A migraine isn’t ‘just a headache.’

It’s not fixed by water and Advil.

It’s more than pain.

It’s numbness, nausea, fatigue, visual disturbances, forgetting words, body aches, having to seclude yourself from a world that overloads all your senses.

Be it 4 hours or 72, a migraine shuts you down.  

All you have to do is curl up in a ball on the floor because you don’t feel the pain will end.

You try and avoid unavoidable triggers.

You pray that something in your medicine cabinet will get you through this time.

Imagine having your head put in a vice as someone tightens the clamp until you can’t take it anymore.

Imagine if every time you lift or move your head the world spins and your entire perception of your surroundings becomes a blur.

Migraine pain is real, and it is debilitating.

If someone comes to you in the future saying they have a migraine, please don’t belittle them by saying it’s “just a migraine.”

Say, “I understand your pain, and I’m here for you.”

By Lottie Anderson & Jordan Davidson.