Painless Migraine: The Symptoms

We usually associate migraine with excruciating pain, but pain is just a part of a migraine episode. A typical migraine episode has four stages: pre-headache, aura, headache, and post-headache. Most people suffer from full-blown migraines and suffer from terrible headaches, but some do experience painless episodes.

A painless migraine, also known as "silent migraine," "migraine equivalent" and "sans-migraine," is a migraine episode that starts with the typical pre-headache stage, then stops short after progressing to the aura phase of a migraine attack. The headache phase is skipped.

The pre-headache phase, also known as the prodrome, is where the painless migraine episode starts. You may enter this stage several hours or even days before a migraine episode. The prodrome stage is a warning that tells you that you are about to have a migraine attack. The typical symptoms of the prodrome include constipation or diarrhea, irritability, fatigue, depression, frequent urination, food cravings and stiff neck.

After the prodrome, you enter the aura phase. This phase usually lasts less than an hour and can be terrifying. Apart from the visual symptoms like zigzag lines, spots in front of your eyes or flashing lights, the aura phase has other symptoms that include auditory hallucinations, confusion, temporary impairment in hearing, difficulty expressing oneself verbally (groping for words), dizziness, changes in one's sense of touch, olfactory hallucinations, partial paralysis, partial or blurry vision, and tingling or numbness of the face.

Understanding the symptoms of aura migraine is necessary so that you will know what to anticipate and you will understand what is going on with your body and your moods. Thus, you will be able to manage this condition effectively. If you experience the symptoms of painless migraine for the first time, consult your doctor so you can be sure that you are suffering from symptoms painless migraine and other serious conditions could be ruled out.