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Postdrome? Maybe?

Okay, so I'm pretty new to migraines. My mom suffered from them really bad when I was young, and my husband gets bad cluster headaches as well as migraines. BUT, I never had one until the past couple years, and they aren't very often, likely related to my hormone cycle. I'm 23 and have had maybe 5 in my life so far.

BUT Sunday I had one, pretty standard. throbbing around my eyeballs, the pain kind of ebbed and flowed accompanied with nausea and sensitivity to light, sound, smell. I know mine aren't as bad as other people's for a fact because I was able (barely) to finish sitting through church after it started. The weird part happened after the migraine was gone. After laying on the couch and taking a nap I felt better enough to stand watching TV with my husband and the next morning I felt almost 100%. Had one incident of a sharp pain in the morning through my whole skull that lasted maybe 30 seconds, nothing else noteworthy the rest of the day. Until Tuesday. Tuesday I wake up with my scalp feeling sore like I'd hit it on something and any extreme exertion causes the same splitting pain as I described above, as well as things like combing my hair... It hurt way worse than my migraines, but for short periods of time, a minute at most. This lasted the entire day and I spent most of the afternoon lying down resting. Not really any sensitivity to light or sound.

My question, is this postdrome or a "migraine hangover"? I've researched it and that seems to be described as fatigue, etc. I can't find anything about more pain post-migraine. For the record today (Wednesday) my scalp still feels a tiny bit bruised, and I have what I would describe as a normal headache. Totally manageable, a little pressure on the front of my head. My mom says these sound about like what she experienced post-migraine but that it never waited a day to hit. Is that normal? Is this actually still part of some really weird migraine not described by the standard?

  1. Hi RaeAiello,

    Thank you for sharing that with us. It's not uncommon for postdrome or the hangover phase (https://migraine.com/blog/migraine-hangover/) of a migraine attack, to last up to 48 (maybe longer for some of us) hours. Symptoms can include, but are not limited to fatigue, changes in mood and/or concentration levels. Allodynia (normally painless sensations become painful) can also be experienced during this phase. Yesterday while I was washing my hair in the shower, I noticed my scalp was very sensitive in certain spots, and brushing my hair was a bit painful as well. I realized I was recovering from a migraine attack! This link has more information on allodynia I hope helps; https://migraine.com/?s=allodynia&submit=Go.

    I hope this helps!
    Nancy

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