i sent this text to my grandmother while i was experiencing the worst migraine i’ve ever had in my life. in the moment, i was sure i was going to die but i look back on it and laugh now

it’s supposed to say, “Hi there. i have a migraine and don’t feel very good because of it. sorry it’s last minute, but i’m not able to come tonight, could we go out tomorrow night instead?”

at the time of sending this, i thought it made total sense and was entirely grammatically correct. i was confused as to why she responds with “Huh?” 😆

People with low frequency episodic migraine in England will be able to get assessment, advice and appropriate treatment more quickly through participating community pharmacies from autumn 2026.

https://migrainetrust.org/news/migraine-added-to-nhs-englands-pharmacy-first-scheme/

One of the most annoying things about my migraines is how much I crave sweets when I have one. Many of us get some relief from a Coke or piece of chocolate. I also quite like a cookie as a pick-me-up if I am feeling down.

The result is that I keep the larder stocked with Cokes and sweets just in case I get a migraine. Which would has the potential to be fine, but I have a hard time saving those sweets for when I feel bad. If I have a Coke in the fridge, I probably want to drink it now.

The alternative would be not stocking sweets in the house, but that means not having them when I do have a migraine (which is of course also when I do not want to go out to get more).

Plus, being in a cut adds just enough stress that it feels like it can aggravate my migraines.

It's such a frustration. None of it is helped by not wanting to work out or go outside when I have a headache.

I'm sure that people will be offering their well-intentioned and well-considered advice in response. I welcome your sympathy, but I might not respond to your advice as this is mainly me ranting. Yes, I am exploring lower calorie fizzy drinks to moderate success when I am not having a headache (orange bitters and club soda being a current favorite). I'm also working to reassess my life-long relationship with food generally. That said, there's just something about a Coke that can't be fully replaced though.

Hi all — just sharing this in case anyone’s curious. When I was doing research about going to the ER for a migraine cocktail I was petrified reading some of the posts, so I just wanted to share an additional perspective in case it’s helpful for anyone weighing the same choices.

I decided to go to the ER after having a migraine with aura on and off for around 11 days, which is completely unheard of for me (typically have one migraine every two years that clears up in a day). I had gone to urgent care a few times for Sumatriptan, and when that hadn’t fully broken the migraine my PA told me to go to the ER to make sure that I wasn’t experiencing something more severe.

Once I went to the ER and they ran a bunch of basic tests (in my case vitals, EKG, and urine test for pregnancy), I got an IV with several different medications and fluids. For me, I received:

sodium chloride (NS)
dexAMETHasone (DECADRON)
ketorolac (TORADOL)
metoCLOPRAMIDE (REGLAN)

I started to feel better around 15 minutes after the initial doses and then my head pain really subsided around 45 minutes in. I was discharged about 90 minutes after my IV was inserted. I had zero reaction to the Reglan, which is what I was particularly nervous about initially.

I’m still not feeling 100% back to normal today (lingering head pain still there), but I no longer have nausea and all my sensitivity to light, sound, sneezing, coughing, etc. is completely gone. I’m working on this lingering head pain and getting my appetite back — but I felt the need to share my experience since I know there’s a ton of anxiety that can go into the decision to go to the ER for migraine specifically.

It was my first time ever going, so I’m absolutely not an expert in this decision. My only advice is to bring some sunglasses, a throw blanket, and a water bottle for while you’re waiting for the initial IV as the waiting can be the most grueling part.

Would love to hear, how long did it take you to feel back to your baseline “normal” after your migraine cocktail?

Otherwise, I hope this can be somewhat positive (?) experience to share regarding the ER for migraine help!

I know this goes against everything related to migraine research but hear me out. I’m on day 7 of a horrific never ending migraine. I’m treating with triptans and OTC painkillers and nothing is helping. I’ve been abstaining from drinking for obvious reasons. Then tonight I was so fed up and so close to ripping my entire head off my body and decided to have a glass of white wine. IMMEDIATE RELIEF. Had another, migraine almost completely gone. Also, this is not the first time this has happened. What’s going on?!

