Migraine Quotes & Sayings

Sarno contended that emotions such as guilt, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem caused the brain to manufacture such physical symptoms as migraine headaches, muscle pain, repetitive strain injuries, even hay fever. — Nikki Winston

When we make decisions that honor our dreams and priorities, we also make choices about what we won't prioritize. We must embrace these choices as well. — Sarah Hackley

I do a lot of research on the placebo effect, not just in depression but in irritable bowel syndrome, pain, arthritis of the knee, migraine, asthma. — Irving Kirsch

The arctic pavement turned into a whirlwind of viscous blood. The fiery shadows on the metropolitan walls blitzed him, avenging overachievers starved for vengeance. He fell into the abyss. His migraine made his head feel heavier than it was. Thoughts of her were coals for the old train engine inside his head. — Bruce Crown

Many patients may confess that they feel "strange" or "confused" during a migraine aura, that they are clumsy in their movements, or that they would not drive at such a time. In short, they may be aware of something the matter in addition to the scintillating scotoma, paraesthesiae, etc., something so unprecedented in their experience, so difficult to describe, that it is often avoided or omitted when speaking of their complaints. Great — Oliver Sacks

That tried and true aphorism:
Each day is precious. Each day is a gift. If we don't open the wrapping carefully, we might break it and have to return it to the store. And then they're going to ask for a receipt and throw a total shit fit if we've left it at home, and we'll have to call the manager over and give him a good talking-to, and of course eventually he'll relent and tell the clerk to give us full credit, but by then we'll be so upset that we've wasted an hour of our time that we'll end up with a migraine and having to spend the rest of the day in bed, completely defeating the whole idea that each day is supposed to be precious and so forth. — Eric Garcia

My whole body sings to be near him,because every movement he makes is charged with electricity.I often think of putting my arms around him or running my fingers along his lips.When I let my thoughts go there the sharp pain of unrequited love invites the migraine in. — E. Lockhart

At school, he enacted a major piece of treachery against his parents. His right hand was Evil Dad, and his left was Righteous Mom. Evil Dad blustered and theorized and dished out pompous bullshit. Righteous Mom complained and accused. In Righteous Mom's cosmology, Evil Dad was the sole source of hemmoroids, kleptomania, global conflict, bad breath, tectonic-plate fault lines, and clogged drains, as well as every migraine headache and menstrual cramp Righteous Mom had ever suffered. — Margaret Atwood

Acardi! We should have killed him on the spot and you wouldn't let me! You didn't even listen."

"Fine," I said, glaring at him. "Next time you want to commit murder, give me a call. You dagger them, I'll chop them into little tiny pieces and toss them into the East River."

For the first time, I noticed the shadows beneath his eyes, the gauntness on his face. He lowered his voice, rubbing his temples as if he had a migraine. "This isn't the time for sarcasm, Liana."

"No, apparently it's murder time. — M. Kane

I got a bad migraine that lasted 3 years, and the pills I took made by fingers disappear. — David Bowie

one man's windchimes are another man's migraine — Marcus Dagan

With a canvas I'm a group of seven. A migraine, take two Excedrin. — Drake

Although I was too young to understand the theory of universal (that's to say male) guilt, I was old enough to know which sex suffered migraine and which sex caused it. — Howard Jacobson

His headache was still sitting over his right eye as if it had been nailed there. — Ian Fleming

From Laurie Colwin: Lovely writing! About grief she writes: I realized that grief is metabolic: it crawls through you like a disease and takes your energy away. Then it gathers and hits like a sudden migraine, like being hit by a car, like having a large, flat rock hurled at your chest. — Laurie Colwin

Paint what you know, especially if it looks like something you shouldn't know. — Andrew Levy

The drowsiness which often accompanies or precedes a severe common migraine is occasionally abstracted as a symptom in its own right, and may then constitute the sole expression of the migrainous tendency. The — Oliver Sacks

