Unexplainable migraines with aura? Could it be CADASIL?
I had my first migraine at the age of 26, and it didn't hold back.
Beginning with pins and needles at the tips of my fingers on my right hand, the sensation progressed gradually through my hand and then through my entire arm up to my shoulder. It moved like a shallow rolling wave. By the time the tingling had reached my lower forearm, the sensation in my fingers had to begun to subside.
This pattern maintained itself as the pins and needles progressed through the entire right side of my body. Upon reaching my head, I soon felt tightness in my right temple and not long after, the right side of my lips felt numb and swollen, as if I had been injected with anaesthesia in preparation for root canal work. I couldn't speak properly, not badly so but certainly noticeable.
For the next 25-30 minutes, this sensation worked its way down. My neck, my chest, my waist, hip and pelvis, my groin, thigh, knee, calf, ankle, foot and toes. No part of the right half of my body was UNAFFECTED, and no part of my left side was AFFECTED.
Then it all disappeared - my body felt normal. No more tingling or uncomfortable pins and needles. I could think clearly, I could speak normally. And then, within 5-10 minutes, my head was in unbearable, massive pain. I took some painkillers and went to bed. I intuitively knew I had had a migraine but why? Where the hell had it come from? Lack of sleep? Insufficient hydration? A food trigger? Some other form of stress? I was (and still am) an anxious person - did that come into play somehow?
The head pain lasted for several days, and I remained in bed for most of that time. I wasn't to know it at the time, of course, but this was to be a regular feature of my life for the next 24 years. And eight years before being diagnosed with CADASIL, it was the first symptom that suggested I might have this rare neurological disorder.