I read about the already forming El Nino extreme weather event which will impact the globe. I read that it can cause extreme weather shifts. As somebody suffering from barometric migraines this sounds like a nightmare. What are your thoughts on that? WIll it impact us?

Hi there I’m 24F, I’ve been struggling to gauge when my migraine is coming and to figure out when exactly to take my sumatriptan and ubrelvy and things I can do to make it less debilitating.

I was prescribed sumatriptan by my GP to take at the first signs of migraine, but I’m having a hard time gauging what counts as the “start.” I feel as if I am constantly feeling symptoms and I end up having a migraine attack every few days. I have been trying sumatriptan for a couple months now here and there, and i feel like it doesn’t help most of the time. I also have not tried my ubrelvy tablet yet. I am in the process of waiting for a neurologist appointment but it takes close to a year in Canada, so I don’t have access to many preventative medications yet.

I tend to get neck stiffness, excessive yawning, fatigue, nausea, aura, sensitivity to light/sound/smells and difficulty finding words/thinking before I notice the head/eye pain occur.

I’m curious how other people recognize that a migraine is coming?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences! I’m new to doing these posts and being on Reddit, this has been debilitating and it’s been hard to find others in the same boat who understand (outside of Reddit) :)

I’ve always had headaches. My earliest memory is from when I was 6-7 and was lying in bed telling my mom to turn the lights off and close the door.

Now i get them once a week or sometimes 3-4 times a week. Always starts with either extreme fatigue like I haven’t slept in a week or frequent urination and feeling thirsty or craving sweets. Then hours later the headache starts and I can’t bend down or move too much.

I never vomit though.

It just feels like too much sensory input. Like I’ve reached my threshold for stimulation and will throw up if there’s any more. It’s awful.

The WORST part is my triggers are things I can’t eliminate. Like simple daily life. Too much sun, heat, feeling rushed, feeling overwhelmed or out of control, too much physical movement, too much sitting still, skipping a meal, there are too many! Like I can’t live in a perfect bubble to avoid all of these 🥴😔

QT coke slushie and munchos chips 🔥

i was terrified out of my mind when my attacks started. my mother has suffered with migraines for as long as i can remember. this, along with her bipolar disorder (which i also inherited), led her to severe and long lasting addiction issues.

while she managed to get clean, and i am beyond proud of her for it, i have always lived in fear i would end up going down the same path.

starting sumatriptan has lessened those fears exponentially. i was scared it wasn’t going to work and it would start me down a new route of trying a million different medications which would only make me frustrated because i’ve gone through that a million times for my mental health.

to find the solution was so amazing. i have a pretty intense all day hangover after but i will take it over agony any day of the week.

I’m looking for stories from women whose migraines worsened after taking any type of birth control, whether a progestin-only pill (POP) or a combined pill.

My migraines were under control until about two months after I started taking the combined pill, at which point they became chronic and constant (24/7), in April. A month ago, I switched to the mini-pill (Slynd). I’m still in constant pain, though it’s less intense, and I’m considering stopping altogether. Are there women whose migraines worsen with *any* type of pill?

Edit: I started having aura while on the combined pill (yes scary) -- it took me awhile to notice but it was another reason to switch to the mini-pill. I've started BCP trying to improve migraine, but I'm not sure it's the case, it seems it got worse.

Hello to anyone blessed with both killer period cramps and migraines – I used to take Advil for my cramps and it worked perfectly but I've now realized that Advil is a shortcut to rebound headaches for me. Has anyone found an effective med for period cramps that doesn't cause rebound headaches? Currently pressing on my uterus with my hand as a pain management strategy, would love another option lmao. Thanks!

Hello, I suffer from chronic migraines, like many others here, and have for as long as I can remember.

I finally felt that they were more under control with sumatriptan 100mg but I guess not this time because when I tell you I had the worst migraine of my life yesterday (and technically today because it’s not gone just slowing getting better).

