Fatigue and migraines

I've just lost over 24 hours of my life due to fatigure preceeding a migraine, plus the migraine. Basically spent it in bed falling asleep if I even tried watching TV.

I had thoguht the fatigue was due to my muscle spaticity - which just wears me out - but my doctor says while it might make my muscles sore I shouldn't feel like I just ran a marathon. She didn't think it was something like "chronic fatigue" and instead says she things it is part of the "atypical" migraines I get ( a lot of severe migraine symptoms but only mild to moderate head pain).

Whatever it is, it causes me to lose a lot of time. I think I have a bout of this nearly every week, even when it doesn't become a migraine.

Anybody have this and any home remedies to recommend?

-Pete

Sorry, your doctor does not sound as if s/he knows what they are dealing with, any more then you do.

Have you had any proper asessment of what is going on with your muscles, have you seen a rheumatologist about all these symptoms?

It made me laugh what was said about the marathon: surely whenever you run any distance, you not only get muscle pain, but also suffer an extreme fatigue as well!
Incidentally both are caused by inflammation to the muscle tissue, a process which happens during any extreme exercise.

My guess is that your muscle pain as well as your fatigue are both caused by the process of inflammation, which in your case might be caused by any one of the rheumatological, or auto-immune conditons and this can be bestt asessed by a specialist rheumatologist and/or immunologist.

I suffer from all these symptoms becasue I have Fibromyalgia. My best home remedy, is a very hot soak in a bathtub.

But you must be careful in case you have high BP. So have it checked, and if it is toon high you should be careful and avoid hot bath since it raises your BP. You can still try a warm bath but make sure you keen an eye on yur BP. Hot water bottle on your back is also helpful.

I've been checked out for stuff like MS. Very extensively over the years by neurologists who specialize in these things.

They think most of my symptoms are due to cervical spinal stenosis/myelopathy ( degeneration of the spine in the neck pressing on nerve roots and aqueezing the spinal cord itself) which cause a lot of numbness and spasticity in my neck and arm and leg on one side. Along with atypical migraine.

The doctor's point was that while spasticity (muscles going rigid, hard to move, plus charlie-horse-like spasms) can cause muscle fatigue and pain, the spasticity in of of itself should not cause general fatigue such as I get. Profound tiredness, physical and mental, that can last for a couple of days at a time. Pain in the muscles is not really an issue, except when I have major cramps and spasms and they get kind of bruised by the spasms. I occasionally have moderate to bad neuropathic pain ( mostly burning sensations) in my foot.

I've been checked out for fibro and do not have the "tender points" and other symptoms in the diagnostic criteria. Instead, my symptoms follow "dermatome" patterns associated with nerve root irritation, along with spasticity from the myelopathy. I've had EMGs to trace the nerve problems - most cervical, a little bit from overuse ( stuff like carpel tunnel).

But I agree that it often feels like an inflammatory process. I flare up for a month or more, with increasing spasticity and numbness in my affected limbs and neck. Then it gradually gets better. During flare ups, I get more migraine symptoms, too.

But the fatigue during flare ups is one of the worst symptoms. Such fatigue is common in MS and fibro but apparently not with my diagnosis.

Since you had your neurological issues thoroughly examined, and you still have no explanation for your extreme fatigue, you need to look into auto-immune disorders of which there are few and are often charcterised by an extreme tiredness (amongts other symptoms).

I often find that whenver I have a flare up of my a-i symptoms (I also have Sogren's Syndrome) then soon M follows, fatigue is my constant companion, but it gets worse during such flare ups.
When I asked my neuro about why this is so, he explained that there is also inflammatory process going on with M, so it is all connected, they trigger each other.

Although I find that the whole picture of symptoms can vary, from one bout to another.

But a word of warning, getting diagnose for any a-immune disoroder is notoriously difficult and you need a right specialist (not neurologist).

Many doctors have their own "list of symptoms" which tend to be much too rigid, and often do not relate to individual patient's experince.
Also many symptoms can overlap with other conditions. (Like for example in Lupus, which is called a "great imitator" which BTW it does not sound like you).

It is also likely that if you have one of a-i conditions, you are likely to have another, which can further confuse the diagnose issue.

So, you need to do much of your own research on the net, look at all the symptoms under "auto immune conditions" and see which one makes most sense to you, and then try to find a doctor who has a greatest experience in this field. Not easy I know.

I am so sorry you are feeling in so much pain and sicomfort.
I know how totally debilitating extreme fatigue can be, when you cannot get out of bed, no matter how much you wish you could, when no matter how much you rest you never feel rested. Can get you down.

I also have what is called atypical migraines (I like to think of it as a neurological pinball game going on in my head) - mostly stroke-like aura symptoms and not much pain. I do not have fatigue before a migraine (though I do yawn quite a bit) but when I am "coming back" from one of my migraines I am extremely fatigued. It feels like I have been pummeled, punched in the stomach and been running a marathon.............I am currently recovering from a migraine and it has taken me 3 hours of laying on the couch after the aura symptoms ended before I could gather up the energy to sit up. I have no help though to offer you about how to help with the fatigue - I know if I push too soon to get up and move around it just prolongs the whole mess.

I think the fatigue is just a syptom of my atypical migraines ( love the pinball anaology - that's very close to how I feel!). Fatigue is a very common symptoms of migraines, apparently. Caffeine helps a little. My doctor has offered me Provigil or mild stimulents for the fatigue but I'm not ready to go down that path yet. My fatigue is only a day or two a week, not constant.

Regarding autoimmune - I have been checked many times for the various markers of autoimmune. My doctor does a complete blood panel every 6 months because they keep worrying I might have MS, although after over 10 years of symptoms and a perfectly clear brain I would hope that is very unlikely.

I have mild plaque psoriasis. One study found fatigue with all forms of psoriasis, even mild psoriasis, that improved when they treated it with the TNF-inhibitor drug Etanercept. Interesting. I had no ideal mild psoriasis could cause these problems.

I also may had had a mild case of another autoimmune disease, sarcoidosis - a disease I knew about only from the TV series "House". You are suppose to play a drinking game where you drink a shot whenever they say the word "sarcoidosis" on "House.". I had mildly elevated ACE levels and a little bit of lung discomfort and cough. They found calcified granulomas in my spleen and a few in my lungs which could have been from sarcoid or could have been from histoplasmosis when I was a kid - a very common problem where I grew up. In any case, apparently in most white Americans it is self limiting, as it appears to be in my case. I went to a pulmonolologist last year who said it was gone. It's mostly blacks where the disease progresses ( tragically, comedian Bernie Mac died of it).

Other possible culprits for fatigue are thyroid problems and lyme's disease. Worth checking if you have not already.