TL;DR: use equalizer feature to lower headphone audio below the lowest level

When I’ve got a migraine and still have to be in a non-silent environment, i like to have noise cancelling headphones on playing music quietly, as I find it to be less stimulating to have a chill song to listen to than random background noise. However, if the audio is too clear and/or loud, I can’t stand it. Sometimes when I’m super sensitive to sound, even the lowest volume level is too loud.

I used to use an older pair of headphones with lower quality audio, so it was muffled and didn’t bother me as much, but I upgraded to the Bose quietcomfort ultras recently because of the better noise cancelling. The audio quality was so much better that it felt like the sound was echoing through my head and I couldn’t stand it. Discovered I can use the equalizer feature in the Bose app to lower the volume further! Or just lower the volume for everything but bass (which bothers me less). It’s noticeably quieter to have everything set to the lowest equalizer volume than it is to just them all set to regular equalizer volume.

I also found that there’s a slider so that I can specifically set noise cancelling a comfortable level (sometimes I am willing to feel more “pressure” from it in return for less ambient noise, sometimes it’s too much.)

Maybe this is obvious to others, but it’s something that makes having a migraine just a little more bearable for me.

I have been on topamax 25 at night for quite a while now, but lately it really seems to be losing it's effectiveness. I'm waking up with migraines in the morning again, but if I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or something, I notice my head and neck feel perfectly fine. Sometimes I think it's worsening my insomnia as well, actually I know it is because I skipped it last night and slept uninterrupted the whole night through for the first time in months.

Do any of you guys find that switching to taking it in the morning worked better for you? I'm wasting the first half of the day trying to get my head and neck settled down again, and I really hate it 😖. For the record I take Adderall and Trintellix in the morning too, the migraine is the same before and after I get those in me and Ive been on them for years, so I don't think they're suspect.

THANK YOU so much to everyone who gave me tips about emergency Rx and what OTCs work in a pinch. Those are super helpful tips I'll keep in my back pocket for next time. Or I'll make myself a little "away from home migraine kit" to pack (I already have one at my office.)

I ended up driving back home, and I'm safely tucked into bed with a heated blanket, Nurtec (triptans make me feel terrible), big bottle of water, two cats, and a very cold migraine cap. Back in my lovely gray city with insane pressure variation.

For me, one of the most telltale signs I'm getting a migraine is a strong feeling of queasiness in my teeth, temples, eyeballs, and around my head. (It feels like I'm feeling the air outside my head, which I know isn't true, it's weird). Although as an adult I began to have visual auras, and now have them with all migraines, this bizarre sensation was my only warning as a teen. It occurred with every migraine and only with migraines.

I wanted to try and understand what causes this or if it's common, because it's so hard to describe (people think I'm crazy if I say it feels like the air outside my temples needs to throw up, or my teeth feel seasick). I assume it falls under 'numbness and tingling' on the list of common migraine aura symptoms and is related to nausea in my stomach and throat, but I was wondering if anyone knows the mechanics of how such a peculiar feeling occurs? I definitely wouldn't say it tingles, though it does sometimes come with feelings of numbness and pressure. Or if you get it too, that'd be validating to hear at least, haha.

Hi everyone. I know I'm asking the impossible of why this hasn't worked but I was wondering if this is normal and if it will kick in more or if I'm doomed.

I have tmj and usually get 1 bad migraine on the left side of my face every week. Like clockwork.

My jaw is set wrong so one side points to the left and the other more to the right, which means at night I put pressure on the left side of my teeth. Usually bc of bruxism.

A week ago I got my first botox. 8 injections in my jaw and back of the head. Now it worked like a charm for this week but today. Bam Migraine that hurt like he'll on my temple and my jaw tense af on the left side.

I wasn't sure if botox would help but I haven't been able to take any preventative meds due to the fact that we didn't know if the migraines were jaw induced or neurological... Indomethacin also would wreck my stomach.

Anyone got any thoughts on this? Maybe I just expected too much. It's also exam season so I'm hunched over a laptop 9 hours in a day.

Love and take care you all <3

I don’t have a PCP yet and I honestly don’t have it in me to try and get one right now. I’ve never been to the ER for a migraine, but this one lasted 1 1/2 days, got better at about 10 PM last night and then returned this morning. It’s on the right side of my head, behind my eye, eyebrow, even the right side of my nose. As well as the right side of the base of my skull, around my neck.

It hurts to cough, sneeze, or any sudden movement like that. I have to brace myself and hold my temple just so it doesn’t hurt so bad.

