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What Are Your Headache Metaphors?
By Kerrie | October 3, 2007
My headache feels like two people are pressing really hard on 2
different cookie cutters, fighting for the same piece of “dough” . . . — Baldgirl With Headaches
This excellent description of headache pain got me wondering how other people think about their headaches or migraines. One of mine is a racquetball bouncing off the walls of a racquetball court. What comparisons do you use?
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 am
have you ever seen old-time pictures of men working on the railroad? they have big hammers to get the railroad spikes into the ties.
i feel like i’ve got one of those spikes being hammered from the inside, moving out. …
i’ll be interested to read others.
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:17 am
Nothing too original - when it’s real bad it feels like an axe splitting right into the middle of my head.
I can totally relate to the railroad spikes.
And when people speak at just a normal level, feels like they are speaking through a megaphone held right up to my ears.
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Brain-spike. That’s what I call it when a migraine feels like a javelin that goes in through my eye and out the back.
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:47 pm
A couple years ago, I developed a scale everyone related to that was based on what it feels like when you smack your head on the side of car trying to get in - seems everyone’s done it at least once. So, that feeling would be pain level one. The next pain level was having my head repeatedly slammed in the car door, then repeatedly run over by the car, then by a van, on up to a mack truck, and the final level was the mack truck continually running over, backing up, pausing, again and again. I found it much more entertaining than standard medical pain scales and more of a challenge to draw than the smiley face pain scale.
Lately, I don’t have that much imagination. Usually, I’m limited to “hurts” before I make whoever was mean enough to talk to me go away. But I know humor will come back soon.
Kelly
October 4th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
My descriptions usually involve various megatonnages of bombs going off in my head. Or various guages of spikes going through my eyes. Or sometimes how much surface area of my head is being shrink-wrapped.
But I really like the scale based on hitting your head on the car door.
I also like the children’s version some hospitals use, where “1″ is a happy face, and “10″ is a frowny face with tears rolling down the cheeks. I’m usually a slack-mouthed face with Xs for eyes.
Last Friday, I was hospitalized for a severe migraine attack. When the ER triage nurse asked me my pain level on that stupid 1-10 scale, I told her “23″. Apparently, that got me some snark points. It also got me an actual room in the ER, with a door that closed and a light that turned OFF, rather than just a curtained area.
When the dr made his rounds the following day, he had evidently heard about my “23″ and asked if it was any better. By then, it was down to about a 15, on the 1-10 scale.
October 4th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Luckily, the triptans are pretty effective for me. But I am left with a day or two of postdrome. I call these low wattage days or as I like to say “my brain is scrambled eggs” or “mush brain”.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Like my head is being literally crushed. And my body lacks normal filters, so that every sound, even the electricity in the walls, screams into my ears so loudly it makes me cry.
October 8th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
like every step i take i’m about to fall off a cliff- the only comfort is a dark bed and sleep
October 10th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Excellent descriptions! I’m sorry that you all have to feel this way, but appreciate that you shared it with us.
Take care,
Kerrie
October 24th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Like a rusty knitting needle is being repeatedly stabbed into the back of my eyeball. (I never knew my grandmothers, can you tell?)
October 29th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
My usual descriptors depending on the particular migraine are:
My head is on fire and flames are coming out of my eyeballs.
A giant pole is stuck through the top of my head.
My head is an egg that someone just cracked.
The throbbing is the ticking of a bomb ready to blow.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I have several different migraines, which feel different depending on the symptom or trigeminal nerve they are affecting.
My least favorite is the one behind my eyes that cause spasm. My description”Like a couple of Super balls ready to escape and bounce around the room”
Then there is the icy/hot line across my forhead “Cattle Prod”
Then “the ever tightening baseball cap”
The one above my left eye is “just a normal 10/10 stabbing migraine”
When I am mostly just nauseated then it is the one with the”squirties” (you know the feeling you get around your mouth when you are head nauseated”
Then there is the “Somebody smashed my nose through my head and it is coming out the back of my head/neck”
My second least favorite is the “I wish I could pull my face off- don’t touch my face- it feels like painful clay.”
Then there is the world is spinning- feels like coming out of anesthesia or after a really crazy night out.”
I often have the “bomb ticking in my head” or a “hammer smashing my head over and over.”
Sometimes it is just simply, loss of words then “my head isn’t screwed on right”
And the new joint/soft tissue migraine “feels like I hit both funny bones over and over, radiating up to my wrists and shoulders. Feels like sprained ankles throbbing through my calves and legs. or Feels like the aches from the flu that nothing will take away (not advil) just migrainal. (wierd!)
I am on day 7 of a migraine right now, today I have the “peel my face off thing”. Only 2 of the 7 days have been completely debilatating though thank goodness. I should have known better, I had that wonderful prodromal euphoric feeling that felt nothing was wrong with me, I had absolutely no symptoms. The migraines that that come after that are “hard hitting” (Due for my Botox soon)
Well, hope you are doing well Kerrie.
December 25th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Like a ‘brain freeze’ from Ice Cream which lasts for hours or days…