People who don't get migraines, just don't GET migraines. I can try to explain them, but they just don't ever seem to do justice. Of course that never stopped me before. First of all, I'm pretty lucky. I pretty sever migraines, but I only get them about once a year. Last month was bad, and I had 3 within 2 weeks, but still, I knew a guy who ended up with about 3-4 a week all his life. He couldn't keep a job, which was a shame, he was a hard worker, who came in more than I think I would in his condition, but like I said, people who don't get migraines, don't get migraines.
My first Migraine was in my senior year of high school, it was near the end of the day and I was sitting in my 'Creative Writing' class. Not all Migraine's are the same, but they get to be pretty close, so if you've had one before you should be able to relate. It starts off with being dazzled. I'm not sure a better word for it, but you kind of see colorful crystal like images in your vision. Bright light starts to hurt your eys, but mainly it's just a little disorienting. At school I was a little weirded out, but school was almost out, I figured I'd live with it.
I didn't really panic until I got hit with the blindness. Not like suddenly your blind, but your sitting there and suddenly you notice you have no peripheral vision. In my case, it's almost always the left side of my left eye, if you were to draw a line right down the middle of your left eye, half of it is completely blind, the other half sees fine. My most recent Migraines actually blocked out my vision in the center of my vision, I figured it out playing Everquest and suddenly noticed I couldn't read the text I was looking at on my screen. tehn when I went to shut off my TV I couldn't find the power button on the remote control, and wasn't sure if my thumb was over the button. I understand the reasoning behind my normal symptoms, but the other symptoms are fairly new and haven't really had time to research it.
Next comes the pain, in my case it generally takes about a half hour to get from the first stage to the third stage. Again, I'm lucky... 30 minutes is usually enough time to get someone to take me home, or shut everything down. If I'm home it's enough time to take some meds (over the counter, Advil Migraine) and get in bed. On the other hand, if it's my first Migraine I have no idea what's about to hit and I'm just trying to survive the last 10 mintues of class. At first you start with a dull headache which gets worse pretty quickly. Ten minutes in you've reached a point where you know it can't get any worse because you've got the worst headache in your life. Thirty minutes later when it just keeps getting worse, you start getting nautious from the pain. Or maybe it's the fact your vision is screwed up or a combination of the two. In either case, from years of experience I've learned that my headache isn't going to get any better for at least another 8 hours, and won't be gone for 12. That also means 8 hours of dry heaves, well after the first 30 minutes when you still have something in your stomach.
Now I know that I can take a Migraine medication when the vision problems hit, and my Migraines aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. Then, everytime I tried to take something I'd throw it up. I was pretty scared, and pretty stupid. Scared because I wasn't sure what was happening, by the time I had my 2nd and third migraine, I was fairly convinced that I had either a brain tumor or an anurism. Stupid, because rather than going to the Doctors, I just lived with it. I can't tell you how much relieve I felt the first time someone else explained their migraines to me. When I knew someone else had the same weird blindness I did, I knew I was going to be ok. I can also tell you how relieved some other people have been when I've mentioned my symptoms and tehy've found out that there ok too... That tells me other people are just as stupid as I am.
Now I generally handle the migraines better. As soon as my vision fades, I'm a bit resigned that I know my day is shot. I get home as fast as I can, if I'm more than 10 to 15 mintues away, I have someone else drive me home. I've driven myself home before, but once was enough... Imagine driving home and not being able to see out the left side of your windshield, and not at all out the driver side window. I turn the TV off, turn all the lights off, cancel any plans I had, take the migraine medication, and get in bed. 3 or 4 hours later I get up and take another med, then it's abck off to bed.
My last migraine (a few weeks ago) I remember being furious. I had plans to go run a race, and I wasn't about to let the migraine stop me. I took my meds, but instead of going to bed I went for a walk, seething the entire way. I went and ran anyway, and while my head hurt the whole way through, my vision actually came back in the next hour before I actually started the race. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next time... I can be miserable in bed, or I can be miserable doing something else, but I guess I understand how my friend could show up for work and work through a migraine now.