It is inexcusable. My wife consoles me that this is not so bad, that it doesn’t matter to her, oh, well, it’s just one of those things that happens, they’ll get a pizza or something. My whining refusals are met with more supportive and sympathetic words from my mother-in-law who suggests that she’d be happy eating the chicken even if it is burnt on the outside. This is very sweet of her to say, but untrue, and despite her kind words and the impairment of my migraine, I’m not going to serve a half-raw chicken to anyone, under any circumstances.
In to the trash the chicken goes and we resolve to try poached salmon instead. All I have is frozen salmon steaks but that will be edible and if I don’t overcook them they should turn out fine. I close my eyes, breathe deeply to conquer the dizziness, and set up my poach. Salt, lemon juice, bay leaf, chives, black pepper. Boil, drop in the salmon, finish and dress the potatoes with sour cream and pulverized roasted garlic, pull out the salmon, pat dry, blowtorch for the Maillard crusting, and serve. Rave reviews from the family. I believe them because despite the migraine deadening my taste buds and leaving my stomach a bit queasy, and potatoes a bit too soft from cooking a bit too long, it does taste good.
I do my very best to make pleasant conversation despite the pounding in my head. When dinner is complete I apologize for not being social and retire to sleep. Tonight, my wife will have to take care of cleaning up. And of course she doesn’t mind this, but I feel guilty about abandoning them and sleeping instead. And it is only six thirty at night but I’ve been fighting the demon for nearly three hours now. It takes me less than ten minutes to fall asleep and stay that way for twelve hours.
In the morning, the worst of the pain is gone; the demon has gone into retreat. My head still echoes, though. It is as though the tubes in my inner ear have constricted, because I am sensitive to any movement of my head and thrown off balance. This will persist for two or three days and again I am aware of no medication that can remedy this. A very bright light or a very loud noise is still cause for discomfort. The Wife and her mother have spotted a hawk in our front yard, which normally I would enjoy looking at, but the hawk has found a perch directly between the window and the rising sun, which I cannot yet tolerate looking near, much less at.
I can tolerate the computer screen for twenty minutes at a time or so. Long enough to write about my migraine, and long enough to hope that you Readers who have suffered with me through the post never have to suffer through an actual event like this. As health problems go, intermittent migraines are far from the worst thing a person can be imposed upon by nature to endure. This does not make them pleasant, though. It puts a bit of uncertainty in life, because I know that at any time, suddenly and for no good reason or cause that I have ever been able to identify, a demon who lives deep within my brain may cause neurological system to betray me for eighteen hours or so.
Burt, I am so sorry. I get the occasional one still too, and wouldn’t wish them on anyone. Good descriptions, BTW.
I know you didn’t post this looking for advice or help, but I will bug you anyway, and tell you what (I think) dropped the incidence of mine from a couple a month, to a couple a year.
Fluorescent lights, my man. Something about the wavelength (tending towards blue, a known trigger) and possibly the ‘flicker/buzz’ as well. If they are in your house, get rid of them. If you can change the ones in your office (or unscrew a few of them), do so. Minimize your exposure to them. Once I started working from home, my incidence dropped significantly, despite the fact that my home monitor is smaller and crappier than the one I had in the office so my eyestrain is presumably worse.
When I feel one start to hit, if I can, the way I can *sometimes* head it off at the pass is this (you can’t always do this depending on yr schedule) – IMMEDIATELY, 800 mg ibuprofen, washed down with coffee and plenty of water, and head *immediately* to a dark quiet room for a 30-min – 1 hr nap while the drugs hit.
If I do this, I find that I will still have a headache for the next 18-24 hours, but the worst (the nausea and complete inability to see in normal light) will be sometimes staved off.
Thanks for the tip and the sympathy, fellow-sufferer. The post was more of an exercise in description than anything else, but I do appreciate the tips. I’m glad the ibuprofen-caffeine trick works for you.
I wonder if there’s some high-efficiency light bulb available that isn’t fluorescent?
Obviously LEDs are getting better, so maybe that’s an option. Also, the ibuprofen/caffeine thing doesn’t always work (you gotta do it fast, right at the start), and even when it does, it’s not like I am totally better. It just keeps it down to a functional, non-vampiric-reaction-to-light level, minimal nausea/dizziness etc.
