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Managing symptoms?

Hi, I'm new here 😀 I was diagnosed with migraines 6 years ago after giving everyone at school a scare as they thought I was having a stroke! (Ah the joys of migraines!). Anyway, I have hemiplegic migraines- I experience an out of body sensation, the loss of my peripheral vision (above, below and to the side of my normal field of view) and my vision gets blurry, I cannot speak, read, write or understand anything anyone says (it's kinda like being trapped inside my own body that I'm having an OBE from!). All my language/numerical skills go out of the window. And I get temporary numbness of the face and hands and limb paralysis accompanied by horrific sharp headaches and days of photosensitivity afterwards.

I've been prescribed various things over the years, nothings really helped but luckily my migraines aren't too common and I know wen they're coming so I simple take painkillers and sleep it off. But I've noticed the symptoms of it when I'm in stressful situations, the obvious being when I have to do presentations. I'm at university now and I have to do assessed presentations. We've done practice ones before but mine tend to go horribly because when I'm giving a speech my brain goes into that state where I can't read any notes or the slides and my words won't work. Not the extreme of my migraines but it is very similar.

Anyone had anything similar? How do you cope in seemingly triggering situations that you can't avoid?

  1. Hi LeoLion,

    Welcome to the Migraine.com discussion forum - we're happy you've found us!!

    Hemiplegic migraine - familial or sporadic, is a rare form of migraine disease and can be tough to deal with. It's different from other types of migraine in that true motor weakness is one of the hallmark symptoms. This is different from numbness, tingling in our face and hands. Many can experience numbness/tingling in our face and extremities during migraine and/without aura. Let me share information on these types with you; https://migraine.com/migraine-types/familial-hemiplegic-migraine/.

    Unavoidable migraine triggers can be extremely frustrating. It's mostly a matter of reducing/avoiding the triggers we can and managing the ones we can't. I wish I had a better answer for you. Hopefully others will be in shortly to share their experiences with you.

    Keep us posted on how you are doing,
    Nancy

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