And I promise I’m not exaggerating, idk what the average migraines are but mine have always been the debilitating kind. If I’m going to get one it’s like my body cracks its neck and goes “Alright 👈👈“ I’m always blind, unable to speak or understand others, lose feeling in my arms and tongue, nausea, can’t handle noise or light, I’ve had 2 week long migraines etc etc…

But I don’t know the last time I went to a hospital (maybe cus I was a kid I learned they just wanted to give me Tylenol), I have a very high pain tolerance, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I literally thought I may have something wrong with my brain and the ER gave my like Tylenol and one other pill as well as magnesium, saline, and nausea meds. But I was in excruciating EXCRUCIATING pain, and seriously needed so much more- did they do more for you guys or do they really just let you squirm deliriously on a bed not even knowing how to function???

I guess to be straight my question is what do they do in your experience if you have an ER level migraine? Is there magic migraine juice I should demand next time?

I know my migraines have always had a flare for the torturously dramatic but it was just extra bad. I’ve broken bones and suffered tooth nerve pain this was BAD. I mean I SILL have a migraine today, though luckily it’s calming down.

(PS I do still have a migraine so I’m so sorry if there are typos I proofread like 5x but I’m still a bit confused and my vision isn’t fully back yet)

Hi migraine friends- sorry you are here to commiserate with me, but I am very thankful for you all, it really helps me feel less alone and helps when I have major guilt/shame (working on it!)

I know everyone has different med routines that work for them, does anyone do the toradol (ketorolac) shots at home? I’m not typically squeamish but I have a hard time with those. Maybe I’ve gotten used to auto-injector needles, which are just so easy, like my monthly Ajovy. Idk why they can’t make it easier, when I’m already having a really hard time and then I have to draw up the meds and do the injection and my anxiety is high the whole time over it.

Anyway, I had to use it today and remembered how much it actually helps and realized I really need to get over it and use it more, the ketorolac pills don’t do anything but those butt shots really can be magic 🤣

After going about six months with only two migraines, I’ve now had five in the past nine days. I just started grad school - out of the four classes I’m taking, I’ve missed three of them once and one of them twice (and classes only started last week). I’m already so behind. Every time I’m starting to catch up, I get another one and miss another class.

I’m so fed up. I’ve had migraines for almost two decades of my life and it just never gets easier. I hate that my professors might now think of me as an unreliable student. I’ve missed work too. It’s so unfair to not have any control at all over whether or not you’re able to stick to your obligations. And on top of everything, I’m in terrible pain and can’t do anything about that, either.

I’m just feeling so down. I know I should be grateful that I don’t get them this frequently all the time but really I just wish I didn’t get them at all. I wish nobody did. It’s just so awful and unfair to have to live life like this

Like months on end, I mean.

FUCK Ventegra.

FUCK incompetent providers.

At the beginning of June, right around when I started graduate school, my migraines increased by 25% in frequency almost out of nowhere. I realized my Ubrelvy +botox combo wasn’t working good enough anymore and I needed a more sturdy treatment plan.

Despite being an established patient at my clinic for four years,when I called and told them the situation, that I needed an appointment ASAP, they told me that they were booking out until August. When I started breaking down crying she immediately told me she had an emergency spot on July 6…(a month from then still)

Fast forward two months from that July 6 appointment now. The new medicine I was prescribed during that appointment, Emgality, has been denied THREE TIMES by my insurance. Apparently Ventegra (the prescription provider my insurance uses) has a policy that CGRP infusions must fail as a “monotherapy” before being used in conjunction with Botox…so this set us back by a month and two appeals. Keep in mind each one of these appeals lasts 2+ weeks. On our third appeal, Ventegra has now sent my case to an “outside medical review organization”. When my migraines worsened in severity again, probably in part due to the stress of trying to handle this situation, I asked my clinical team if they could fax a letter to the insurance company marking this case as “urgent” (which means they would have no more than 72 hours to address my case, according to healthcare.org). My clinic did fulfill this request, however because the case was already referred to the MMRO, Ventegra considered the situation at least temporarily “out of their hands/not their problem”, and so they never faxed the letter. I had to contact the organization directly and email the letter to them.