Could even be coincidence for all I know, but I am not gonna stop doing it until it “never” works at all.
If they have them in your office (obviously, you can’t control the courthouse) you may be able to minimize them by unscrewing just a few (my employer let me unscrew 2 of the 3 in the bar in the ceiling directly over my cubicle, though we had to leave one in/on for safety).
Could also be some other factor(s). But when I stopped going into the office they dropped markedly (like I said, maybe 2-3 a year now, vs. 2-3 a month), and I sit at a desk and stare at screens just as much or more than I ever did.
LEDs are MUCH more efficient than those ridiculous flourescent things.
http://store.earthled.com/products/new-earthled-zetalux-7-watt-led-light-bulb
arrgh, out of stock again. Maybe wait for EarthDay?
Fluorescent lights, my man. Something about the wavelength (tending towards blue, a known trigger) and possibly the ‘flicker/buzz’ as well.
I’d complained about fluorescents for years; said it wasn’t just the flicker, but the buzz. Finally, my husband took a one of those hand-crank emergency radios, and held it up to a light. Buzzed like crazy. And he finally understood — it’s not just the flicker, though the flicker is part of it. Can you feel cell-phone towers and electrical substations? They also buzz. (and I feel like a nut typing this, but it’s very real to me.)
Electrical towers and substations definitely buzz or hum, but I thought everyone heard that? AFAIK they don’t have any impact on me. But fluourescents seem to do it. Again, I suspect it may be a combination of “blue” plus the ever-so-slight strobing they do.
You are a man of far more resolve than I. My response would have been to leave a note that says “Migraine. Gone to to bed. Pizza should arrive at 7:30”.
Ugh, how unpleasant. I get something similar, but it’s always caused by intense muscle tightness in my neck and shoulders. Similarly, all stimuli seems turned up to 11, and I am completely non-functional. Fortunately, a good massage will take care of it.
This does sometimes also seem to be an associated factor for me, but I wasn’t sure if the muscle tension was a cause or an effect. Maybe I will try a massage next time (if I can get a ride to & from the masseuse, driving ain’t an option) & see if that helps.
James, see my post below; because that muscle tightness could be triggering migraine.
I really recommend reading Migraine by Oliver Sacks.
Also, another thought: magnesium really helps, but it’s rough on the stomach. Best way to get a large does of magnesium into your system is a hot bath with a couple cups of epsom salts.
I’ve only read to the word ‘migraine,’ and I knew it was coming.
Scotoma.
I’ve been getting glowing, white spirals recently. They start at the bottom of my field of vision; swirl up to the center, and then vanish. By the time one’s vanished, another’s begun. They’re worse when my eyes are closed. Just the though of them makes my stomach clench, triggers that urge to grab the barf bucket.
I’m so sorry, Burt. I share your misery. I need to go read the rest, but just reading that description of scotoma makes me weep. No one should be so cursed.
Finished.
First, when I’ve a severe one, I give myself a shot of immetrex (sp?). Since mine are frequently triggered by strobing light — they occur in airports, stores, etc.; if I have to be there, that shot may be essential. But it’s really hard on the organs that filter, so to be used sparingly.
I’ve tried anti-seizure drugs; they work, but make me dull and stupid, and I nearly lost my vision from one, so don’t recommend them. I also have an allergy to something they use in the base of pills, so try to avoid them. (Likely magnesium steroid; my youngest brother died from the same allergy; he had AIDS, and had an allergic reaction to his medication, even though he was participating in a clinical trail of meds for folk who are allergic.)
There is one thing that’s helped me tremendously; Chaga mushroom. While considered an alternative medicine here, it’s been extensively researched in Japan and Russia; and was recommended by a doctor for it’s anti-inflammatory properties. I grows on birch trees, which are common here. I collect my own, make a tea from it. (I large pot, cooked all day, and then bottled, to last a week. Takes a long time to extract the tea out of the wood.)
Most interesting:
I use The Force to push it back down into my cerebellum, into the spinal cord where it seems to have come from. Because that is likely where it comes from; at least according to Dr. Oliver Sacks’ book Migraine. Migraine is often triggered by inflammation of the brain stem, the place where the spine meets the brain. I have severe neck damage there. (There are likely other physical causes; but the brain stem is a major trigger for many people.)
