Migraines

I am a life long migraine sufferer. I have been very blessed recently and have not had one in more than a year, up until last Thurs. I wanted to share some of the things I have learned about migraines over the past 30 years through my own experiences and research I have done.

You are probably wondering why this is in the Food and Nutrition category. The number one trigger for most people is food. Food is also the most controllable trigger.

Let's start with some basic info about migraines. You might think a migraine is just a bad headache but they are totally different. Migraines generally follow 4 stages during an attack.

Stage 1: usually a few hours before pain, I actually feel really energized, like I'm almost buzzing, ready to take on whatever the day brings. I usually do not recognize this phase until it's too late, thinking damn! I totally should have seen that coming.

Stage 2: aura, which for me is visual but different people experience different things from tingles all over, auditory weird stuff, to paralasis. During this phase, the blood vessels are contracting.

Stage 3: actual pain that can last anywhere from a few hours to several days. During this phase the blood vessels are dialated causing pain. Most reactionary migraine medicine will try to reduce the dialation and therefor control pain. During this stage and Stage 2 nausea is common as well as vomiting and sensitivity to light, sound, and smells.

Stage 4: the post migraine. For several days I feel very drained and tired and just kinda foggy and numb all over. I think the post migraine is the most mis-interpreted part of the whole mess. I am still in the post migraine stage from the one I got on Thurs.

Migraines can be thought of as triggered by many different things but there's a threshold and one trigger in particular will not always cause them every time. Common triggers include: Sleep irregularity, TOM/hormone fluctuations, food, weather changes, and stress. Think of it like this. If it takes 100% to trigger a migraine, sleep irregularity might contribute 30%, food contributes 60%, and then the weather changes contributing the last 10% and you've got a migraine.

My big ones are in order food, sleep regularity, and then weather changes. So, when I used to eat a lot of crap and was generally stressed out, I would get one every time a cold front went through. Similarly, when I was in high school and ate a lot of crap, I would usually get one on the weekend after staying out all night Fri or Sat and then sleeping late on Sat or Sun. For me, I don't get them when I sleep too little; I get them when I sleep too much but it's different for everyone.

The best thing I can control is food. I haven't had one in over a year since making a huge effort towards diet and maintaining regular exercise as well as managing stress.

For most migraine sufferers (including me), the biggest food culprits are:
-aged proteins like in hard cheeses,
-nitrates/nitrites like in processed meats and cheeses,
-chinese spices (not just msg-all those chinese spices and I have no idea why),
-beer,
-dark liquors, and
-red wine.

It's important to remember that individuals will respond differently to different foods and because food is not the only trigger, it doesn't mean I never eat cheese. I eat it in moderation and in consideration with other triggers. A quick google search will bring up more common food triggers. Keeping a journal monitoring your foods, mood, weather, and migraine frequency will help determine what your triggers are. This is really easy to do in MFP since we are already tracking our food intake.

One last common misunderstanding is that a migraine is like a food allergy and the effects will be immediate. This is not true. Usually and I don't know why, a food trigger will result in a migraine up to 3-5 days after consuming the food. So the journal is really a key tool to be able to look back and analyze what you have eaten.

I hope this helps any other sufferers out there. I remember having my first true migraine when I was 8 years old and I know I had them prior to that because when I was very small, I would tell my mom I was having "garbage eyes" and didn't feel good. I called the aura "garbage eyes" because it was like I was looking through crumpled up alluminium foil.

Preventing is really the only way to go in my opinion. Reactionary prescription medicine does not work like on the tv commercials, where the mom suddenly feels like water skiing 20mins after taking the pills. They also have some unpleasant and possibly dangerous side effects. Most prevention presciption medication has even more unpleasant and dangerous side effects. For those of us that truely suffer, I don't think it's a difficult decision to make. I would rather avoid the peperoni pizza and live a life without the constant threat of a migraine ruining my day.