Transient states of depersonalisation are appreciably commoner during migraine auras. Freud reminds us that " ... the ego is first and foremost a body-ego ... the mental projection of the surface of the body." The sense of "self" appears to be based, fundamentally, on a continuous inference from the stability of body-image, the stability of outward perceptions, and the stability of time-perception. Feelings of ego-dissolution readily and promptly occur if there is serious disorder or instability of body-image, external perception, or time-perception, and all of these, as we have seen, may occur during the course of a migraine aura. — Oliver Sacks

I had, bluntly, the worst fucking headache I had ever had in my life. I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it. Try this. Imagine a migraine, on top of a hangover, while sitting in a kindergarten of thirty screaming children, who are all taking turns stabbing you in the eye with an ice pick. — John Scalzi

Depression affects almost 80% of migraine sufferers at one time or another. People with migraine, especially chronic migraine, also are more likely to experience intense anxiety and to have suicidal tendencies. If we want to live happy and joyful lives with migraine, it is vital that we acknowledge and deal with the emotional realities of the disease. — Sarah Hackley

I can't tell you how many shows I've done with full-blown migraine headaches. — Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Grim sighed heavily. "I swear I'm getting a migraine."
"My mom suffers from those a lot, too."
"Being around you, I imagine she does. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I had a migraine for about seven or eight straight days, and I was unable to sleep most nights. — April Winchell

By taking the time to focus on our mental and emotional well-being, we can minimize our triggers and reduce the likelihood of a recurrence. — Sarah Hackley

Diesel is back," Ranger said.
Yes. How did you know?"
I woke up with a migraine this morning." Ranger said. — Janet Evanovich

Gout is not relieved by a fine shoe nor a hangnail by a costly ring nor migraine by a tiara. — Plutarch

The migraine is a beast from Hell, a bone-crushing, brain-twisting, heart-rending, apocalyptic scourge - an insult to all that's holy. — Diane Stafford

Love is universal migraine, A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason. Symptoms of true love Are leanness, jealousy, Laggard dawns; Are omens and nightmares - Listening for a knock, Waiting for a sign: For a touch of her fingers In a darkened room, For a searching look. Take courage, lover! Could you endure such pain At any hand but hers? — Robert Graves

So what's on the agenda for tonight? (Danger)
Migraine, futility, possible death. Same as every night, I guess. (Alexion) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Lamium

Migraine dreams, jagged seams,
A badge of love and pain.
Or dreamy eyes, sleepy eyes,
Drooping, closing, losing light.
Packages scattered under the tree,
Some torn open, some tied tight.

Is there a heartbeat in those purple veins?
Are those embryos or mouths or rosary beads?
The color of my first dress, gathered with love,
Fairy cups stirred with blades of grass,
notes clustered on a windy score,
Three blooms, three friends, alas!

Grape flowers, cloud flowers, love flowers,
Paper parasols upside down, a butterfly herd
Stopped to rest by a deep green pool.
Petals small as a child's tears good-bye,
Dropped stitches everywhere
From a blanket the color of sky. — Louise Hawes

The amplified ukulele music was giving me a migraine. — Laird Barron

The hateful mood of a migraine - depressed and withdrawn, or furious and irascible - tends to melt away in the stage of lysis, to melt away with the physiological secretion. "Resolution by secretion" thus resembles a catharsis on both physiological and psychological levels, like weeping for grief. The — Oliver Sacks

Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason. — Robert Graves

The sky was the color of a migraine. — Joe Hill

This gave me a feeling of what seemed wrong with American medicine, that it consisted more and more of specialists. There were fewer and fewer primary care physicians, the base of the pyramid. My father and my two older brothers were all general practitioners, and I found myself feeling not like a super-specialist in migraine but like the general practitioner these patients should have seen to begin with. — Oliver Sacks

Right there is the usefulness of migraine, there in that imposed yoga, the concentration on the pain. For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria. — Joan Didion

I opened my eyes to the brightness of the sun. I groaned, feeling the migraine take over. — Sylvie Raven

My migraine aura was now so severe that the world on the left had ceased to exist, except as an intermittent yellow flash. — Hilary Mantel

