Does anyone else have PTSD as well as chronic migraine with aura?

Hi Riaa,

I've also had PTSD from extensive childhood trauma and a 25 year marriage that perpetuated it. I handled it with disassociation. When I felt my life was threatened, I would disappear. It was like going out of body. The next day, instead of dealing with the trauma, it had been forgotten and life went on as usual.
That's why I stayed in it so long.

I had not been diagnosed with PTSD, because no one knew what I had been through. But, when I became depressed, I was falsely diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder and some other stuff. These diagnoses were based on what my narcissistic husband was telling the doctors. They gave me a bunch of medications that messed up my brain.
Then I started having various neurological issues with speech, my hands and legs. My primary sent me to a neurologist who decided I had early MS. I rather ignored it at the time because I knew MS progression was slow and I was busy with a family and a business.

At the age of 45, my husband and I went on a two day river rafting trip. I was having a great time until a mishap caused me to suffer head and neck trauma. After that some things changed

I found that about once a month I would just pass out. Usually when I was home alone doing chores. No one saw this. The doctors said it couldn't be from the head trauma.

Then came the seizures. I was eventually diagnosed with complex partial epilepsy. That is, until they ran the EEGs and found no seizure activity. I was beginning to think maybe I was crazy.
I spent a week each at UCLA and Stanford Universities, wired to machines while having these nonseizure, seizures. And nada! Nothing shows up.

At Stanford I was taught some self hypnosis to abort them. That just took my mind father away. Years later I get a copy of this doctors conclusions he said I had PTSD. Thats the first time i knew that is what he diagnosed. Well the self hypnosis or dlcssasociation, works for PTSD but it did just the opposite for the seizure like episodes I was having.
It wasn't until 3 or 4 years ago when I was filling out some questionnaires @ 23andme where I had a gene study done, that I was homozygous for the risk allele on all three migraine genes. They reported that I might have familial migraines with Aura. As I looked that up, I found that these migraine auras look like complex, Partial,seizures! Going through the four stages of the migraine is like going through the stages of a seizure, including the post octal sleep.

Since then I found this site that has helped me validate what is happening to me.

I'd like to talk with you more about this because we need to be able to tell what is what in order to make sense of it. In part you and your therapist may be right. But I've found there is a lot more to it than that.

If you have PTSD, you are most like born sensitive, making you an empath. Empaths feel other people's feelings. Some feel the feelings of animals &/or plants, or spirits, or energies left within a space.

So, sometimes I just cry and feel sad when I was fine before I entered the room that has the sad energy in it.

Some times I cry without feeling because that is one of the end stages of my migraines. (Like pseudo Bulbar effect) it's a weird feeling to cry without feeling, and in public!

Then, sometimes I cry because I'm so frustrated about this whole mess that has taken my 73 year lifetime to figure out, plus taken my social life away.

So glad to finally meet someone else with this. Maybe we can help each other.

Jeani

Lavender, thanks. I've used certain incense in the past, musk, amber & sandlewood. But my naturopath told me that incense contains toxic metals. I haven't investigated safe, affordable aroma therapy yet.

I also find deep breathing helps to center me, helps to control anxiety,

And getting enough quality sleep is probably the most important for me and yet the most elusive.

Yes, I noticed the same sort of connection with my migraines and the stress of recalling old traumas. That's why I originally thought they were psychological. To date, I can still tell if some old forgotten incident is making its way to my awareness , when I start getting, anxiety, weakness, spasms, crying, and even pass out. Therapy can really assault our defense systems. Our brains will try to equalize the status quo.

I've learned that PTSD is not classified as a mental illness. It's considered a brain injury!
The aura of migraines are neurological. I know from gene study that my migraines with aura are inherited. But, not all trauma causes PTSD. A person must be predisposed to it. So it probably has a genetic component also.

Like you, I think there is a connection. It maybe that the PTSD stress of recalling the forgotten trauma can bring on a migraine if a persons genes predisposes them to both. Not all people with migraine with aura have PTSD and not all people with PTSD have migraine with aura.
Maybe we are a select few.

I would like to see some sort of study on this. It is amaizing all the new research on brain health and development in recent years.