Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsMigraine Without AuraMigraine With AuraChronic MigraineAbdominal MigraineAcephalgic MigraineMigraine With Brainstem AuraHemiplegic MigraineRetinal MigraineStatus MigrainosusMenstrual MigraineOphthalmoplegic MigraineMedication MigraineVestibular MigraineCyclic Vomiting Syndrome
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
Migraine Without Aura
Migraine With Aura
Chronic Migraine
Abdominal Migraine
Acephalgic Migraine
Migraine With Brainstem Aura
Hemiplegic Migraine
Retinal Migraine
Status Migrainosus
Menstrual Migraine
Ophthalmoplegic Migraine
Medication Migraine
Vestibular Migraine
Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome
There isn’t just one type ofmigraine. In fact, migraine types can vary significantly in thesymptomsthey cause, how they start, how long they last, and even the parts of the body they affect.
There are many distinct migraine types, including:
The article describes 14 different types of migraines, including how they differ, who they affect, and how to tell them apart.
Migraine Without Aura
According to theInternational Classification of Headache Disorders, an individual must have at least five attacks per year to be diagnosed with migraine without aura.
An Overview of Migraine Without Aura
The term “aura” refers to various symptoms that start approximately 30 minutes or so before the headache begins.The symptoms of aura are usually visual and may include such disturbances as seeing flashing lights or wavy lines, or losing part or all of your vision for a short period of time. Aura can sometimes include loss of the ability to speak, sensory disturbances (e.g., tingling or numbness), and motor problems (e.g., weakness in the extremities).
Migraine with aura is less common than migraine without.It is also possible to experience aura without having a headache or any other symptoms afterward; this situation becomes more common as people get older.
What Is “Alice in Wonderland” Syndrome?This is a rare form of migraine aura that causes distortions in perception. Someone with this condition might feel as if their body is getting smaller, then larger, or might find that time seems to speed up or slow down. Children experience this syndrome more than adults, but it can occur in people of any age.
What Is “Alice in Wonderland” Syndrome?
This is a rare form of migraine aura that causes distortions in perception. Someone with this condition might feel as if their body is getting smaller, then larger, or might find that time seems to speed up or slow down. Children experience this syndrome more than adults, but it can occur in people of any age.
Migraine With Aura: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment Options
When migraines occur 15 or more days per month over a period of three months or more, the condition is called chronic or transformed migraine.
Over time people with episodic migraines may develop more and more headaches for various reasons, including changes in hormones, increased stress, illness, or an increase in the use of painmedications. Having more headaches decreases the threshold for new headaches, and the condition can become chronic and less responsive to medication.
Abdominal migraine is a form of migraine seen mainly in children (most commonly those ages 5 to 9),but it can occur in adults as well.
Symptoms include abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. This is one type of migraine that usually doesn’t involve a headache, although children who have abdominal migraines often have migraines involving head pain when they’re older.
Acephalgic or Silent Migraine
Simply put, an acephalgic or “silent” migraine is a migraine with many classic migraine symptoms, minus the characteristic headache. It’s possible for some or all of your migraine attacks to manifest this way.
The most common symptoms of silent migraines are vision problems and alterations in color perception. Silent migraines are more common in people over 50 and are sometimes misdiagnosed as a stroke.
Migraines Without Headache
Formerly called basilar-type migraine, migraine with brainstem aura has symptoms that can be confused with those of a stroke, such as slurred speech,vertigo, unsteadiness, and numbness. As with migraine with aura, these symptoms come on gradually before the head pain of a migraine.
This type of migraine isn’t common and seems to occur most frequently in adolescent girls.
An Overview of Basilar-Type Migraine
One subtype of a hemiplegic migraine runs in families, but you can have the condition without a family history.
An Overview of Hemiplegic Migraine
A retinal migraine causes flashes or sparkles of light, possibly combined with partial or total temporary blindness, but only in one eye. This occurs before the headache phase of the migraine starts. The head pain generally commences within an hour of these visual symptoms and can last up to three days.
2:18What Is a Retinal Migraine?
2:18
What Is a Retinal Migraine?
To diagnose a retinal migraine, your physician must rule out other possible blindness causes.
An Overview of Retinal Migraine
Status migrainosus is a painful, debilitating migraine attack lasting for more than 72 hours. If moderate to severe migraine pain lasts longer than this with less than a solid four-hour pain-free period while awake, it should be considered an emergency and warrants a trip to the emergency room.
An Overview of Status Migrainous
Menstrually-related migraines affect between 6% and 7% of people with vaginas. Pure menstrual migraines are far less common, affecting roughly one in 100 people with vaginas.
Menstrual migraines usually occur without auras and tend to be more severe, longer lasting, and more resistant to treatment than common migraines.
