What are migraines?

Migraines according to the NHS website:

A migraine is usually a moderate or severe headache felt as a throbbing pain on 1 side of the head.

Many people also have symptoms such as feeling sick, being sick and increased sensitivity to light or sound.

Migraine is a common health condition, affecting around 1 in every 5 women and around 1 in every 15 men. They usually begin in early adulthood.

UPDATE June 2021: Since I received my adult ADHD diagnosis at the end of 2020 and was subsequently placed on medication for it, my migraines have become a distant memory. I am also having regular treatment at NM Sports Therapy in Cheltenham and that has helped me enormously with tension in my neck and shoulders. I also have cupping done there which I was very sceptical about but has been incredible!

For as long as I can remember I have had migraines. I missed so much school as a teenager and into my adulthood they have made life difficult for me to function as an adult and ruined some really special occasions. As I write this, I feel one in the background, having made me miss the end of my friend’s wedding at the weekend.

How do they affect me?

My migraines can often be low level, just a background dull ache, nagging away at me for days sometimes. Other times they come on and hit me like a truck, with blinding pain behind my eye and huge waves of nausea or vomiting. I also get red and yellow flashing lights sometimes.

What triggers my migraines?

I have tried to find out what causes them for years. One of the main triggers I can identify is lack of sleep. Which meant that I suffered horribly when my children were babies. It also means that any nights out result in a 5/6am wake up (no matter what time I go to bed!) and a day of vomiting and agonising pain. So I try to really limit my alcohol, wine in particular. I’m also sensitive to a lot of cheeses and get flushing on my face from both so clearly they aren’t good for my body! I also know when they are coming as the day before I can’t stop eating.

Medications I have tried.

There have been times when the pain has been so bad that I have genuinely wanted to knock myself unconscious somehow for some relief. I have tried many medications over the years, with varying results but nothing is ever perfect. One thing that worked quite well was Beta Blockers, (as I wrote about here) but they weren’t 100% I started to worry about the long term effects of using them daily. Sumitriptans like Imigran work well but they knock me clean out, either just staring at the wall, not with it at all or out cold, completely fast asleep for several hours.

Ideally I would like to tackle them holistically but the pain is just too bad to function at times, especially with children, as I really don’t have the option to take to my bed for a couple of days as I am responsible for all the school runs etc as Dave works so much. One thing I have tried is a Chiropractor, Hilary at Move, who was brilliant and worked very well for a while but I’m starting to feel like it might be muscular and so the next thing I’m going to try is sports massage with a therapy centre that specialises in pain and injury recovery.

I’ve recently had an eye test and got glasses but they don’t seem to have helped, in fact, they seem to have made it worse! I’ve also tried acupuncture before and I looked into getting a daith piercing but I don’t have enough ‘daith’ to pierce apparently. Maybe that’s the problem! I’m not sure if stress is a factor as I am responsible for the children six days a week and my daughter’s high anxiety can make that extra challenging but the fact that I’ve suffered from them for so long makes me think that they are possibly hormonal, or maybe I am just prone to them and there are many factors at play here. Either way, living with the chronic pain is really starting to get me down after so many years of missed events and days in bed.

A plea for a cure!

So I’m not sure what the point of this post is really, except to make myself feel a little better with the venting, and also maybe to ask if you have found a miracle cure for your migraines? I’m willing to try just about anything at this point! Update: I still can’t believe I am almost free of them. I really did find them utterly debilitating and I missed so much of my life because of them.