Anne's story

My first migraine hit me like a lightning in a clear spring day. In fact, it was a warm spring day. I don't recall the exact date but I remember every detail of those excruciating hours.

I was 24 years old at the time, a young officer in the military, not yet married but sharing an apartment with my boyfriend (now my husband) who was a fellow officer in the same unit. We didn't get to work together too much, but on that day we happened to take part together at a marathon of meetings with other colleagues.

Sometime in the early afternoon I began to feel a throbbing pain in my forehead, right behind my left eye. Within an hour the pain grew so intense I could barely think. I just laid my head on the table in front of me and thought I was about to faint. Seeing that I wasn't able to work, my boyfriend took me home, left me at the apartment and returned to the office. After all it was just a headache, wasn't it?

Well it certainly wasn't! The pain was so bad I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was just lying there on the bed, still in my uniform, unable to move.

Then the second wave hit me. My migraines come with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and this first episode hit me in full blast. I literally crawled to the bathroom, reaching it just in time… It was sheer agony. I felt like my body was coming apart. At one point I thought I should call for help, but then again, I couldn't really think – let alone done anything about it. In retrospect, the symptoms were bad enough and sudden enough to justify a trip to the ER. Such symptoms can sometimes indicate a problem more serious than a migraine. But at those dark moments, I just focused on basic survival – making it through the tornado that engulfed my head and indeed my whole body.

Within minutes after the peak, the storm began to subside. I stopped shivering, the nausea went away and while my head still throbbed, it seemed more sufferable. I felt weak and empty and crashed into bed.

Future migraines have followed a similar course. You will be able to read more about them in my migraines blog which begins at July 2004. Hopefully, I won't have too many entries there...

If you too are a migraine sufferer, please share your story with us. Migraines come in different forms and shapes and in this accumulative collection of stories, I hope that we fellow migraine sufferers can share and learn from each other's experiences.