Migraines

For me, several things can cause migraines.

1. Overly strenuous exercise
2. Sudden, acute stress
3. Lack of sleep
4. Immune system response to anything (cold virus going around, etc.)
5. An unknown chemical (possibly Roundup) in non-organic food, especially grains

I do fine with moderate exercise (unless I already have a migraine). So I can do a slow jog, or go hiking as long as I don’t go too fast uphill. Sudden, acute stress can cause a migraine the same as strenuous exercise, if my heart is pounding (for example, being in a fender bender.)

Low level, chronic stress can cause insomnia, and lack of sleep definitely causes migraines.  Also, when my immune system reacts to any kind of threat, such as fighting off a cold virus or reacting to an irritant of any sort, I get inflammation around my head, neck, and face, which pinches a set of nerves, which triggers a migraine.

Traveling and having “too much going on” can interfere with my sleep (we just don’t get to bed on time).  Also it’s hard to stick to my diet when traveling or when a lot is going on. I find that it’s fairly easy to eat strictly organic foods when I’m home alone. It gets challenging when we’re out running errands, or having fun on the weekend, and want to stop at a restaurant. Also, when John’s home on the weekends he eats a variety of foods that I shouldn’t be eating, and I end up being less strict with myself.

Both John and I tend to eat healthier when we’re on our own (such as during the work week), and less healthy when hanging out together (weekends and vacations). We collude together and are bad influences on each other! I guess that’s because eating is an important social bonding activity for humans.

My guess is that the chemical I’m sensitive to is glyphosate (Roundup). The use of Roundup has skyrocketed over the past several years since they’ve developed “Roundup ready” crops. These strains of wheat and other grains have been bioengineered to withstand Roundup. They now can use Roundup not only for weed control, but also for hardening off the grain immediately before harvest. Roundup has a drying and ripening effect on Roundup-ready wheat, that is useful prior to harvesting.

This would potentially explain why a gluten-free diet seemed to help somewhat, because by avoiding wheat, I was limiting my exposure to Roundup. The organic diet is not a cure for me, but it is more effective than a gluten-free diet.

I’ve been having migraines off and on for 11 days now.  By “off and on” I’m referring to the fact that my migraine cycle lasts about 48 hours, and the pain stage is for only part of each cycle. So I’ve been dealing with a variety of migraine symptoms for 11 continual days, but not in constant pain. The pain has been about every-other day.

Luckily, during this particular round of migraines, the pain has been fairly well controlled with my medication. Usually the meds work fairly well for me.  Although occasionally the medication fails to work, and that’s truly awful. The last time that happened was in mid-April, when we were on our way home from a trip to California. When the medicine isn’t working, it’s extremely painful and stressful and I can’t think straight and just need it to stop. Luckily that doesn’t happen very often. But I understand why people used to bore holes in their heads without any kind of anesthesia. You’ll do anything to make it stop.

But usually most of the symptoms are not debilitating for me. One funny symptom I get is a huge variation in my sense of smell. Many people assume that because I have migraines I would be sensitive to bright sunlight, but that’s not an issue for me. My vision is occasionally impacted, and I do sometimes get the classic migraine “aura”. This is a visual disturbance that for me, looks like a wiggling line of diamonds in front of my vision.  But more commonly, it is my sense of smell that is dramatically impacted.

During one phase of the migraine, I have a very acute sense of smell. It’s not simply that smells are bothering me or annoying me – I genuinely develop an ability to detect minor smells that I would normally never be able to detect. It becomes my superpower! The whole word has lots of different smells all at once – it makes me feel like I’m one of my dogs.

Then in a different stage of my migraines, I completely lose my sense of smell. I can’t even smell my dog with the stinky breath, when he puts his face right in my face. I can’t smell fish or stinky cheese. It’s almost like a form of blindness.

It’s interesting to notice how lack of sense of smell will impact appetite. I’ve read that older people can experience a decrease in appetite when their sense of smell diminishes. Of course, the nausea that’s common in migraines also impacts my appetite.

In addition to being careful with my sleep, diet, and a structured lifestyle, I’ve also taught myself how to move a set of muscles under my nose (this would be a lot like teaching yourself to wiggle your ears). I find that if I regularly move those muscles up and out (like a lifting of the roof of my mouth, and a spreading under my nose) it can relieve some of the nerve pressure from inflammation. The problem is, I can only do it for several seconds at a time, because it takes a lot of concentration. The moment I stop actively doing it, the muscles settle back into their normal configuration. This is similar to trying to keep your fist clenched – it’s not hard, but the moment you stop concentrating, your hand automatically unclenches.

When I first started learning to move these face muscles in this particular way, I thought it was a form of relaxation, which would suggest that I could learn to keep them relaxed over a period of time. Unfortunately, as I gained a greater understanding of what I was actually doing, I realized I wasn’t relaxing muscles, I was moving them in a particular direction, out of their natural resting place. So I now realize that it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to train myself to put the muscles in that configuration for any sustained period of time.

My current migraine cycle, for these last several days, has been due to low-level stress due to remodeling and buying rentals, which has been disrupting my sleep. Also my diet has been poor, particularly over Memorial Day weekend when John had 4 days off. We had a good weekend, but we did a variety of things that aren’t part of my usual routine.

After many days of taking prescription migraine medication every-other day, I’m in danger of developing “rebound”, which is a vicious cycle where withdrawal of the medication can actually start a migraine (similar to caffeine withdrawal causing a headache.) So usually when it’s been this long, I decide to “cold-turkey” and tough it out with just aspirin. Obviously, that is miserable and I’m reluctant to do it. But I’m going to have to, if I don’t get better in the next day or so.