Eli5 when you have a headache, what is actually hurting? Why are there different types of headaches ?
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Migraines are an interesting type of headache in that they are not that well understood, have a large number of symptoms and a follow a typical plan. The pain seems to be caused by constrictions in the blood vessels affecting the membranes surrounding the brain though what triggers this can be very hard to pinpoint – usualy dietry, lack of sleep, stress related, amongst other things.
Migraines also come with an interesting host of other symptoms, called: the predrome, aura, headache, vomiting-stage and postdrome.
The predrome and postdrome either not occur but could last for a couple of days. The symptoms here are very illdefined but some migraine sufferers can feel the start of a migraine days before. The postdrome is effectively a long recovery period lasting a day or so.
The aura is the migraine causing visual disturbances and this is followed by the actual headache itself which can be debilitating. Because the digestive system shuts down to a point (there seems to be a brain-stomach interaction) vomiting usually means the end of the headache phase. For us migrain sufferers this is a blessing !
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