Migranes Without Headaches?
Migraines without headache? Isn’t that a bit like salt without sodium? Doesn’t one mean you have to have other? Apparrantly not. Although at first migraines without headache sounds like a great thing to have, people who do experience this rather bizarre phenomenon usually have a long, painful history of migraines with headaches.
So, What Is It?
Migraines without headache is when you have an aura, but then never actually get the head pain. Auras are dicussed in detail here in a previous post. The technical name for headache-free migraines are acephalgic migraine or silent migraines and thought to only affect about 3 - 20% of people with migraines (with and without auras), depending on what doctor or neurologist you talk to.
Is It Serious?
Unfortunately, yes. People with silent migraines often have not only extremely loud migraines, but often problems with vertigo, dizziness and a lot of visual hallucinations. These can sometimes be accompained by confusion and nausea. Since migraine head pain seems to end an aura, without having the horrible head pain, you wind up continuing your horrible aura. The length of time for an aura seems to differ with each person. If you have auras with or without migraines, you need to be checked out by a doctor. You might need tests like an MRI just to be sure the silent migraines aren’t signs of anything more serious, such as eye problems or seizure disorders. You will be asked about the medical history of your family, too, to help in a proper diagnosis.
It’s never easy, is it?
Treatment
Even if you don’t get headache pain, if you get an aura, it it often recommended to take medication anyway, if your doctor approves. May of the medicines available to treat silent migraines are NSAIDs, anti-nausea medications and Midrin, which contains acetaminophen.
Hope this helps.
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