It started Friday night at around 6 PM. Gradually got worse overnight. I slept all day Saturday, except for the time I tried to do my typical “at home remedies” that sometimes take the edge off. A coke, something caffeinated, eating something salty and/or drinking something like pedialyte, water, sleeping with the right side of my head on a heating pad.

Absolutely nothing worked. My last resorts were eating something, I didn’t have it in me to cook. I hadn’t had much caffeine, so I had a Red Bull. A Red Bull and McDonald’s (super healthy, I know) seemed to kill off the migraine completely.

I woke up earlier this morning and it’s back. Same side, and I suspect my typical remedies will not work this time either. I’m completely lost, I don’t know what else to do or try. I don’t want to spend another day in bed, but this is debilitating. I cannot power through it.

I’d be in tears if crying didn’t make it worse. It’s like a pulsating sharp pain around the base of my head and a throbbing pain all around my eyesocket, eyebrow and at the bridge of my nose closest to my eye/eyebrow.

Would there even be a point in going? I don’t know if there’s anything they can really do, but I genuinely feel like I’m being tortured. This is taking enough out of me. I’m light sensitive, noise sensitive, I’m not nauseous or dizzy.

I just don’t know what to do at this point, but it’s just gradually getting worse, to a point where I can’t handle it anymore.

I'm dealing with long term intractable chronic migraine and my neuro has told me outright that we're about to hit the end of the road on treatments currently available to me. I've been looking into homeopathic/alternative medicine recently (chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy, traditional Chinese medicine, etc) and was wondering if anyone had any experience and/or success with these kinds of treatments?

I have a migraine at work and can't leave. Doctor gave me zofran and fioricet(50 mg of bultibual). I love zofran and usually pair it with a nsaid and coffee but unsure of taking a barbiturate. I won't be operating heavy machinery but also don't wanna act drunk. Will this medicine make me feel intoxicated if I take one or even split the pill?

Basically this is the end of day 16 of my migraine and I’m struggling. I’m on Amitriptyline as a preventative, I’ve never missed a pill and it somewhat has worked as I’m having them less frequently. My dr also prescribed sumatriptan to take when I actually get a migraine already taken 1 for this migraine nearly 2 weeks ago and it made no difference. None of my other methods have helped either so I’m opening the floor pls someone tell me what to do I can’t take this pain anymore and I have an exam on Wednesday that can’t be moved that I still need to study for but can’t because of the pain dizziness and nausea

There is a little known association between propranolol and nasal polyps and chronic nonallergic sinusitis. I suffered with it for a solid year before I found the correlation on my own and no doctor ever helped me with as I don’t think they were aware. Just wanted to give anyone else warning.

I woke up with a migraine that took me right back to sleep. It took a bit longer for it to go away this time. It’s honestly so painful I wish I could take my skull off and take out my brain until it doesn’t hurt anymore. I think the worst part about this kind of migraine (because I have different ones) is that it’s only on one side of my face (my right side) and I literally cannot do anything until I feel enough strength to go crack the window open. Literally walking, talking, breathing hurts while I get this type of migraine. I hate it so much. When I did have the strength to get to the cabinet where the pain killers were (even though it rarely works) and there’s was none.

I felt so discouraged because I had done the effort to walk through the house with sensitive hearing (I have a 3 year old nephew who LOVES to scream and be loud) and light sensitivity just to not have any pain killers😭 I felt so defeated. The thing that I find works is opening the window when it’s cold. Just fresh cold air makes it feel much better and it eventually fades away but it does take me back to sleep because I can’t always endure the pain.

Hi All, Just found out that the really annoying light and sound headaches (what I called them when I was a kid) are migraines. Does anyone else bury their head in pillows or couch cushions for relief? A mix of darkness, sound muffling and the compression on my head gives some relief.

My migraines went from about one every 2-3 years to 2-3 a week a few years ago. I assumed this was an age related change or stress as my partner had a baby about this time. However the UK press is now talking about the risks of living in soft water areas and how having less magnesium and calcium in the diet could.lead to dementia, hence I just realised same time as my migraine frequency jumped I had moved in to a house with a water softener. Magnesium supplements are recommended for migraine.

Anyone else have any thoughts on magnesium supplementation or noticed it helped?