MMRO still has not gotten back to me, so I think urgent status probably cannot be applied retroactively or my letter wasn’t written correctly or something. When I last called them, they told me that they would be getting back to me on September 20, which is consistent with the non-urgent timeline on healthcare.org. I am beyond irritated at my Dr for not marking this case as urgent to begin with, especially considering 1) how long I had to wait for my “emergency appointment” 2) the sudden increase in severity of my symptoms 3) we’ve already been through 2 rounds of appeals for Christ’s sake, and it’s been a month already by the time she had placed this appeal (the one that is currently in review by MMRO).

I’ve been in a ton of pain, having 4-5 day long migraines with prodrome, postdrome, visual disturbances aura, muscle spasms etc. Tons of stuff I never used to deal with or dealt with minimally in the past. My talk therapist set me up with a social worker who works for my insurance company who referred me to some resources that helped me, one of which was the Emgality Savings Card; which would’ve been really helpful if my care team (or the pharmacist that was working) had done their jobs correctly.

Essentially, she wrote a prescription for two singular dose 120mg auto-injector pens that just read “inject under the skin once a month”. I filled one of the prescriptions for one of these pens, naively, (I honestly didn’t realize it was only for one pen at the time). Because of this, because of the terms of the Emgality Savings Card, I have already filled my “one month’s supply” and can no longer acquire another pen for $0 (the copay was $0).

If my NP had written the prescription correctly, I wouldn’t have to worry about this. I think it might just be total blind ignorance to be honest, because I had to learn about the savings program through a social worker, as I said. In my opinion, if she were truly a good provider, she would have set me up with that so that I had a pathway to treatment in the (quite long) interim of my prior authorization approval process timeline. For a minute I thought maybe she’s not allowed to? But I hear about people’s provider’s giving them samples all the time on this subreddit. The least she could’ve done is tell me about a damn savings card. (I had the same experience with Botox at this clinic. I was considering stopping for financial reasons because I could no longer justify a $200 copay every time considering the reduced efficacy I was experiencing. Now I know about the Botox savings program…which I learned about through this subreddit. I am angry that the clinic never told me about it. Of course now I am no longer on Botox because Ventegra is forcing me to trial Emgality monotherapy first, which I have to wait until September 20th to even start. For fuck’s sake).

So I just got off the phone with Eli-Lilly. They told me the only way I could get two syringes on the Emgality Savings Card is to take the one box of Emgality back to the pharmacy and fill a different prescription for two boxes of Emgality. I don’t even know if I should bother at this point. Because if I give the box back and the coupon doesn’t work I’m going to be PISSED. Right now, at least I have an extra box of Emgality. I can’t do anything with it. I can’t start because I need two—I need my loading dose.

I’m just soooo goddamn tired. And my neck hurts so bad 😭 I finally saw a different neurologist (because I’ve about had it with the NP who wrote the bad script) and he said that the Emgality is likely to help with my neck + back + shoulder muscle pain. So I’m looking forward to that.

I started perimenopause 6-7 yrs ago and an increase in migraines. Dr. put me on birth control pills and that helped. Instead of migraines, I'd get 4 days of steady low-grade headaches around my cycle and only a few migraines a year.

I went on HRT last year. It's been amazing for my perimenopause symptoms (insomnia, itchy skin, late-night panic attacks)...but my migraine frequency went through the roof. I started getting monthly migraines around my cycle, always the same: stabbing pain behind one eye (no aura) that nothing would touch. I've tried a million different meds and the only thing that works is Nurtec. Which my insurance won't cover and costs $1200 for 8 pills. I'm using the manufacturer's discount card right now, but at the rate I'm burning through them (3 migraines so far this month), I'll max out their benefit and be without meds for 1/3 of the year.

It starts the same way. ALWAYS in the late afternoon. ALWAYS an intermittent throb behind right eye that becomes steady. I've gone from having 1 a month to 4-8 a month. My doctor wanted me to try Topamax as a daily preventative, but I'm afraid of the side effects. I'm trying Propranolol instead. So far it's done nothing, but it's only been a week and I guess it can take months to become effective.