While the paralysis may be short-lived, some people may take weeks or months to recover. The cause of ophthalmoplegic migraine is poorly understood but is believed to be related to dysfunction of thethird cranial nervethat services the eye. Along with eye muscle paralysis, there may be facial pain,mydriasis(dilated pupils), andptosis(drooping upper eyelids).
Ophthalmoplegic migraines mostly affect children, but the condition can persist well into adulthood. Repeated episodes can cause permanent cranial nerve damage.
Medication-Induced Migraine
Migraines can sometimes occur as an adverse reaction to pain medications used to treat headaches. Migraine-induced migraines most commonly affect people with pre-existing migraines who overuse certain classes of pain medications, including:
The risk increases exponentially when these drugs are combined.
Adults aged 30 to 50 are most commonly affected, particularly those who have more than 10 migraine headaches per month. These are the people most likely to abuse pain medicines.
In addition to vertigo, the dysfunction of thevestibular nervecan cause a severe loss of balance, nausea, sensitivity to motion, muffled hearing, andtinnitus(ringing in the ears).
Cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS)is a poorly understoodfunctional disorderthat causes sudden, repeated attacks of severe nausea and vomiting. The episodes are usually unprovoked and can last anywhere from a few hours to several days. Children are more affected than adults.
Because of the involvement of the gastrointestinal symptoms, some people regard CVS as being synonymous with abdominal migraines.
Summary
Migraines can be debilitating and isolating, and determining the type you have can help ensure you get the best treatment. This is true whether you have relatively common variants (like menstrual or vestibular migraines) or rare and potentially serious ones (like status migrainosus or retinal, hemiplegic, or ophthalmoplegic migraines).
Diagnosing Migraines
19 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.Migraine.The International Classification of Headache Disorders 3rd edition.Migraine Without Aura - ICHD-3.American Migraine Foundation.Understanding Migraine With Aura.American Migraine Foundation.Migraine Without Aura.Weatherall MW.The diagnosis and treatment of chronic migraine. Ther Adv Chronic Dis. 2015;6(3):115-23. doi:10.1177/2040622315579627Mani J, Madani S.Pediatric abdominal migraine: current perspectives on a lesser known entity. Pediatric Health Med Ther.2018;9:47-58. doi:10.2147/PHMT.S127210American Migraine Foundation.Silent Migraine: A Guide.National Institutes of Health Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center.Migraine With Brainstem Aura.NIH.Migraine with brainstem aura.American Migraine Foundation.Hemiplegic Migraine.National Health Service.Retinal Migraine.Vécsei L, Szok D, Nyári A, Tajti J.Treating status migrainosus in the emergency setting: what is the best strategy?Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2018;19(14):1523-1531. doi:10.1080/14656566.2018.1516205Maasumi K, Tepper SJ, Kriegler JS.Menstrual migraine and treatment options: review.Headache. 2017 Feb;57(2):194-208. doi:10.1111/head.12978Kobayashi Y, Kondo Y, Uchibori K, Tsuyuzaki J.Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy with residual mydriasis in an adult: should it be classified as ophthalmoplegic migraine?Intern Med.2017 Oct 15;56(20):2769–2772. doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.8842-17Vandenbussche N, Laterza D, Lisicki M, et al.Medication-overuse headache: a widely recognized entity amidst ongoing debate.J Headache Pain.2018;19(1):50. doi:10.1186/s10194-018-0875-xSohn JH.Recent advances in the understanding of vestibular migraine.Behav Neurol.2016;2016:1801845. doi:10.1155/2016/1801845Lempert T, Olesen J, Furman J, et al.Vestibular migraine: diagnostic criteria.J Vestib Res. 2022;32(1):1-6. doi:10.3233/VES-201644National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.National Organization of Rare Disease.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.
