Migraine Headaches

[calendula]

Does anyone else suffer from migraines? I usually get one a few times a year; luckily it is rare that I'll have them more often than that. But it is so painful, and really interferes with my day when they pop up.

I will always know when one is coming. It starts off with vision troubles...it's kind of hard to explain. Sometimes I get like blind spots in my vision, or a light (like when you look at something bright and you can see the after-image). At this point, my head doesn't hurt yet. But it is very difficult to see. It happened to me once when I was driving, it was very scary. I will also have speech problems; I will mix up the words in my sentences and have difficulty reading.

After about half an hour of this, the vision problems subside and the headache sets in. It is usually just on one side--today it was the left side. It's a very intense headache that makes me feel nauseous, though I have never actually thrown up. The headache will last at least a couple hours, sometimes it will last all day.

I have given up msg and artificial sweeteners, and it did seem to help somewhat. But, I got one again first thing this morning. My head is feeling a lot better now. Thankfully it wasn't one of the worse ones I've had.

I am wondering if anyone knows of any natural alternatives to medication, foods that could be triggering migraines, or anything else that would help? Thanks.

 

[miss_thenorth]

What you eat can definitely trigger migraines,I know my friend can't eat chocolate, but I'll let the foodies help you out with what to eliminate. MSG and artificial sweeteners are good things to eliminate for any reason. The vision disturbances are called migraine auras. Usuall as soo as you get one, if you lie down in a dark quiet room, you can offset a big migraine, sometimes totally avoid it. Does your temple swell up too?

 

[abifae]

My headaches went almost fully away when I went low carb

 

[miss_thenorth]

Actually, mine did too. I never really thought about it, but it has been a serioulsy long time since I had a headache.

 

[calendula]

Give up chocolate! I might die a slow death if I did that! lol Actually, I haven't had chocolate since around valentines day. My husband and kids got me lots of it, so I got chocolated out. Hopefully that isn't one of the causes though, I really like chocolate.

I haven't noticed any swelling in the temples. It seems to make my head feel a little better if I put something cool on it.

I've been thinking about going low carb. Maybe I should try it for a couple months and see how I feel. I'll have to look for some good recipes.

I drink coffee daily and saw that caffiene can trigger them. I wonder if I should cut back.

 

[abifae]

For me, coffee calms my headaches, but any sugar worsens it. Fatigue increases them too. But I get tension headaches, not true migraines. Although, they hurt enough to land me in bed with all the lights out.

 

[savingdogs]

I have migraines too, and vertigo related to them so I really want to avoid them. Coffee, nuts, cheese, processed meats, red wine, champagne, chocolate and some other things could all be triggers, but each person has their own triggers.

You might keep a food/exposure diary. My daughter gets migraines when exposed to seasonal allergies. I was advised to keep a food/event journal and try to see what triggered it.

Aspartame stuck right out right away, I cannot have it and do much better if I avoid it in ALL forms.

When you cut things out, do it one thing at a time or you never know what worked. Obviously, carbs trigger some folks, too.

 

[abifae]

http://diary.migrainetrust.org/

There are other really good migraine trackers that help you figure out your triggers, but this one looked good

 

[Dace]

My 17 yr old has suffered from migraines for years. They used to present as a stomach ache and then morph into a headache. As she got older (6/7th grade) they started to present with a vision disturbance/aura...and then it became obvious that she was actually suffering form migraines, we always thought is was tummy trouble which ended with a headache.

She would have an episode every 6-8 weeks where she was down for 18 hours....on the sofa, not moving & eyes closed. She would slowly come back to her self after another day or so.

She also had digestive issues and over a yr ago (15mos) I took her completely off gluten. 100% gluten free, for several months.
After about 6 mos she started to incorporate some gluten back into her diet, but still eats GF at home.

She has not had a single episode since getting off gluten, or since adding it back in in moderation.

She had been having these episodes since she was about 4th grade. They escalated during middle school and into high school. By her history she should have had at least 7-10 episodes in the last 15 mos. She has had none!

 

[calendula]

http://diary.migrainetrust.org/

There are other really good migraine trackers that help you figure out your triggers, but this one looked good

Thank you, this is pretty cool. I'm going to start using it.

Cheese was a surprising trigger to me. Boy, we eat lots of cheese. We are from Wisconsin. That would be a hard one to cut out. I'm going to save that one as a last resort.

Dace, how horrible for a child to be having these kinds of headaches. I'm a grown adult, and they make me feel like crying. I'm glad you finally found something that helped her.