Help! Does anyone suffer from silent migraines?

Question

can you tell me your symptoms and what medication you are on for them?
Newly diagnosed with either silent migraines or simple partial siezures. I get auras and just pressure. Afterwards I get confused, have a hard time speaking, everything looks really bright, I feel like a truck hit me, I can sleep all day long, and sometimes I smells really bad things.
I am currently on Topamax until further test are done.
Thank you in advance for all your answers.

MSB1963 I appreciate your answer for me. I am under the care of a neurologist. I do not care for her and I am currently searching for another. I have read up on Topamax. I did have some side effects when first starting them but they dissappeared. I have caught this condition realativly early within weeks of having my first so called seizure so there is still experiementing with finding the right meds. I thank you for your concern.

Answer 1

Snuggles, you say that you are under medical care. Is he/she a neurologist? You really need to see one of them, a specialist in the field of neurological disorders is absolutely imperative in your current situation. Have you had a head CT yet? Topamax has very bad side affects and I urge you to talk to your doctor about changing the meds. I have been involved in two back to back accidents in 2002 and now suffer from two very serious illnesses/conditions and live with constant pain, spending 90% of my time in bed; however, this is not about me. I only brought it up because I have had experience with Topamax. You can look it up on www.WebMD.com and find out more about it, as I did. As a matter of fact, I am sure you have seen those commercials on TV where they ask if you or anyone you know has ever taken suchandsuch. Well Dear, Topamax is on that list for posibly being responsible for strokes and congestive heart failure. Everybody reacts differently to meds but in my case, I went off it immediately. I don't believe that you are having migraines, I tend to believe they are, as you already suspect, seizures. They are nothing to joke around with. Get specialized help immediately. Don't let them brush you off or tell you to wait for this test and that test. The speech impairment is a dead give away for a stroke or seizure and those are, coincidently, called silent seizures, since you don't seem to have the other symptoms. I am not a physician but am a certified physician's assistant, even though I no longer practice in that field and haven't for a long time; as a matter of fact, I am disabled now. So please, don't wait or play around with this. Get the appropriate help NOW! Best of luck and get well soon...
MsB.

Answer 2

Me too! I have never ended up in hospital (thankfully!) but I used to get migraines that would last about 3/4 days, have a day with no pain then get them again. My Dr gave me Pizotifen whick I took for about 3 months then stopped because I gained some weight. They definitely helped and I have had much fewer migraines since. Now I get 2 or 3 a year. Stick with it, then try a trial period where you don't take them after a few months and see what happens. Make sure you keep your Dr informed at all times though, that is important. Feel better soon xx

Answer 3

sorry to hear about your problems. That really bad smell your smelling is also an aura, called phantosmia and also could be parosmia. they are olfactory auras. i started getting them in the early 90's before the internet was widely used. there is a dr. donald leopold you can look up online and read some of his articles they may be helpful. i actually called him directly at his office(he's now a professor) and spoke tp him for 30 minutes and he set me up with the steps to take to get better which i am now. i still get it occasionally and 2 weeks ago i got a silent migrane but it wasn't as harsh as you described for me. it did make me tired but i had to work. i didn't know that is what they were, i've only had a few. my ex-boyfriend has been having them like you for a year now. he is taking maxalt-mlt 10mg. this may sound new agey but meditation could help calm the nerves which i believe can be a trigger. it certainly was a trigger for my smell episodes. as for topamax i think its pretty harsh. i was put on several anti-siezure drugs for years and i never needed them. did you have a high fever just before all of this started? i did and it damaged some nerves in my brain(sounds harsher than it is) and thats when my smell started. for my ex-boyfriend he had just gone through major surgery and we found that his mother started getting silent migranes while she was pregnant with him. so i would check out some of dr. leopolds articles and see if they are helpful, he was lovely to me. i saw dr's at the cleveland clinic(neurologists) they were clueless and they don't like when you question them. i wrote them all letters when i found the answer to my problem so they would know for the next patient like me. hope i helped and good luck

Answer 4

This sounds like seizure activity to me. My daughter has very mild staring seizures and she feels really rotten and could sleep alot after them. She sees a nuerologist and is currently trying a new medication called Lyrica that is suppose to have almost no bad side effects. Good luck

Answer 5

There's a new development in migraine therapy:
http://www.neurologyreviews.com/feb04/nr_feb04_foramen.html