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Got my first ever migraine... what's the chance of it happening again?

I was a little confused about this... I'm 21 years old and had never had a migraine until yesterday (my head still hurts lol...). I had always assumed I couldn't get them.

It was literally the weirdest experience in my entire life, I thought I was having a stroke. It started out just being a little orb in my vision, and I thought I had just rubbed my eyes a little too hard, but then it got bigger. Then the headache came. I tried reading something on my phone, sounded out each letter and still couldn't understand what I was reading. And a whole side of my body went tingly, like when one hyperventilates.

What's the chance of this happening again? I thought migraines were typically chronic but I had never had one before in my life.

  1. Migraine is a genetic disease of the entire body. If you have migraine disease, you have susceptibility for a headache condition. How many headaches you get and/or how severe they are is probably a lot due to luck, and some can be managed by you based on lifestyle choices (diet, avoiding triggers, etc.)

    I never had a migraine until I was 30, had 1 or so a month until I was 35, had a car accident, and now have chronic migraine. I'm obviously on the unlucky side of things. The majority of people who have migraine have episodic migraine.

    My father has had one migraine in his life (lucky duck.) My aunt never got migraines until she was 63. My sister had them her whole childhood and then they magically went away when she turned 20. There's really no way to know what will happen with you.

    It would be a good idea to start tracking your migraines on a calendar, and also track what could have triggered them. You can do some reading on the various triggers such as foods, light, sound, smell, weather changes, stress, hormones, etc. It would lso be a good plan to go to your doctor, and if you have another migraine, to consider seeing a neurologist.

    1. Actually, I'm going to amend that. Sorry, my visionisn't what it used to be. If you went tingly on one side, go ahead and make an appointment with a neuro evenif itwas just one migraine. That can possibly be a symptom of a certain kind of migraine that has to be treated different than typical migraine, and a neuro would be the person to evaluate you.

      1. Hi theupandup,

        That must have been scary! I wish I could tell you exactly what to expect from migraine disease, but that's just not possible. Migraine disease can be episodic (less than 14 migraine attacks a month) or chronic (15 or more migraine attacks a month). You may not experience another migraine attack for years - I'll keep my fingers crossed!

        Numbness and tingling may be migraine attack symptoms, many of use have that. However, when we have new and/or different symptoms it's important to contact the doctor so he can make sure everything checks out.

        Let me know how you are feeling,
        Nancy

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