Anne's Story of Headache Treatment: Anne’s first migraine hit her like a bolt of lightning one spring day when she was 24 years old, a young military officer sharing an apartment with her boyfriend who was in the same unit. The day of her first migraine was a day she was in work meetings all day. Sometime in the early afternoon, she began to feel a throbbing pain in her forehead, right behind her left eye. Within 60 minutes, the pain became so severe that she could barely function. Anne even felt faint. After she realized she could no longer remain at work in such terrible pain, her boyfriend took her home and left her there to rest.
While lying in bed, still in uniform, and unable to move, the second “wave” hit Anne. She described this as her “body coming apart.” She experienced severe pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, so bad that she considered calling an ambulance. Within minutes after the peak of that wave, the worst symptoms began to subside; she stopped shivering and the nausea went away. Her head still throbbed. She crashed into bed.
Anne has since learned that migraines come in all shapes and degrees of severity.