If I apply a magnetic pulse on salt water - that's your brains by the way - it'll generate electric currents, and the electric current in the brain can erase a migraine headache. — Robert Fischell

The sound of her laughter eased Clark's migraine. — Bruce Crown

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye. — W. H. Auden

Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine. First they were driving through countryside, then, imperceptibly, the occasional town became a low suburban sprawl, and the sprawl became the city. — Neil Gaiman

I've come to understand that migraine is a part of the personality. I have migraine troughs. These often follow high productivity. I have a hypo-manic phase, then I'll crash. — Siri Hustvedt

No one knows our bodies or our subjective experiences like we do. This means we can rest secure in our knowledge of ourselves and what we're going through, even when the medical profession doesn't understand or believe us. Migraine is a weird and changing disease. It affects all of us differently, and every attack is a little different than the one before. This means that no one can understand your life, symptoms, or illness like you can. This can be incredibly empowering: you are the expert. But, it also carries great responsibility: to live as happily and as fully as possible, you must listen to your body and trust your instincts. — Sarah Hackley

Honestly, I love Jesus but sometimes His followers give me a migraine. — Jen Hatmaker

I'm trying very hard not to think about anything I'm doing. Of all the iffy things I've ever done in my life, I've never had to ditch a body before. While it's giving me a migraine right now, I think the fact that I'm not an expert on corpse disposal says a lot of good things about me and my life choices. — Richard Kadrey

She was working at her computer in her office, doing admin, which is short for administration, which is short for migraine-stimulant. — Ali Smith

Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the migraine headache called life. The lighting dim and secluded, mostly covering the tables, counters and the door to the bathroom. The walls were decorated in decades of memories, favorite sports teams and other miscellaneous decor that was typical of small bars such as this one. It was too dark to tell what they were from a distance.
There was a thick layer of smoke hovering in the air around the ceiling lights, the place was smothered in it but was strongest above everyone's heads. The smell was the classic stale bar odor of cigarettes and cheap cigars. — J.C. Joranco

If migraine patients have a common and legitimate second complaint besides their migraines, it is that they have not been listened to by physicians. Looked at, investigated, drugged, charged, but not listened to. — Oliver Sacks

That's on purpose. The problem and the solution are totally independent of one another. First, you have to prove that the problem exists, that it's a serious problem that amounts to a migraine. Then we can worry about whether customers will actually buy your product as a solution. Make sense? — Diana Kander

He'd also gotten close to Prophet, moving next to him to get the right angle on the cast, his hip brushing Prophet's cock. And now his own had a more pressing need than covering up phone numbers. The light dappled across Prophet's face. He looked more relaxed, less on guard than he'd ever been. But somehow still lethal. Always lethal. Prophet turned onto his back, arms over his head again, casts sprawled on the pillow. Tom's erection nudged Prophet's thigh as he thought about Prophet tied up, and Prophet shook his head. "Did you take Viagra instead of migraine meds?" "Maybe," Tom murmured, wrapped a hand around Prophet's cock, which was hard again too. — S.E. Jakes

What triggered a migraine for me may have no effect on someone else. For many people, coffee can relieve symptoms somewhat, but for me it was a trigger. You really have to find out what affects you individually. — Morgan Fairchild

Because around a crisis point, even the tiniest action can assume importance all out of proportion to its size. Consequences multiply and cascade, and anything - a missed telephone call, a match struck during a blackout, a dropped piece of paper, a single moment - can have empire-tottering effects. The Archduke Ferdinand's chauffeur makes a wrong turn onto Franz-Josef Street and starts a world war. Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard steps outside for a smoke and destroys a peace. Hitler leaves orders not to be disturbed because he has a migraine and finds out about the D-Day invasion eighteen hours too late. A lieutenant fails to mark a telegram "urgent" and Admiral Kimmel isn't warned of the impending Japanese attack. "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. — Connie Willis

