Just a quick simple question…of all the folks here at the MAV Forum…whose symptoms Identify primarily with more of a “Silent Migraine”? I would have to say i fit into this category. I use to have lots of Vertigo a number of years back… but that has subsided significantly in the last few years. But the symptoms that bother me most are felt mostly inside my head and of course affects my equilibrium…they are…Tension/tightness,+ mild to moderate Throbbing + Motion … and ALL of that combined equals a Rocking Sensation. There is no serious pain other than the Tension and it’s mostly just bothersome. Occasionally, i have the run of the mill headache…especially if i skip a meal or have an enormous stressed out day. My current diagnosis is “Migraine Equivalent”.
Would like to hear from anyone who believe they are the Silent Migrainer’s…and what are your symptoms?
Hi Joe, how are you going?
Well I don’t really have permanent tension in my head or a sensation of movement inside my head, my burning pain and tension around base of my scull and neck only happen during a BIG! Migraine that renders me speechless, ect.
Otherwise it just a permanent brain fog with, 24/7 rocking, horrible rocking, veering and pulling, with bouncing floors, vision shifting, and rushing head.
Then I have to sleep! I have no choice in the matter; it’s like having a sleeping med.
Oh Lord, Joe I thought of you today when I was in the doctors office. The motion was off-the-wall.
Does anyone else have the motion IN the head like us?
Does Julie?
my burning pain and tension around base of my scull and neck only happen during a BIG! Migraine that renders me speechless, ect.
— End quote
Renders you speechless? Ummm errr I got it so bad starting in March I thought it was(is) occipital neuralgia!
It rendered me speechless too. Not that I was paralyzed, but that I was so shocked by the intensity of the pain my jaw just fell open
and I couldn’t get the words out to tell my Dad what was wrong with me!!
It started in my neck and spread like a forest fire up the back of my skull.
Having my neck bent forward kept tiggering it.
For the longest time I said “I don’t get headaches”. What I’ve come to realize however is that I am developing a headache most everyday, but the sensation is more of tension than of pain. Its a pretty acute sensation though and certainly borders on being called pain much of the time. I believe these headaches developed so slowly (years) that I had come to believe that this was just how I was supposed to feel as I “got older”. I know that sounds lame - I’m only 41. Anyway during one of these headaches I have alot of trouble getting my eyes to focus and track properly and the disequilibrium is definitely worse. Actual spells of spinning vertigo seem to be more likely to occur during these headaches but can also happen when I’m not experiencing one. Headaches are relieved by sleep and - if I catch it before it gets too bad - exercise also seems to help.
For a long time I was very resistant to this diagnosis because “I don’t get headaches” and I had so many “ear specific” symptoms (tinnitus, fullness). What I’m coming to understand though is that there are alot of different manifestations of migraine other than the traditional horrible throbbing headache.
you are the one who describes the sensation as if your head were a fish bowl, correct? and it felt like any movement made the water within it rock back and forth? I’m asking because Heather directed her question of movement to me and i really don’t think i get that kind of movement.
I SEE movement and I feel the bed moving and I feel my body moving. But I don’t think I feel movement IN my head. Thank god for small favors. That sounds awful! I do have the tension in my head that you talk about, or in my scalp, i can never decide.
I never have a headache, although i do get slightly headachey (less so since I’ve been using the Neti Pot). And I sometimes wake up with a pain in my eye which goes away pretty quickly.
Before meds, I was simply filled with aura of all kinds. Also, before meds, once in awhile i would get a very bad headache and during that time it became CRYSTAL clear that all of these symptoms were absolutely migraine. I’ve had migraines my entire life and without the headache, i couldn’t put 2 + 2 together, but add that picture and it’s a no-brainer. And then, oddly, the next day I wouldn’t have a headache, and I would forget and wonder again, what the heck is going on. It just never felt like migraine without that headache.
So Heather, some of the movement you’re talking about is INSIDE your head? So, you SEE movement, you FEEL your body moving and there is movement INSIDE your head? Ye Gads, you’ve got it all!
