All migraineurs report intense pain and nausea. The pain is a pounding throbbing sensation. From the intense changes in brain stimulation and circulation, some people relate that they loose vision in one eye or even get numbness or partial stroke-like feeling during their headaches. These things all disappear as the headache subsides. There is no relationship between stroke and migraine except in patients who relate these two symptoms.
Migraine headaches differ from cluster headaches, which are just as intense.
Cluster headaches wake victims from their sleep, while migraines never do. Lying down is intolerable during these headaches. These headaches are brief in duration but may reappear several times in clusters. Some people can tell from the calendar when to expect cluster headaches. It was formerly thought that histamine played a role in starting these headaches, but this is no longer a widely held view.