Without Headaches

How many of you get these without headaches?

I get headaches that are typically triggered by the sun but for the past 7 weeks of this bouncing/upright vertigo I haven’t had any head pain at all (plenty of pressure/head rushes/and tingling)?

Replacement maybe, this can happen. I had sick headaches as a young girl, then nothing migraine-wise for many years, then vertigo attacks which nobody, me included, linked to headache/migraine for more than a decade, then in 2015 diagnosed with ‘migraine associated vertigo’. That’s a common pattern for females. Hormone linked I more than suspect. Many - including the migraine specialist neurologist I saw -,believe the ‘head pressure/tingling’ etc to be the ‘headache’. Lots of MAV`ers will say they don’t experience headaches. Another consensus is that the constant dizziness is status migraineous, ie the sufferer is in the throes of an ongoing migraine that started and forgot to ever stop. It can last years and this indeed is how my ‘MAV’ started four years ago with an acute vertigo attack - without headache in my case - but with light, sound sensitivity and other typical migraine symptoms that forgot to go away.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3970230/

Hello! I usually wake up with pressure, rather than pain, maybe 1-3/10 but I don’t notice it much anymore. Aimovig did relieve the pressure for me, it may be worth a shot if you’re able to try it. The spinning definitely increases the pressure for me. I hope you find Something good I’m these forums to help you. :heart:

2 Likes

My MAV has always been the ‘silent’ type, no headaches and no need for pain killers. I didn’t have any head pressure with attacks until I started longer (8 day) more severe attacks. For more than a decade on self contained Vertigo Attacks that lasted 72 hours I didn’t experience ‘head pressure’ at all during attacks. The constant rear head pressure came after the attacks became chronic 24/7. I remember ‘explaining’ them to the VRT bid I saw 6 months before I even got a possible diagnosis of MAV. From then in that rear head pressure stayed with me for years. Since being on here I’ve discussed it with several long-term migraineurs who each told me that ‘head pressure’ is The Migraine. I had this confirmed by a migraine specialist neurologist a couple of weeks back. Helen

I think vertigo attacks are physiologically a different beast. I can certainly believe head pressure is a neurological issue however. Indeed there are several of neurological symptoms that are don’t feel like a migraine. Brain fog is another.

In that case it’s strange how the so-called migraine preventatives have virtually controlled those ‘Vertigo Attacks’ (which is how I always thought of them and described them even long after a friend who is a lifelong migraineur told me they sounded just like my migraine headaches) but not relieved me totally of the ‘head pressure’. Helen

We should be very wary of broad generalisations.

Amitriptyline never sorted the vertigo attacks for me. Only time did. They stopped long after I stopped Amitriptyline.

I think propanolol surely has a very different way of working. That may have a bearing and why it’s often the first one tried.

Don’t forget you could also be getting better! :slight_smile:

Oh I don’t doubt that I am (did big hypermarket one day last week and was having grand day Friday until I hit the ‘vibrating floor’ from which I’ve still not recovered) but I’d be an awful lot better again if I could consistently experience more headache/‘head pressure’ free days because I very much suspect that’s what the vestibular system really needs in order to settle down more completely.

Improvement has been and still is extremely slow and as it was four years ago last week-end I got my first tentative ‘probable migraine’ diagnosis, I’m beginning to get impatient. Helen

1 Like