If you’ve suffered from chronic headaches that have progressed beyond head pain, you might have experienced a migraine. It can be difficult to tell the difference between a severe headache and a migraine, but knowing the difference can ensure you get proper treatment.
At Vital TMS Therapy — in Washington, DC, and Chevy Chase, Maryland — our trained psychiatric professionals use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to relieve migraine pain. Here, we describe several signs that could indicate your headache is a migraine.
What does a migraine feel like?
When people think of migraines, they usually just think of “really bad” headaches. However, migraines are more than just strong headaches. Migraines can be severely disabling and cause additional symptoms like nausea and fatigue. Migraines vary in severity and length.
If you’re concerned that your head pain is a signal of something worse than an everyday headache, watch for these six symptoms.
Vision changes or disturbances
If your head pain is accompanied by visual sensitivity or “auras,” you might have a migraine. Auras can take shape in a variety of ways, but the most common include seeing flickering light, zig-zag lines, or spots.
Visual auras can vary in duration, from five minutes to over an hour. They can even occur without the accompanying head pain, in a condition known as an ocular migraine.
Speech or sensation changes
Sensory auras are another symptom of migraines. You might be experiencing one if you have a headache and also notice tingling, weakness, or even numbness on one side of your body.
People who suffer from sensory auras might even notice their speech is affected or they have trouble recalling or understanding words. This is a common migraine sign and something you should mention to your health care provider.
Sensitivity to smells and light
Your headaches might involve not just the extra sensation of visual auras but physical sensitivity and discomfort. Research has shown that this heightened sensitivity can be so strong that many migraine patients spend abnormal amounts of time in dark, quiet rooms with closed doors.
Pain on just one side of your head
Most headaches traditionally come with generalized pain in your head. With a migraine, pay attention to intense and throbbing pain on one side of your head.
Nausea waves
Migraines may be accompanied by nausea, dizziness, and even vomiting. Studies have shown that there’s a significant relationship between migraines and the gut or gastrointestinal tract. Stomach upset alongside headache pain is a sign of a migraine.
Intense pain that won’t go away
A common headache shouldn’t last longer than a few hours or be detrimental to your everyday life. Migraines vary in duration and come with bouts of extreme pain. If your pain lasts more than a few hours and is too intense to ignore, it could be a migraine.
How can I treat my migraines?
If you think your headaches could be migraines, it’s important that you get a proper diagnosis. While many people respond to treatment with migraine medications, you might find that you still get migraines or your pain is still severe. You also might not like the side effects of taking migraine medication.
Our team is proud to offer transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, to get you relief from your migraine pain. TMS is a noninvasive medical procedure that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate the neurotransmitters in your brain. It’s painless, safe, and noninvasive.
At Vital TMS Therapy, Dr. Anca G. Zinnes and Dr. Alvaro Guzman specialize in this remarkable approach to treating migraine pain. To learn more about how TMS may be able to help you, call us today at 202-335-4114, or request an appointment online.