So a bit of a run down of my issues. I have POTS-neuropathic and a couple other odd autoimmune issues. Along with occipital neuralgia. I’m currently trying to nurse whatever cold/virus I have coupled with stress from moving has put me in a migraine flare this week. I’m currently tapering down on prednisone and trying to figure out if my adrenal insufficiency will try to level back out and return to normal. So that being said I have had typical migraine symptoms all week. Nausea, head pain, and have taken a migraine pill every day since probably Monday. I can withstand the pain but what’s concerning is the vision disturbances. For a week now I’ve had diminished vision in my right eye. It looks as though I just have a film over my vision. I cannot see faces or read text it’s so blurry. Like just say My left is 4k high def and my right is an old tube tv that’s going out. Nothing has helped, cold and hot compresses and if anything it’s gotten worse. I cannot sketch anymore because it hurts to strain. Think I can wait until I see my specialist Wednesday or go in to the ER? Trying to not go to the ER because here in America.. they aren’t so great. Thanks

Hey y’all, I’ve had chronic migraine for about a decade and a half. I’ve seen improvements from various things (getting diagnosed with celiac and going gf, learning triggers and avoid spoke, etc.) but recently had an incident that I wanted to share in case it helps anyone.

I got a cold in November and after it cleared up, I had recurring but not constant sinus issues— going out in the cold triggered an EXTREMELY runny nose to the point that I couldn’t leave the house for at least 12 hours and would go through a whole box of tissues in a day. Dec 1 I had a migraine that put me in urgent care for the first time in 8 years. Over the next few weeks, I dealt with almost constant migraine with the pain centered around my left nostril and treated it as sinusitis because I was still having some nasal symptoms. I contacted a teledoc twice who prescribed antibiotics in case the sinusitis didn’t improve within a few more days. Up to this point, it may honestly have been sinusitis and may have only triggered what came next, but I’ll never be sure.

In mid December I had an unrelated medical procedure where the pain had gotten so bad that I was in tears getting rolled into the OR. Around this time, I realized that heat (rather than my normal cold) was helping at the site of my pain, which was at this point centered between my left nostril and the area above my left upper teeth. The pain got worse and worse all week. I contacted the teledoc again, who added a prescription for prednisone, and I started the antibiotics immediately. They weren’t helping a free days later, so I started the prednisone as well. It helped for a few hours but not all day.

At this point the pain was centered over my left upper teeth. It was coming and going— gone for 15-20 minutes at a time, then rising like a tsunami to a pain level 7-8 for a few minutes before receding again. Heat stopped helping. Cold, hot, sugar, eating anything really, laying down— everything was pain. I eventually figured out that holding cool water in my mouth was the only way to pause the pain (and promptly choked when I started to fall asleep with water still in my mouth). I contacted the dentist to try and get in to make sure this was sinusitis, not a dental issue, and was almost immediately referred to an endodontist for a root canal.

Since getting the root canal (thankfully before the holidays) I’ve only had one or two mild migraines, less than even a few months ago. I now have no idea whether I ever truly had sinusitis, or whether issues with this tooth have been at fault for many of my migraines for years. I’ll never know for sure. And obviously if you have chronic migraine, it’s hard to tell whether a gradual increase or sudden increase might secretly be a dental issue until it reaches a crisis level. But I ignored my gut telling me this was dental for days of suffering because I assumed that my doctors knew better and it must be sinusitis. I’m hoping this helps someone if you go through similar pain to identify it a bit sooner and save yourself suffering.

TL;DR? If your migraines suddenly shift to radiating from near your teeth and stop responding to the same measures that normally help? Or that awful pain comes and goes in waves, gets more severe with cold or sugar, or responds well to holding a mouthful of water? GO TO A DENTIST AND NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR

So I've had maybe 3 in the last 2 years. They're terrible. One time it was both eyes, the next two times it was only one. Usually accompanied by dizziness, anxiety (which is probably just me freaking out) But they always laat 15-30 minutes, then I get a headache and I'm just all kinds of off the next day. My dr said they're related to my cycle because of when they happen. Anyway. I'm sitting here on my phone and I start to notice some visual disturbances, not really following the typical pattern, it didnt progress past that first "oh I'm getting a migraine" stage. It maybe lasted 5 minutes and didn't grow to block my vision like normal. Can they last for just a few minutes?

Hi everyone, please give me your best tips and tricks for airport/Airplane travel. I have to travel for work almost every month and every time i do so i get migraines. I'm thinking of using shades inside the airport to mitigate my symptoms as I'm thinking it's the light?? Any expert help is appreciated

I've had debilitating migraines for about 1-2 times a week since I was 12. I've been prescribed propranolol but weirdly that didn't really help at all, so I've just had to resort to taking sumatriptan like tictacs for the past 20 years.

I've never had high blood pressure before but suddenly the past year, due to lots of stress in my personal and professional life, my blood pressure sky rocketed. My doctor put me on atacand/candesartan and my migraines have improved immensely. The only migraine I've had the past months is on a day where I forgot to take the medication. My doctor said that it's been being a preventative for migraines has been an accidental discovery for candesartan.

not saying anyone should go on blood pressure medication if they don't have high blood pressure obviously, but still wanted to post it here for informative reasons. I hope accidental discoveries like this lead to an actual breakthrough in migraine research

I got some peppermint oil (essential oil) and put it in a roll on bottle I got from Amazon.