Read about chaga; and if you want, I’ll send you some with instructions on how to use it. My life is far from normal because of migraine. But what bits of normal I do have come from Chaga, one of the oldest medicines humans from northern climate have.
I thank you for your kind thoughts and advice, zic, and wish you minimal migraine attacks on your own part and a symptom-free a recovery from that nasty-sounding neck damage.
I’ve never heard of the chaga mushroom before. You’ll forgive me if as an officer of the court I must adopt an attitude of caution about consuming exotic mushrooms. (Yes, I realize that these are not the sorts of mushrooms law enforcement authorities are usually concerned about.) But anything that can bring relief or prevent it deserves examination and study.
With chaga, you’re not using the ‘mushroom’ part, the reproductive fruit, but the actual body of the mushroom. It has absolutely no intoxicating effects. None. And if you’re curious to find out more about it, beyond the wikipedia links, google chaga academic research. Most if it will be in Russian and Japanese, but it’s been studied for medicinal benefits for a very, long time. And I’ve never heard of any toxicity associated with it, and I’ve read all the real research I could find about it.
I need to check out this book; I like Sacks anyway, so it’ll be time well-spent whether I get anything out of it or not. I don’t have any “severe” neck damage, but I have had 2 fairly-serious car accident/whiplash-type things in the past, as well as a semi-serious snowskiing accident when I was younger.
Glyph, 2 whip-lash injuries may well rise to the level of ‘severe neck damage,’ my sister has remarkably similar problems, and while I bashed my head up and broke lots of bones, she only had a car accident and whiplash. But we share the symptoms of brain-stem inflammation. (She, an RN, gave me the book.)
The Sacks book was his first, I think, and he had yet to develop his knack for writing for laymen. I depended on google search to get through it. But it definitely helped me understand what was happening to me.
You know, a day later as the pain has gone away the part that seems most remarkable to me is how the emotional setback of burning the chicken so paralyzed me.
I would not normally be so emotionally fragile over something like that. I’d be irritated with myself, yes, but typically that would be a frustration I’d vent with a small amount of profanity, and then move on to solve the problem. But while under attack, I was more than halfway to tears, and I really needed the coaching from my wife for an alternative course of action.
Burt, one thing I learned from reading Sacks book: That weak, drawn, vulnerable feeling you have the day after, often described as ‘migraine hangover?’
It’s part of the migraine; the pain that we think of as migraine is fading, certainly. But still part of it.
In part, that’s because the pain that we think of as migraine is a symptom of the storm going on in the brain. Migraine is the aura you get, even if you don’t get the pain (which you said happens); it’s the hangover. It may well be random stomach upset. I get it in my limbs, sometimes. I’ve a friend who get’s a kind of aura in his ears; things seem to echo and ring. The one thing it all seems to have in common is the same episodic spastic twitching or tremors (do your eyes sometimes tic?) and heightened sensitivity. The pain, from what I can tell, is simply the symptom severe enough that it forces people to figure out what’s wrong. We can mostly still function with the rest.
/and please forgive me for jumping all over this thread; your description is pretty amazingly accurate and it inspired me to speak. Plus, I’m still raw from migraine yesterday and the day before, so have that ‘good’ feeling returning. I’ve spent the better part of the last five years living with nearly constant migraine, one year so bad that I could barely speak. I still have a lot of trouble with language, now, and it’s slipping from me is an even earlier warning sign the aura. I had to learn what was going on and how to manage it as best I could. I
No problem, zic, I think it’s sometimes helpful to share experiences.
As a matter of fact, they do. Nearly daily. Little pulse beats. No pain, just a momentary sensation. I thought that was normal for everyone and never even thought to mention it to anyone. It isn’t?
No. It isn’t.
But it’s a very common thing for people who’re suffering from frequent migraine. I get the same sort of tic in my hands sometimes; sometimes in my feet. And often, my esophagus; which results in something like acid reflux.
You understand that it’s not your eyes; it’s your brain. Well, that brain controls all of you. so the migraine can be anywhere; and it can travel about. What’s constant is that tic. Headache, that’s just another manifestation of the tic, one in the optic nerve.
