I’ve never had a headache that wasn’t agonizing pain. If I don’t take medicine, I get completely dysfunctional, hide in a room with no lights or noise, and stim like crazy until I throw up around ~6 hours into it. About 15 mins after throwing up, the pain subsides, and I get amazing sleep. I have never had a headache that wasn’t like this. The only medicines that work are ibuprofen (so I have that with me literally everywhere I go because these headaches are truly traumatizing) or if they’re really bad and go to the hospital, an injection of an NSAID, benadryl, and diazepam.
Yet, I hear people say they have a headache and are still out about doing things. For example, I specifically remember my middle school bus driver yelling at a student, “Not today, Jiovani! I’ve got a headache!” How in the world was she able to drive a loud school bus in the sun and yell at the same time with a headache??
I’m wondering if this is an autism thing because of the overstimulation and stimming, or if that’s just how I handle the stress of a headache because I’m autistic. Does anyone else have similar experiences or can function with a headache?
It sounds like you’re getting a specific kind of headache, perhaps a migraine or a cluster headache, that can be debilitatingly painful. The fact that you throw up sounds a lot like it’s a migraine.
I can’t function with a migraine. I have to take pain medication, lie down in a dark room and hope I can sleep it off.
Headaches are annoying but what you described is a migraine. Those will usually put a person out of commission. Your doctor can prescribe you fast working meds for when they hit.
Want to add that not all migraines are the same. While most will incapacitate a person, a mild headache that lasts several days can be considered a migraine and I’ve had low pain migraines with aura that are basically just visual distortions.
That sounds more like a Migraine than a normal headache. Have you talked to a doctor about it?
In addition to all the other comments, check out the migraine community on Lemmy.
When I have a mild headache, usually from a stiff neck, it impacts me like any other mild pain. It is just a source of stress, like children screaming near by or a Light flickering. It lowers my concentration and my mental capacity but unless there are other factors I can still somewhat function at least for a time.
Migraine is something different all together for me typically it starts with flickering in the center of my vision. Usually I recognize it because it gets hard to read text. The flickering then spreads out and slowly moves to my peripheral vision over about 10 to 30 minutes. When it moves out of my field of vision it takes another 10 to 30 minutes until my brain feels like a bucket of snails. I can’t concentrate even on interesting things and even simple thoughts take effort. About a third of the time a really bad headache starts at the same time. The headache usually lasts about 1 to 3 hours but feels like 10. The sluggishness and fuzziness of my brain will slowly fade over the next one to three days.
This seems to be called migraine with aura. Luckily it hits me only about 3-5 times a year.
Yeah that looks beyond anything I’ve heard of hypersensitivity and looks a lot closer to what I experienced when I got cluster headaches. You really should talk to a physician about that. I’m not autistic, so I can’t say what headaches will normally be like for y’all, but none of the autistic people in my life have headaches like that.
Normal headaches for me are a dull ache or throb in my brain. I haven’t had a cluster headache in like 15 years but I still do get migraines which are similar and both come with over sensitivity to light and sound. I’m able to power through migraines when needed, but cluster headaches were worse and just knocked me on my ass for as long as it took
most people’s headaches are not usually that bad. i used to get migraines like that when i was younger (though thankfully not for a long time), but i can also get a regular headache which is unpleasant and painful, but not debilitatingly so, if i get dehydrated, or congested, or hypoglycemic, or an excess of muscle tension in my neck and back.
It’s probably the worst thing about my headaches: I’m still functionning. So I don’t take medicine and wait for the pain to disapear magically. When I notice it didn’t disapear I think again to take medicine but tell myself that it will be the end of the day soon so it’s useless. Then I get home and continue to suffer because I’m home so I don’t need to be fully functionning, so I struggle with my chores cus of the pain.
So I end up with constant headaches, carrying all painkiller I need with me everywhere but nearly never taking them.
Jesus christ bro I am so sorry.
