I'm pleased to say that I am a former Migraine sufferer.

I've had the condition since I was 17 years old, when the first one hit. It was such an intense pain that I begged my mom to take me to the emergency room -- certain my brain was bleeding since the pain included a number of other symptoms (blurry vision, dizziness, nausea and the like). They sent me home with 1000mg of acetaminophen and basically told my mom that I was probably faking or just had a bad headache. My experience with around two decades of dealing with this illness was that neither regular folks, nor doctors, take the condition terribly seriously. People call their headaches "Migraines" having no idea that there's a difference. There's drugs marketed for Migraine headaches that, in my experience, did very little and were targeted at people who get "bad headaches that htey call Migraine". The best description I could give of how it felt was "like the worst 'brain freeze' you've ever had but instead of ending after a few seconds, it goes on for a few days". But everyone seems to have slightly different symptoms and until reading this article, I wasn't even aware that it was possible to have Migraine without the associated headache (though I had heard about some of the other symptoms that I hadn't experienced myself).

For me, a typical Migraine was 3-days long, twice a month, with increasing frequency during the fall and spring months. I'd have the aura most of the time and the after-effects almost all of the time. I'd been employed, full time, during the entire time that I lived with Migraine and because of its frequency, I rarely--if ever--took time off (try explaining to a boss that you need the day off because you have "a headache"). I'd given a presentation to a room full of coworkers right in the middle of one -- my eyes watering the whole time from the pain. Most of the time, though, I'd figure out ways to function -- sunglasses, staying still, contrast down all the way on the monitor, fasting for the day with frequent trips to the restroom to vomit air.

If normal people don't take it seriously, doctors seemed to take it even less seriously. The first question they'd often ask is "did you miss work because of a headache?" Being too honest, I'd say "no" and they'd stop paying attention or prescribe an anti-inflammatory. A doctor who took me moderately seriously prescribed two different triptan-based drugs with the assurance that "my wife gets these -- when you have an aura, just take one and it'll all go away." The pain was dulled by a huge amount, but they came with enormous side-effects. I would experience an intense sort of "elation" shortly after taking the pill, followed by a depression after the pain was gone (I'm neither of these things, normally, except for a small bit of listlessness after the Migraine had subsided). The medical literature indicated mild variants of these symptoms but this was anything but minor to me. I ended up finding out, by accident, when mixing this medicine with another medicine that affects serotonin, that my body lacks a gene required for properly flushing this medicine out of my system. I was sent to the ER with ~103 degree fever, incredibly elevated blood pressure (I don't remember the number but I remember the look on the nurse's face when she took my blood pressure for the third time with the replaced cuff and got the same numbers), and was treated by staff who was sure I had taken some recreational drug and was having a bad reaction (they were shocked when the tox screen came back clean). It was probably serotonin shock according to a doctor I saw well after this visit, but the ER staff was convinced I had some sort of psychiatric episode or took a drug they couldn't screen for. Regardless, they told me to never take a triptan again.

This incident resulted in me seeing a new doctor who suggested I try a medicine given -- in the past -- to people with epilepsy (and now commonly prescribed for bipolar disorder) called Depokote. Ironically, it was not prescribed to handle Migraine, but rather whatever underlying problem caused my trip to the ER[0]. It was September, a month where I had gotten Migraines weekly every year since I was 17. After a month of taking the medicine I had no headaches. I did a quick google search and the usual web sites didn't say anything about Migraine relief, but a handful of forum posts from people who take the medication had been taking it to manage Migraine symptoms (a search of that medicine a few weeks ago yielded results indicating that the medicine is now prescribed for that purpose). These silly little pills that cost about a dollar for a month's supply are magic as far as I'm concerned. Generally, I hate drugs affect my brain, but I've had no side-effects (unless you consider eliminating Migraine a side-effect).

My apologies for the long comment, but since I know there are others out there who probably have gone through what I went through, I thought I'd share.

[0] Here's where it gets complicated. The ER couldn't figure out why I was sick, but a flush of fluids through my system resolved everything. I was diagnosed as having a psychiatric episode -- something I had never had in the past, nor since. I was also admitted on a US holiday, so staff wasn't so great. I was prescribed this medication on the assumption that I might need to be on a mood stabiliser, which was absurd to me, but these were doctors and I am not, so I listened blindly. I had the genetic test months later after my children had been given a similar test and theirs had indicated a problem with triptans and, sure enough, those were my genes.