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick simple question…of all the folks here at the MAV Forum…whose symptoms Identify primarily with more of a “Silent Migraine”? I would have to say i fit into this category. I use to have lots of Vertigo a number of years back… but that has subsided significantly in the last few years. But the symptoms that bother me most are felt mostly inside my head and of course affects my equilibrium…they are…Tension/tightness,+ mild to moderate Throbbing + Motion … and ALL of that combined equals a Rocking Sensation. There is no serious pain other than the Tension and it’s mostly just bothersome. Occasionally, i have the run of the mill headache…especially if i skip a meal or have an enormous stressed out day. My current diagnosis is “Migraine Equivalent”.
Would like to hear from anyone who believe they are the Silent Migrainer’s…and what are your symptoms?
Joe
— End quote
Up until the last ~3 months I was more of a Silent Migrainer … had the vertigo & 24/7 dizzies, tinnitus, ear-fullness, but no head pain. About 8 years ago I had ‘tension headaches’ along with ‘classic migraine’ headaches but no dizziness, etc. Took a couple weeks’ worth of Celebrex & my headaches stopped for several years. Couple years ago the vertigo hit & lasted about 3 months (diagnosis was ‘vestibular neuritis’). Went for a year with no problems at all, then January 07 - wham - vertigo’s back but still no headaches. Late last year I started having constant dizziness & periodic headaches. Ever since I started trying pharmaceuticals to fix the problem, I’ve had headaches almost daily.
YES…my head feels like a fish bowl filled with water in that if the fish bowl is moved it feels like movements of water swishing back & forth. The medication that helps me to keep more stationary is Xanex…and my new current medication (Verapamil) helps decrease some of the Tension. I never feel that my head is 100% at ease…just can’t get my head to feel relaxed…like it use to be when i was normal.
Is Heather and I the only lone rangers with this sensation?
Most of my Tension is felt on the right side of my head but it’s also felt throughout my skull/head. The fish bowl like sensation isnot pleasant. Even as i’m writing this note to you…if i sit quietly i can feel the mild throbbing in my head and that is what i believe creates that wavy like motion that feels like the fishbowl sensation.
my tension is typically right-sided, but it can move to the top of my head and when it gets bad, it can go to the back of my head and even down into my face. Sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s where the pain would be. But i sure don’t feel any sloshing around feeling in my head. that has got to be awful.
My face is not affected…thank goodness! Years back the doc thought i had Anxiety with an Inner-ear dysfunction. When i would be sleeping i began to notice that when i woke up from sleep with vertigo i was turning from my left side to my right side in bed. It mimicked Benign Positional Vertigo at the beginning of this mess. I thought that my right ear was the affected ear. The tension is nearly always felt on my right side…but if i have a very stressful day the tension spreads in other areas of my head. Years back i use to refer to the fish bowl syndrome as a Ping Pong ball bouncing around in my head (every which way).
Sometime I wake up with motion, sometimes not.
But I never have gotten full-on rotational vertigo in my life.
I’m pretty wacky when I stumble into the bathroom at night.
I am sick and tired of the toilet bouncing. Lol.
I told the neuro today that the motion feels like something
inside my skull moving back and forth. My brain on crack.
LOL! Just kidding.
I think Marla in the MdDS group calls it G-forces.
I think Joe’s description is good, mine also feels like an ocean tide moving in and out.
Vibrational, too.
Joe and I like the water metaphor, for sure!
i use the water metaphor a lot also, just not inside my head. So the MDD people have this sensation of movement inside their head, like Joe is talking about?
“does anyone have the feeling o liquid sloshing in their head when they move it from side to side.”
“Absolutley… jelly in the head sloshing around and g forces and pressure pushing and pulling CONSTANTLY”
“DITTO”
“horrible g forces a pushing and pulling inside my brain … today and yesterday are sooooo bad… I feel like there is a huge magnetic pull on my brain …”
“the rocky stuff in my head like being on a plane and g forces are almost SLIDERY … like slooshing slidddyy… sliding back and forth and up and down and then like woosh.”
Tha last comment was from a Harvard English Literature Major, of course. :mrgreen:
wait a minute, so that’s a migraine??? You have got to be joking?
I almost fell off my chair in pain and horror!
Since when does neck extension trigger migraine?
So Heather, some of the movement you’re talking about is INSIDE your head? So, you SEE movement, you FEEL your body moving and there is movement INSIDE your head? Ye Gads, you’ve got it all!
Julie
— End quote
No no, I don’t SEE movement (thank GOD!) I feel it all.
