What are migraine symptoms?

In terms of the symptoms of migraine, migraine is a complex disorder and it can be broken up into various phases. There is what we call a pre-monitory phase that tends to occur anywhere for up to a day for up to a day or even two days prior to the headache itself starting. In that phase, patients get all sorts of symptoms such as cravings for food, they're yawing excessively, some have frequent urination. Some patients will report that they've got some neck stiffness, and there are a whole host of other psychological symptoms people can get as well. They can either feel low, they can feel fatigued or it can be the opposite, they can feel euphoric. So that pre-monitory phase is then followed up in about a third of the patients with what we call aura symptoms. These are usually visual symptoms. Patients will report that they get flashing lights, zig-zag lines, dark holes in their vision, but they can also be sensory. They can be numbness or tingling in the arms or the legs. Some people will get speech problems where they have difficulty recalling words that they would otherwise not have much in the way of difficulty recalling. Or, they just have some slurring of speech. Very rarely, patients can also get weakness down one side of the body. So these are what we call aura symptoms and they occur in about a third of the patients. This is then followed by the headaches that migraine's known for. The headache is often very severe and the headache is associated with nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light or sounds, occasionally even smells and patients want to sit still. The final phase is what we call the postdrome. Even when the headache is over, patients often say that they just generally feel lousy, they feel fatigued, they feel tired. So it's a complex disorder with a multitude of phases, but it's the headache that is often the most disabling phase of all of them.