Every migraine is different

Hey all,
It must be almost a month since I've looked around on here. Looks like a lot of new members, welcome to you guys. I'm a junior in a very competitive school in Beijing so I find the time to read your posts vanishes quickly. I have several concerns, or I guess one that everything sorta revolves around, I dunno.

When my migraines first started three years ago they were characterized mostly by the aura, I didn't know such a thing even existed then and it took several years for a doctor to bring up migraines in relation to my numerous. My freshman year I started having confusion and memory loss in the morning. I didn't know anyone in my family, I was easily angered, noises started really setting me off. This would happen when I first woke up and it really annoyed my dad. He would come in yelling at me to get up and stop being such a "teenager". The sudden yelling would send me into these weird spastic motions that really terrified me.

At school at weird random times I would completely shut down (the actual manifestation of the migraine according to the neuro). I wouldn't talk to anyone, even my girlfriend couldn't get me out of this stupor. I just sort of limped around until I could sleep it off.
My family and I moved before my sophomore year and I discovered that I when I went to dances I would eventually fall into these same silent stupors. The music literally hurt me, and looking at everyone dancing, all that chaos plunged me deeper into the migraine. (although I still didn't know it was migraine)

It was during one such event that a friend of mine tried to drag me to the dance floor. I collapsed on my right side, into a nearby wall. My right arm and leg were completely useless to me, numb, paralyzed. This was a new development in what I thought of as an "infinitely long list of things that are wrong with Brett and no one else on the frigging planet"

On top of all the morning problems I started experiencing memory loss in school. There are instances of the class taking a test and me handing in a blank sheet except for random, somewhat disturbing things written in the margins. I can honestly say no one was more surprised than me when my counselor handedme that test with my name on it and the song lyrics to a song I hadn't heard in years (for the curious reader, it was Crawling by Linkin Park).
This happened several more times and still happens every now and then yet every single time I have no memory of the time spent on the test or for a half hour to an hour afterwards. This is even scarier than any headache, convulsion, or paralysis; at least I can remember those. I don't know what I'll do during one of these times when I "zone out". What if someone aggravates me and I start a fight, or some music or loud noises get me riled up and I make a complete fool of myself? I don't know where I'll end up.

After experiments with Lyme disease, epilepsy, depression, and who knows what else my neurologist that I held my head on the right side during these episodes. While I had very few actual headaches the instinct to hold my head as if there were one was there. It suddenly
Became clear that I had been suffering from hemiplegic migraines, specifically confusional migraines, for almost two and a half years. I started Topamax and as I built up to stronger dosages I found that the morning confusion slowly began to happen less frequently, maybe once or twice a week and now only once a month, generally speaking.

I know a lot of people don't like Topamax, but this boys a believer, just gonna put that out there.

So I guess that's kind of a success story except the past 2 months have been really awful. It seems like a new migraine trigger pops up everyday.
1. I can't have soy, preferably I don't even smell i
2. My threshold for noise gets constantly lower
3. Lights have begun to bother me, even the normal fluorescent ones used in schools. I started wearing a hat to block as much light as possible but I'm not allowed to wear one at school, even for medical reasons
4. Other weird random smells will set me off really easily, but there doesn't seem to be a connection between any of them except that the smell burns the inside of my nostrils and I can feel a legit headache coming on almost immediately.
5. Anxiety and stress, which are abundant in my school where everyone else wants to go to harvard, are a trigger. I get super sensitive to them in other people and then I start wigging out and the rest is migraine history.
6. Increased twitchiness. I dunno if it has to do with migraines but I've noticed my right hand twitches every now and then even on good days.
7. Every time I experience the hemiplegia (paralysis), which isn't often thank the maker, I feel like a but of it lingers behind. Like i get noticeably less coordinated on my right side.

I'm not so much disturbed by the triggers, I realize that all of these seem to be pretty standard triggers for people. What gets me is how rapidly everything suddenly became a trigger. I don't know why or how my migraine "norm" if you can call it that is changing so rapidly and always for the worse it seems. I know that was long but I felt like I needed to get my history written down before I lose all my memories to a migraine. As far as the sudden increase in triggers go and my apparent susceptibility to them goes, any one have any ideas, thoughts, or stories, jokes, I dunno. I'm done rambling. Thanks for reading

Hi gopher,

Well thanks for posting. First of all, I'm so glad you're finding some relief from Topamax. That's fantastic. I'm also very impressed that you're able to express yourself so beautifully and that you have continued in school (junior/freshman - what's that - middle/high school? University? I'm from Australia so don't know those terms) despite the challenges you've faced. I have seen some posts on here about other people who have changes of consciousness with their migraines and I hope some of them post a response to you. It must be very scary not to be aware for a period of time about what is happening and to find out later that, of course, you have continued to interact with people on some bizarre level of consciousness. I'm glad you're in the hands of a neuro. It's possible that if you're in your adolescence that what you're experiencing is at its worst and will improve, as your body continues to develop and your hormone levels even out a bit. That might have something to do with the increase in sensitivity you're experiencing - of course I don't know what developmental stage you're at or if you're male or female. You would be aware there are times of extremely volatile hormone activity in a growing body and it seems reasonable to expect this may increase a sensitive brain's susceptibility to triggers for a while.

Anyway, I wish you the best and hope to hear from some migraineurs who suffer the same kind of fugues as you do.

since midrin has been discontinued i have located a compounding pharmacy in Atlanta, ga who are formulating the exact formula.should anyone need the info..it is Pavilion compounding pharmacy....www.pavilioncompounding.com 800-862-9812.....email is staff@pavilioncompounding.com
the staff is very helpful and can assist you and your doctor on how to write the prescription

hope this helps