I didn't feel physically sick. But mentally. My mind was twisting in so many ways. ( ... ) We once saw a documentary on migraines. One of the men interviewed used to fall on his knees and bang his head against the floor, over and over during attacks. This diverted the pain from deep inside his brain, where he couldn't reach it, to a pain outside that he had control over. — Jay Asher

My daughter is a real migraine sufferer; the minute she has a handful of Haribo sweets, she gets a headache. There's a connection between what the liver can't break down with what goes on to trigger a headache. You just have to be aware. — Sheherazade Goldsmith

Remember this: You are the expert of your body. — Sarah Hackley

After I saw the first thing I ever did, I got a migraine. — Claire Forlani

I've Got A Little Problem
And I'm not really sure how to fix it.
Not really sure I need to. Not really sure I could.
Life is pretty good. But once in a while, uninvited and uninitiated anger invades me.
It starts, a tiny gnaw at the back of my brain. Like a migraine except without pain. They say headaches blossom, but this isn't so much a blooming as a bleeding. Irritation bleeds into rage, seethes into fury. An ulcer, emptying hatred inside me. And I don't know why. Life is pretty good.
So, what the hell? — Ellen Hopkins

See, anxiety doesn't just stop. You can have nice moments, minutes where it shrinks, but it doesn't leave. It lurks in the background like a shadow, like that important assignment you have to do but keep putting off or the dull ache that follows a three-day migraine. The best you can hope for is to contain it, make it as small as possible so it stops being intrusive. Am I coping? Yes, but it's taking a monumental amount of effort to keep the dynamite inside my stomach from exploding. The — Louise Gornall

A migraine is the cockblock of writing. — Don Roff

Sudden fright, or rage, or other strong emotion may disperse and displace a migraine almost within seconds. One — Oliver Sacks

Presiding over the entire attack there will be, in du Bois Reymond's words, "a general feeling of disorder," which may be experienced in either physical or emotional terms, and tax or elude the patient's powers of description. — Oliver Sacks

And then a throb hits you on the left ide of the head so hard that your head bobs to the right ... There's no way that came from inside your head, you think. That's no metaphysical crisis. God just punched you in the face. — Andrew Levy

After consciously enduring a twelve-inch knitting needle navigated into the unseen recesses of my pelvis and almost passing out at the sensation of my hip inflating with fluid and somehow clinging to my sanity through the hour-long, migraine-inducing blare of the imaging contraption, which resembled a compact wind tunnel, possessed the amplification capability of a Marshall stack, and pushed my patience beyond the limits of superhuman endurance, I was
informed by my orthopedist that the image of my still-smoldering hip had revealed, and I quote, "just a little inflammation." In the world of orthopedic medicine, "a little inflammation" apparently qualifies as sound diagnosis. — Daniel Stern

Migraine attacks are often preceded by visual disturbances, weakness, dizziness, ringing in the ears, and other symptoms. Many patients report that they can avert a migraine attack by smoking a joint at the first warning of onset. Others take a small dosage daily to ward off attacks. Patients say inhaled marijuana is preferable to oral preparations such as Marinol in such situations, because quick treatment is necessary. (There is no evidence that CBD or other non-THC cannabinoids are helpful against migraines.) — Dale Gieringer

Compact and clearly defined at its center, migraine diffuses outwards until it merges with an immense surrounding field of allied phenomena. The only boundaries which exist are those which we are forced to adopt for nosological clarity and clinical action. We construct such boundaries and limits, for there is none in the subject itself. — Oliver Sacks

Thus it is awkward to call motion-sickness a migraine attack, but we may very conveniently term it a migranoid reaction, and note, in support of its affinities, that a large minority (almost 50 per cent, according to Selby and Lance) of adult migraine sufferers experienced severe motion-sickness in — Oliver Sacks

PERIODIC MOOD-CHANGES We have already spoken of the affective concomitants of common migraines - elated and irritable prodromal states, states of dread and depression associated with the main phase of the attack, and states of euphoric rebound. Any or all of these may be abstracted as isolated periodic symptoms of relatively short duration - some hours, or at most two or three days, and as such may present themselves as primary emotional disorders. The most acute of these mood-changes, generally no more than an hour in duration, usually represents concomitants or equivalents of migraine aura. We may confine our attention at this stage to attacks of depression, or truncated manic-depressive cycles, occurring at intervals in patients who have previously suffered from attacks of undoubted (classical, common, abdominal, etc.) migraine. — Oliver Sacks