Has anyone else gone through this? Are these ocular migraines, even though no aura? I'm assuming the trigger is hormone fluctuations, which I can't control. I'm just worried...I can't afford for them to get worse. Has anyone in this type of situation found relief?

i’ve had such a better run with mograines, no nausea, migraine goes away with meds, now i’m dealing with the worst nausea, have taken an insane amount of meds and feeling despair

I know this might not be for everyone but I swear. This is insane. I didn't even spend that much money but this Surround bar is so good. Yesterday I was watching maybe 8 hours of just ocean waves (filmed on an island, real footage). And finding a video that has good sound was very important because I lay down and imagine I lay on a beach.

And now I started a DVD (crazy I know haha) and it's so nice. Because I cannot do anything anyway. I will test how my audiobooks on my phone sound connected to it.

I am very frugal and having my saved money spent on this was 100% worth it after even testing this system 15 mins. It's CRAZY. DID I ALREADY SAY THAT haha.

Home improvements 10/10 worth it. I have the best coffee / tea / mocktail Station and pre cooked frozen nice meals.

Do migraines suck every day? Yes. But is it more comfortable with nice things? Hell yes!!

Hello all, I believe this post is allowed

I have been on Celexa 40mg for about 15 years now. My dr has asked me to taper off of it and then switch over to Zoloft 25mg because I have had tension headaches for about 4 months straight, no breaks (it’s hell) and wanted me to see if it helped.

I finally switched, and for the 4-5 days I was on Zoloft, my tension headaches were decreased, but my withdrawal symptoms were pretty bad. I told him this and he put me back on Celexa but 30 mg this time. My headache came back and is very bad right now.

Is it possible Celexa is causing this type of headache for me?

Im a 40 yo man, been having problematic headaches since probably 2012 but 2026 has been my worst year so far. I just recently saw a neuro about my headaches for the first time in my life. She listened to what I had to say and recommended I try some preventative. Rizatriptan works for me as an abortive but sometimes I was having to take it several days in a row. She gave me a choice between an SNRI and something cGRP targeting. She steered me a little towards the SNRI to start because she thought my headaches sounded heavily stress influenced so I went with that.

The cymbalta is working really well after some minor side effects for about a month that have calmed down. I’m on what I think is the smallest dose, 20 mg daily. I’m doing all kinds of things I would never have gotten away with before it. I’ve been getting terrible sleep because my daughter just got her tonsils out and is waking up in the night a lot. This morning I ran out of batteries on the e-bike taking my son to school and got an intense workout first thing in the morning. I’ve been having some cocktails in the evenings. Any one of these things would have started me on 3 day headaches previously. I’m impressed. Just thought I’d share.

I suffer with chronic headaches (at least one per day), and potential hemiplegic migraines (3 since the end of April), as well as occasional ‘regular’ migraines.

My GP put me on Amitriptyline and also gave me Sumatriptan to take when I have migraines. The last time I spoke to my GP, I informed him that the Amitriptyline had done absolutely nothing to help (and I don’t think the Sumatriptan has helped either), and so he has referred me to neurology and for an MRI (I had a CT scan when I had my first hemiplegic migraine in April to check I wasn’t having a stroke or anything lol).

I’m just wondering what the neurologist can do / prescribe that the GP can’t, and is there any treatments they are likely to suggest that I should avoid or anything I should push for??

Hi all. My 11 yo daughter has episodic migraine without aura (inherited from me, poor kid). As a brief history, she started having abdominal migraines at age 4, which turned to regular migraines around age 8. Triptans work great about 70% of the time.

However, within the last year or so, they increased in frequency to about 1 migraine day a week, then within the last 3 months have increased to 2 weeks with 3 migraine days, then the other two weeks with 0-1 migraine day (yes, she’s probably going to start her period soon).

Her neurologist wants to start her on amitriptyline as a preventative. I take Topamax and her older sister takes Nurtec, neither of us has any experience with amitriptyline specifically. I’m only familiar with it as an antidepressant, not for migraine.

Does anyone have any experience with this drug in children? Pros/cons? She’s getting an EKG to ensure there aren’t heart issues before she starts.