19 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.Migraine.The International Classification of Headache Disorders 3rd edition.Migraine Without Aura - ICHD-3.American Migraine Foundation.Understanding Migraine With Aura.American Migraine Foundation.Migraine Without Aura.Weatherall MW.The diagnosis and treatment of chronic migraine. Ther Adv Chronic Dis. 2015;6(3):115-23. doi:10.1177/2040622315579627Mani J, Madani S.Pediatric abdominal migraine: current perspectives on a lesser known entity. Pediatric Health Med Ther.2018;9:47-58. doi:10.2147/PHMT.S127210American Migraine Foundation.Silent Migraine: A Guide.National Institutes of Health Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center.Migraine With Brainstem Aura.NIH.Migraine with brainstem aura.American Migraine Foundation.Hemiplegic Migraine.National Health Service.Retinal Migraine.Vécsei L, Szok D, Nyári A, Tajti J.Treating status migrainosus in the emergency setting: what is the best strategy?Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2018;19(14):1523-1531. doi:10.1080/14656566.2018.1516205Maasumi K, Tepper SJ, Kriegler JS.Menstrual migraine and treatment options: review.Headache. 2017 Feb;57(2):194-208. doi:10.1111/head.12978Kobayashi Y, Kondo Y, Uchibori K, Tsuyuzaki J.Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy with residual mydriasis in an adult: should it be classified as ophthalmoplegic migraine?Intern Med.2017 Oct 15;56(20):2769–2772. doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.8842-17Vandenbussche N, Laterza D, Lisicki M, et al.Medication-overuse headache: a widely recognized entity amidst ongoing debate.J Headache Pain.2018;19(1):50. doi:10.1186/s10194-018-0875-xSohn JH.Recent advances in the understanding of vestibular migraine.Behav Neurol.2016;2016:1801845. doi:10.1155/2016/1801845Lempert T, Olesen J, Furman J, et al.Vestibular migraine: diagnostic criteria.J Vestib Res. 2022;32(1):1-6. doi:10.3233/VES-201644National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.National Organization of Rare Disease.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.Migraine.The International Classification of Headache Disorders 3rd edition.Migraine Without Aura - ICHD-3.American Migraine Foundation.Understanding Migraine With Aura.American Migraine Foundation.Migraine Without Aura.Weatherall MW.The diagnosis and treatment of chronic migraine. Ther Adv Chronic Dis. 2015;6(3):115-23. doi:10.1177/2040622315579627Mani J, Madani S.Pediatric abdominal migraine: current perspectives on a lesser known entity. Pediatric Health Med Ther.2018;9:47-58. doi:10.2147/PHMT.S127210American Migraine Foundation.Silent Migraine: A Guide.National Institutes of Health Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center.Migraine With Brainstem Aura.NIH.Migraine with brainstem aura.American Migraine Foundation.Hemiplegic Migraine.National Health Service.Retinal Migraine.Vécsei L, Szok D, Nyári A, Tajti J.Treating status migrainosus in the emergency setting: what is the best strategy?Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2018;19(14):1523-1531. doi:10.1080/14656566.2018.1516205Maasumi K, Tepper SJ, Kriegler JS.Menstrual migraine and treatment options: review.Headache. 2017 Feb;57(2):194-208. doi:10.1111/head.12978Kobayashi Y, Kondo Y, Uchibori K, Tsuyuzaki J.Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy with residual mydriasis in an adult: should it be classified as ophthalmoplegic migraine?Intern Med.2017 Oct 15;56(20):2769–2772. doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.8842-17Vandenbussche N, Laterza D, Lisicki M, et al.Medication-overuse headache: a widely recognized entity amidst ongoing debate.J Headache Pain.2018;19(1):50. doi:10.1186/s10194-018-0875-xSohn JH.Recent advances in the understanding of vestibular migraine.Behav Neurol.2016;2016:1801845. doi:10.1155/2016/1801845Lempert T, Olesen J, Furman J, et al.Vestibular migraine: diagnostic criteria.J Vestib Res. 2022;32(1):1-6. doi:10.3233/VES-201644National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.National Organization of Rare Disease.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.
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NIH.Migraine with brainstem aura.
American Migraine Foundation.Hemiplegic Migraine.
National Health Service.Retinal Migraine.
Vécsei L, Szok D, Nyári A, Tajti J.Treating status migrainosus in the emergency setting: what is the best strategy?Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2018;19(14):1523-1531. doi:10.1080/14656566.2018.1516205
Maasumi K, Tepper SJ, Kriegler JS.Menstrual migraine and treatment options: review.Headache. 2017 Feb;57(2):194-208. doi:10.1111/head.12978
Kobayashi Y, Kondo Y, Uchibori K, Tsuyuzaki J.Recurrent painful ophthalmoplegic neuropathy with residual mydriasis in an adult: should it be classified as ophthalmoplegic migraine?Intern Med.2017 Oct 15;56(20):2769–2772. doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.8842-17
Vandenbussche N, Laterza D, Lisicki M, et al.Medication-overuse headache: a widely recognized entity amidst ongoing debate.J Headache Pain.2018;19(1):50. doi:10.1186/s10194-018-0875-x
Sohn JH.Recent advances in the understanding of vestibular migraine.Behav Neurol.2016;2016:1801845. doi:10.1155/2016/1801845
Lempert T, Olesen J, Furman J, et al.Vestibular migraine: diagnostic criteria.J Vestib Res. 2022;32(1):1-6. doi:10.3233/VES-201644
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.
National Organization of Rare Disease.Cyclic vomiting syndrome.
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