Chorea - a twinkling movement or motor scintillation - does not have its origin in the cerebral cortex, but in the deeper parts of the brain, the basal ganglia and upper brainstem, which are the parts that mediate normal awakening. Thus these observations of chorea during migraine support the notion that migraine is a form of arousal disorder, something located in the strange borderlands of sleep - a disorder which has its origin deep in the brainstem, and not superficially, in the cortical mantle, as is often supposed (a — Oliver Sacks

That no one dies of migraine seems to someone deep in an attack as an ambiguous blessing. — Joan Didion

'I've been privileged to occasionally hear you sing in the shower and thought
what a voice. With a reasonable amount of training, it might actually be a voice I could listen to for more than a few minutes without getting a migraine.' — Barbara Elsborg

This is a soul under perpetual migraine attack. — Richard Schickel

I'm just concerned." "Don't be. It's not like my chronic migraine is going to kill us." "Right." She — Seanan McGuire

(A man who traffics in words, I thought, should come up with better ones than that.) The note felt toxic; it left a funny taste in my mouth. Metallic, like lead paint, or the prodrome of a migraine. When had he written it? And why? Maybe someone else had done it for him. While I'd had my back turned, had he just been pretending to write? Everything about it made me ill. And then there was what the note said. What — Alena Graedon

The margins of the space were bright without illuminating anything or casting shadows, sharp and terrible. It reminded her of the way schizophrenics and people suffering migraines would describe light as assaulting and dangerous. — James S.A. Corey

And I have learned now to live with it, learned when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it, when it does come, as more friend than lodger. We have reached a certain understanding, my migraine and I. — Joan Didion

Sex was the main component of her thoughts now. But love - and her desperate longing for it - had vanished from her heart like a migraine after a painkiller. — Augustine Sam

No matter what stage of illness we are in, whether we've just been diagnosed or we have lived with chronic migraines for decades, there are adjustments we can make to increase joy in our lives and to live more fully. — Sarah Hackley

many cardinal characteristics of migraine aura, in its visual (scotomatous), tactile (paraesthetic) and aphasic forms. We — Oliver Sacks

I promise to keep my hands, tongue, and other body parts to myself. You risk your life by staying home. It's late and we're both too wiped out to go climbing into the People's lair tonight. What do you risk by coming with me?"
"A huge migraine from being in your company. — Ilona Andrews

By what warrant, therefore, is such an attack to be termed an extended epilepsy rather than a quite brief and severe, let us say, a condensed migraine? — Oliver Sacks

The migraine angel leaned hard on my shoulder and belched into my face. — Hilary Mantel

Mental tensions, frustrations, insecurity, aimlessness are among the most damaging stressors, and psychosomatic studies have shown how often they cause migraine headache, peptic ulcers, heart attacks, hypertension, mental disease, suicide, or just hopeless unhappiness. — Hans Selye

The band of sickly scarlet light that passed for sunset in Hell ringed the horizon like a migraine, — Liz Williams

At the very last moment, just before its lips claimed hers, its grip on her face relaxed slightly and she did the only thing she could think of: She head-butted it. Snapped her head back, then forward again, and bashed it square in the face as hard as she could. So hard, in fact, that it made her woozy and gave her an instant migraine, making her wonder how Jean-Claude Van Damme always managed to coolly continue fighting after such a stunt. Obviously, movies lied. — Karen Marie Moning

Every once in a while when I get a migraine, I like to think, "Who hates me today?" — Heidi Julavits

Hiding my migraines on the set may have been my toughest challenge as an actor. There were times when the pain from migraine headaches was so severe that I literally had to crawl across my dressing room floor. But I couldn't let anyone know. If they thought I might slow production, I figured that would end my career. — Morgan Fairchild