I didn't know it was a migraine.

My name is Lola, I am a mom of four children, one grand daughter and another grandbaby soon to come.

Around 1995 my now late-husband rushed me to the emergency room because I felt like I was dying from head pain and nausea. I couldn't open my eyes. All I remember is the unbearable pain I was in. This wasn't the first severe attack I ever had, nor the last. It was, however, the first one that sent me in to get an MRI and CT Scan done.

I was told "The good news is, you have a brain; the bad news is, you have severe migraines." I know he was trying to ease the tension, but I truly wanted to hit him. I still couldn't open my eyes when I left the hospital and the medication they gave me did nothing but make me groggy. The headache continued for nearly 10 days after.

I went to the doctor and got a prescription for Midrin and was told, "When you feel a migraine coming on, take one of these. Don't bother taking it during a migraine because it won't help."

Ok, telling this to a mom for four hyper children 7 and under, just made me wonder if doctors were truly ignorant of real life. I never knew I was getting a migraine until I was in the middle of it. I didn't have time to monitor how I felt just before a migraine attack, so I never took the medication. I also have severe allergies, so my migraines were intensified to unbearable at least two full weeks a month. Nausea, sensitivity to light and smells were debilitating at the best of times.

Because of these migraines, I slept a lot and missed so much of my children's (and my late husband's) lives.

After having my boys, in 1993, I lost a lot of blood and they told me to take 2 extra-strength Tylenol along with the 600 mg ibuprophen they prescribed, at the same time. When I found out the pain I'd been suffering all those years was migraines, I started taking the same advice they gave me. Since I take 800mg of Ibuprophen a day for my knees, when a migraine hits, I just add two ES Tylenol and it eases it to tolerable.

I have to do this at least twice a month just to function. I hate taking medication because I am super sensitive to it, but when a migraine hits, I'll do anything to escape the pain, except Valium and Codeine, which I am seriously allergic to.

The reason I am interested in learning more is because I had read migraine sufferers are more likely to have a stroke or aneurysm. Since my father had a mini-stroke recently, this bothers me. My children all suffer with migraines too, but at least they know what it is because of my history with it.

That is the gist of the story of my migraines history.