I'm starting a series called "Migraines on Monday" to corral the migraine talk in one place so you can find it if you're interested and skip it if you're not. Also, apologies for disappearing for so long-- the first week I missed I knew I would because I was hosting our family Thanksgiving, then the next week I was down with a nasty virus left behind by my adorable, much loved granddaughter that included pink eye and three days of not getting out of bed.
Last week I felt a bit better-- still not 100% -- but I was involved in other things that I will save for another time since I promised this would only be about migraines. And being sick is about migraines, of course, because if you're migraine-prone, any time you get a head cold, you get migraines. So much fun.
But the main thing I wanted to report on is the food trigger issue that I've been trying to sort out for the past several months. I already knew I had one trigger (wine), but I’ve never been able to identify any other foods/beverages that were for-sure migraine triggers.
As I told you in this post, I've been avoiding common migraine trigger foods: citrus, nuts, onions, raspberries, gluten, chocolate, most sugar, all alcohol. I already don't drink milk, but that's not migraine-related, even as a child, I never liked the taste/texture. So the only dairy products I needed to avoid were yogurt and cheese.
Honestly, I couldn't tell any difference. As a monthly average, I had the same number of migraines during the past four months that I had over the past four years (since I had covid in Nov 2020, which is when my frequency went way up). So three weeks ago, with Thanksgiving and Christmas foods everywhere abounding, I stopped worrying about it. I had a bad stretch recently, but on average, the numbers were still the same.
And do you know when that bad stretch ended? After a week and a half of eating anything and everything for Thanksgiving and some Christmas events. I am just not convinced that my migraines have anything to do with food. Even two foods that I had previously wondered about I've eaten recently with no problem (parmesan cheese, a common trigger, and masa, since I had the worst migraine of the past couple of years after eating tamales the night before).
So, probably not any food triggers for me. But I have refined my list of things that do seem to be triggers. Here you go: wine, stress, motion sickness/flying, smoke, barometric pressure changes, and any illness/allergy that gets up into my sinuses.
You know what has seemed to help over the past few weeks? Meditation, but not zen-type meditation, it's my own version of it-- which I think I will save for another time.
One more thing: the book I referred to in the first of the recent migraine posts was an entire fairly strict system that you were supposed to follow 100%. I did learn some things (as detailed in that post), but his system ultimately didn't work for me.
I've recently been reading a book that is the opposite-- it's written by a neurologist, but instead of having a strictly-defined program, he tells you everything he's ever heard of that has helped his patients, with an explanation of why it might work and a rating of how likely it is to work. It's called The End of Migraines by Alexander Mauskop, M.D. It's exactly the opposite approach, and since headaches are so highly individual, it's an approach that makes sense to me. If I learn anything especially effective, I'll report back.
I had my six-month check-in with my neurologist this past Thursday, and even though my average monthly number of headaches has been unchanged, he wants me to stay on Ajovy, a monthly injection that I've been getting since the beginning of the year. Even though it hasn't reduced my frequency, I haven't had a really bad, stay-in-bed all day migraine since I started on it. My migraine meds have me up and about again in 1-2 hours (maxalt and half a percocet, and before you freak out about me taking percocet, read this post), which is a lot better than some migraineurs have, so I am grateful for that.
That's all. Ha. I thought this was going to be a quick check-in. I am incapable of quick.
No comments:
Post a Comment