I find peppermint oil helps maybe by 5-10%? I feel like it's better nothing.

I started Propranolol earlier this week and I do have some Nurtec but I already used 6 of it. I got 16 tablets total during the last week of December but I didn't know until few weeks ago that it was supposed to last 60 days not 30 days.

I won't be able to get a refill of Ubrelvy (8 tablets, 30 day supply) until a little less than two weeks from now.

I'm trying to slow down my use of Nurtec.

I have tried home remedies for headaches like heat, ice, and ginger powder mixed with water and unfortunately it has zero effect. I still have headaches even when I did take Ubrelvy and Nurtec unfortunately. At least they don't last all day long fortunately like it did in early December. But now I have multiple headaches in a day.

I wish there something topical I can use for my headaches. I did try topical Lidocaine but it had zero effect. Maybe I got a bad batch. Does Lidocaine even help headaches?

I haven't tried ginger capsules yet.

Maybe I need to add lavender oil to my peppermint oil.

But what are some home remedies or self-care strategies that can help with headaches and migraines?

I want to know all my options.

I’ve had the same sinus headache/migraine for 3 weeks now and I’m desperate for relief. For some background, I was taking nifedipine for high blood pressure which I think was contributing to common migraines. The migraines sucked but I had worked out a treatment cocktail and usually could get them under control. Due to the other side effects of the medication I switched to labetalol, which still isn’t controlling my blood pressure but now instead of migraines, I’ve had an awful sinus headache behind my eyes and in my forehead, extending down to my jaw and neck for weeks. Sudafed pain and pressure isn’t really helping, ubrelvy isn’t helping, sumatriptan and rizatriptan offer some brief relief until they wear off and the pain comes roaring back. Any suggestions? I’m desperate. This is worse than the migraines.

A lot recently, when I have a migraine, especially in my temple, my nose will burn on the inside, or my sinuses will burn like when you get water up your nose. Does this happen to anyone else? I can't figure out how to soothe it. Squeezing my nostrils together helps momentarily. I would love to hear from everyone else. God bless!!

Anybody in my area wake up with a migraine this morning? I woke up with a migraine, body aches, and every muscle in my upper body tight and hurting. Something tells me it's weather related as the humidity is extremely high right now. I also tend to feel weather changes about 2-3 days BEFORE it actually happens .... which I find really bizarre. Anyway, just curious if anyone in my area is feeling anything, too. Hugs to my fellow warriors.

Hi, I’m new to this reddit and it’s encouraging to know that many people deal with the same problems that I do. I’m posting this as I’ve experienced a few things that I would like to receive some input on.

I suffer from pretty decently painful migraines, it’s usually 50/50 if my meds work (currently on Cambia). When the meds don’t work I’m completely incapacitated due to the pain and find myself forcing myself to throw up constantly (by forcing a finger down my throat lol) as it’s the only way to make the pain go from a 10 to a 6 or 5. I then try to fall asleep in the 5-10 minute window where the pain is subsided and if the pain comes back I just repeat the cycle. It usually gets to a point where I’m just heaving and honestly feels like I can burst a blood vessel but it’s worth it for the 5 minutes of relief.

I was just wondering if anyone else does this as I’ve read that it’s pretty bad for my oral health and esophagus to do this.

I was also wondering if others experience anxiety due to migraines. It feels like I’m constantly on edge and because my migraines always begin with aura, I find myself anxious whenever a bright light causes spots in my vision. It’s gotten to the point where I find myself staring into blank space every 5 minutes to make sure I don’t have an aura.

Side note: Thanks to this subreddit I’m going to treat my sleep apnea as well as look into allergy triggers, would also love any tips you guys have as any help is appreciated. Thanks for reading my yap session, it’s currently 3am and I’m suffering from a pretty bad viral infection (flu possibly) and just had an aura that went away without the migraine for the first time in years so I’m feeling pretty euphoric right now.

TLDR: Does anyone constantly force themselves to throw up to relieve the pain and also constantly in a state of anxiety worrying about experiencing auras 24/7?

Hello Everyone 👋

I finally got approved for disability. The process took me 1 year in total and I was approved on the first try.

I have tried over 40 medications 💊 with 10 different doctors and 5-7 different hospitals/clinics.

Just want to say, it’s possible for chronic migraines. Keep pushing and track EVERYTHING. I had a thick packet and finally it paid off.

Thank you to everyone in this sub that has kept me afloat and hopeful, really helped.

Cheers, Silver 🐶 🐾