If you can pop an Excedrine and feel better, it's not a migraine. Yes, I know the Excedrine bottle says Migraine in big font. Doesn't mean it actually helps with one. It's called marketing.
Anyway, a headache is when your head hurts. That's it. A headache is NOT a migraine. And a migraine is not a headache. Headache is ONE possible symptom of a migraine. That's all they have in common.
Migraines are NEUROLOGICAL DYSFUNCTIONS similar to strokes. They're not fun. They can involve a wide variety of neurologically-induced symptoms. They can be severely debilitating, which is where my irritation on this subject arises. See, I get NASTY friggin' migraines periodically. I'm pretty much useless when they happen. So when I call into work and say I can't come in because of a migraine, I don't need everyone rolling their eyes at me because some dink who can't take a bit of pain has asked to go home because of a "migraine" that was easily handled by a couple excedrine and 15 minutes of time.
Let me now describe some of the fun symptoms that separate a migraine from even the worst headache.
=Vision loss and artifacting. At first it becomes incredibly hard to focus. Then I go completely blind in at least one eye. It's not just black/emptiness, though. It's nonsense magical colors and shapes all over the damn place. It's as though I COULD see if that bright s*** would only get out of the way. This, along with numbness, is usually my first clue that I'm doomed for a few hours until the migraine decides to pass.
=Numbness, weakness, and slowness. I start going numb in my hands and face. Usually this is accompanied by a very drunk-like delay in sensation. If I move my hand I'll SEE it before I FEEL it. Everything runs on a delay and sensation goes away completely on one side or the other. When my face goes numb it gets hard to speak.
="Speech disturbances". This is where I think I've said one word (even hear myself saying that word) but I've really said a completely different word. I only realize it's happening when someone tells me so. If I speak really slowly and deliberately I can usually minimize this, but I often still get confused looks telling me I need to try again with that last sentence.
=Light sensitivity. Light becomes intolerable. It's not just painful. It's hard to describe. Problem is that those damn vision artifacts are really bright, so even closing my eyes doesn't help.
=Nausea. Fortunately I don't get this one most of the time. But many migraine sufferers I know get very bad nausea long with the rest. There's no recovering. It's not from something you ate or motion sickness or anything, so even lying still doesn't help. Sometimes this is exacerbated by light sensitivity (the light will worsen the nausea) so darkness can help.
=Pain. I get moderate pain with most of my migraines. I tend to have a very high tolerance for pain (not saying that to sound macho...I say it because I tend to prefer pain to painkillers, etc. which means I've learned to tolerate it to a pretty good degree). If my migraines were only the pain aspect, I'd have no problem with them at all. I MIGHT occasionally be inclined to pop an excedrine or ibuprofen. But that's it. The pain is in very different spots with a migraine than it is with "normal" headaches. It tends to be localized and come in piercing bursts.
Some people experience all of these symptoms, and some only experience a few. So I guess, in theory it could be possible to have a migraine whose only symptom is pain. But then how would you know it's a migraine? Hmmmm...
For most people I know, there's no "cure" to migraines. I've tried various things: immitrex is a pill you take at migraine onset to minimize symptoms, but it doesn't work reliability and creates it's OWN fun symptoms which feel a lot like a heart attack (this is not based only on my own experience--I've never had a heart attack--but on input from my doctor as well).
I also took a daily regimen of an anti-epiliepsi drug that's sometimes also used to treat migraines, but it made everything taste weird and made me REALLY, REALLY irritable so I decided that was no better than migraines. Yes, more than I am right now, dammit!
Painkillers don't seem to work on the pain most of the time (for me...for others they do help).
Caffeine actually helps a bit, miraculously. It doesn't cure the whole thing, but it takes a little bit of the edge off.
My usual solution to a migraine is to take a couple benedryl, drink a can of coke, and go to sleep. When I wake up, the migraine is usually mostly gone.
So, anyway, back to the point of the rant:
When I complain about a migraine, it's because I'm essentially incapacitated. I can't see. I can't speak. It's hard to walk. I might blow chunks on nearby objects.
When people complain about headaches, it's because they're whiners. I don't care how bad it hurts. It's better than being F@#KING BLIND.
Anyway, the next time someone tells you they're having a bad day because of a migraine, ask them why they're not in bed dosed up on sleeping pills waiting for it to pass, rather than doing whatever able-minded thing they're doing at the time of complaint.
So...being the "huh...this is...different" kind of person, I decided that I would go to bed and hope to Hell whatever was going on would be gone in the morning. Fortunately for me, that's exactly what happened.