The tic? From what I understand, it’s a mini seizure. That’s why anti-seizure meds often help. Some people get botox treatments in their necks, just where the nerves come out of the brainstem, to prevent immobilizes the nerves in the brainstem where the tic generates; and it seems quite promising.
to prevent immobilizes
agh. that’s an example of my language tic. Another storm rolling in. Like Bullwinkle’s Bunion, my neck’s sensitive to barometric change.
I get those tics in my eyeballs from time to time, but I’ve never had a migraine. Thank goodness.
Is the sensation in your eyes themselves, or the eyelids? A tick in the eyelids generally comes from excessive stress, often brought on by inadequate sleep. Of course, for those who are susceptible, migraine can be triggered or worsened by excessive stress and inadequate sleep.
If the sensation is in your eyes, I claim no knowledge.
The organization I work for is dedicated to the immediate amelioration and eventual eradication of a major neurological disease. One of the statistics I found amazing when I got there is that approximately 90% of what we know about the brain we’ve only found out in the last 15-20 years. Mostly because we’ve only had the delicate and sensitive instruments necessary to probe the brain since that time.
It’s the most delicate mechanism on earth, riding around at the top of our necks.
I forgot that you, too, suffer from ocular migraines. Except that you get the headache, which I thankfully avoid. The only downside to my situation is explaining that my blindness is something called a “migraine” that doesn’t mean that my head hurts. That and the degree to which it freaked me out until I knew exactly what this thing was that caused me not to be able to do anything. But… all of that is still better than what you describe.
Burt,
My brother started having migraine in high school and was unable to complete his undergrad degree as planned because of the disease knocking him out too frequently; he had a medical withdrawal and has worked ever since to get that degree. What he described was similar to your experience: a visual harbinger followed by increasing pain that eventually knocked him out. Medication helped some, and Emetrex was a way to essentially reduce the time for recovery and avoid the pain by being unconscious.
Eventually, after hospitalization and surgery for seemingly unrelated, life-threatening digestive tract issues, it was discovered that he had a severe wheat allergy and so his entire system was constantly being wracked with damage. On a gluten-free diet now, he still has to minimize a few remaining migraine triggers, but does so successfully all of the time now. I think he’s been migraine-free.
I’m not suggesting you have exactly the same situation, but you might want to inspect your diet carefully with the help of a doctor. Eliminating fluorescent lights as Glyph suggests seems good, too; I remember that possibly contributed to my brother’s problems–all the places he was required to be had fluorescent lighting.
You have my best wishes for improving your condition. If you’d like to contact my brother, I’m sure he’d reciprocate–just email me privately.
I appreciate the thought, man. That sounds absolutely awful for your brother! Emetrex’s sleep-inducing qualities seem very attractive during the attack, but that’s not the way to go through life.
For me, I get these infrequently enough that simply tolerating them is usually sufficient. An attack turns in to a full event like this only once or twice a year for me. Stress is a factor, I’m sure, and diet can be as well. What’s weird about this attack was that I had been eating in a reasonably healthy fashion for me, and have just had a mountain of stress relieved from me rather than dumped on me. But the precise origins of migraine attacks remain mysterious — although I’m going to check out the book that zic mentioned and see if I can learn more about this persistent demon.
I don’t get migraines. I get tension headaches. Many people who get what they describe as migraines (not classic ones) are actually getting tension headaches (particularly if they come about as part of the weather cycle). Currently, my eyeball feels like it’s going to fall out, and that’s after the medication… (before, it was focused on my rearmost molar).
I suggest at least trying some sinus pills.
My husband gets migraines, sometimes to the point where he can’t see/speak properly. He recommends sex.
Great description, Burt – almost gave me flashbacks…
I used to get migraines all the time until I moved to Colorado (5-minutes-to-desperation trigger: person on public transit wearing wrong cologne). It was particularly frustrating, because I got sinus headaches as well, and they always started the same, so unless I recognized the trigger, I often had a 50/50 shot of guessing the right drug (picking the wrong one made it worse). These days, it’s almost always a sinus headache, and almost never happens in the first place.
Of all the health problems I’ve had, migraine was the one I most hated. You have my sympathies.
Garrrr, I am glad not to have the headache, but it would *really* be helpful not to be half-blind at the moment.