Atypical Migraine

Welcome to the migraine.com community. We are glad you're here. I'm sorry to hear that your husband is experiencing migraine related symptoms. While we are not able to provide you with medical advice, we are here to support you. With that being said it would be helpful to know a bit more information about what your husband is experiencing. Are you seeing a doctor or specialist yet regarding his experiences? If not we can help direct you to one in your area. Does he get a painful headache during his experience? I will give you some links to go through as you have time to help explain migraine disease. Have you attempted to track what is happening prior to, during, and after the cycles? There is a form of migraine called a silent migraine. When people experience these they can have many side effects, including what you have mentioned, but the painful headache piece of the cycle is missing or dull. Anxiety and stress are two very common triggers for many of us. Tracking the experience either in a journal or an app is a great tool to use and share with your doctor. Migraine is a nuerological disease that effects our brain and as such it can touch many different areas in our bodies. It is individualistic. We all experience things in similar ways, but many are specific to how our body interacts with the disease and our preventative or abortive measures. We are here for you if you have any further questions or need some guidance. Warmly, Cheryl migraine.com team

https://migraine.com/migraine-basics
https://migraine.com/blog/keeping-migraine-diary-basics
https://migraine.com/blog/migraine-preventive-abortive-rescue-medications
https://migraine.com/faqs/silent-migraine-symptoms

Hi there- thanks so much for sharing some of your and your husband's journey with us. It can be so disconcerting to encounter and try to manage these complicated and troubling symptoms that often accompany this condition. has provided a number of useful resources in her response. I wanted to just add another thought regarding the clumsiness and feeling of being drunk. Aside from the migraine attack itself comes the prodrome (symptoms that foretell the attack) and postdrome (symptoms that happen after the attack) cycles. We have had many people report a sense of clumsiness during the prodrome especially. I wonder if he is experiencing these symptoms before the main attack hits?
Here's a great article on the topic (with wonderful community comments that follow) which may resonate with the experience of your husband: https://migraine.com/blog/clumsiness. We are here for you to provide information, support and compassion any time. So glad you are with us. Hope you'll stay in touch. Warmly- Holly -migraine.com team.

Welcome to the community, @CH1992. It's wonderful you are supporting your husband through this difficult time. Many in the community, especially those with atypical migraine develop the symptoms you describe. I get vestibular migraines and develop vertigo (room spinning) for days, being highly uncoordinated, and almost drunk-like, where I can hardly walk and sway for days. I am not saying he has this type of migraine, but the uncoordinate symptoms can be present when different types of complex migraine episodes occur. There are some forums here that discuss this "drunk" feeling such as https://migraine.com/stories/walking-drunk-no-alcohol or https://migraine.com/stories/rarer-migraine-types or https://migraine.com/forums/what-is-complex-migraine . I am also including a link to an article about migraines and stroke (like symptoms) https://www.neurologyadvisor.com/advisor-channels/headache-migraine-advisor/addressing-migraine-that-mimics-stroke/ My questions is has your husband's doctor provided treatment pertaining to migraine disease and has it helped? Sleep is one way many respond to an episode of dizziness, irritation, pain, etc. For me - its the best solution, though it takes days to clear and I get back to baseline. I hope some of this helps and that some others in the community chime in on the conversation, expressing their experience with this symptom. Best of health and wishing your husband quick relief. Rebecca (comm advc)

Thank you all, for replying to me. The last 6 months or so he hasn’t had experienced anything migraine related. We went for a family weekend away and the Sat and Sunday afternoon (around 3pm) on both days he became very drunk like, couldn’t walk properly, staggering, glazed eyes etc and had to be put to bed. Although within a couple hours he was speaking fine/got changed etc but he still had to sleep it off. It’s almost so similar to being drunk and sobering up but the only alcohol was consumed on the Friday afternoon (a couple beers) and one on the Saturday lunchtime. He doesn’t get a headache at all, but he did say that he can almost feel it coming on but at that point it’s too late and he needs to sleep it off. Doctors haven’t been very helpful - no medication or advice has been given. Although we have scheduled a phone call drs appt but not until 30th Dec. It’s worth mentioning that on the Saturday and Sunday his routine changed with food, usually he follows the same sort of diet (day to day) as he’s recently lost 1.5 stone. But on those days (as we were away) it was more unhealthy foods but not excessive. We also have been told to try testing his blood sugar levels as someone with diabetes can also have these symptoms. Any further help is appreciated, thank you for reading.