About 30 million people search for migraine help in the US alone, about three quarters of them are women.
Migraine (also mistakenly called migrain) is a type of severe or sometimes even disabling headache. Migrain can torture for hours or sometimes even days, accompanied by nausea or vomiting and painful sensitivity to light and sound. However, migraine symptoms may vary, every person who need migraine help experiences migraine in her or his own way. But the devastating headache which seems endless and which you want to remove at any cost is what they all have in common.
Why I started Migraine Help Blog
I want to share my own migrain experience and all the migraine information I dispose of with other migraine sufferers. In fact, my blog is a little bit outdated because I started it when migraine was a part of my life. I don’t need mingaine help any longer: I swept migraine out of my life!
Why You Can Read At Migraine Help Blog
- what I felt when I had migrain and how I coped with it
- the methods and meds that helped me for different migraine conditions
- places where I ordered migrain meds that relieve pain or prevent severe attacks
- how I got rid of migraine!
Hopefully, my migrain help blog helps other people forget about migraine and and improve the quality of their lives. Feel free to share and discuss your migrain experiences here, they are so precious for other migrain sufferers! But remember: Migraine is different from other headache types and sometimes difficult to diagnose. It is critically important to to diagnose migraine correctly.
Is It Migraine or What?
In fact, many people don’t even know that the condition (headache) they suffer from is migrain and what kind of help they need. My mother told me about the strange symptoms she experienced many years ago, the ones known as the typical signs of classic migrain with aura. Thank God she had it only in her teens and twenties and now it’s gone. I’m certain that was migrain and she was surprised because this idea occurred to her. I began to have migraines in my twenties, at that time I didn’t even know that what I considered ordinary headaches was migraine. It’s been only about 4 years that I was able to diagnose migraine myself, I owe this to the Internet. I asked my doctor and he confirmed the diagnosis: migrain. What I know for sure now is that migraines can the managed, treated and cured. I learned how to manage migrain I started to enjoy life again. Now I want to tell you about migraine help techniques that worked for me.
As a long-time migraineur, I can say that there are certain migraine relief techniques every migrain sufferer should be aware of and rules that should be followed, even though often migrain relief seems hard or impossible to find. My migrane relief tips won’t cure migraine (there is no cure for it, unfortunately), but they will help you endure migraine attacks easier and improve the quality of your life.
First of all, remember the following, it is CRITICALLY important:
- Always have an effective pain-relieving medication at hand (at home, in your handbag). I also have to say that none of “natural proven” remedies worked for me as migrain relief remedies . Maxalt (I buy it as Rizatriptan, it is cheaper) is the only drug that actually relieves pain and removes nausea, sensitivity to light and sound.
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Always buy migraine relief medications in advance, better online. When migraine attack sets in and your head is about to explode, you won’t enjoy a walk to the drugstore and buying Rizatriptan at double price.
You don’t want to miss important events or days that could be the best part of your life because of another migraine attack!
Migraine Relief Techniques
1. Be on the alert and act immediately.
When you notice the signs of the oncoming migraine, act immediately. Immediate reaction can reduce severity and duration of a migraine attack. Don’t try to give a dare to migraine, don’t take any long trips or go to parties. You will most probably regret doing so.
2. Don’t do anything that makes you feel worse
Listen to your body, take notice of things that make you feel worse and avoid them at any cost. Compile a list if you can’t remember.
3. Stop what you are doing and rest.
You want lie down and rest. Don’t try to do you housework or anything. Any kind of activity will only make you feel worse.
4. Find a dark and quiet place.
Find a cool place without noise. Cover your eyes if it is not dark enough. Avoid smells, no perfume. Light, sound and smell irritate your senses and intensify pain.
5. Take pain relieving medication.
You can use some over-the-counter remedies if they help relieve migraine pain. None of them worked for me so I use Rizatriptan (sold under the brand name Maxalt).
6. Cool your head.
Putting ice on your head or around the eyes can relieve pain because cold helps constrict vessels which are dilated during a migraine attack (that’s the main difference between the migrain and ordinary headache when vessels are tightened).
7. Stop Thinking
All your thoughts or inside dialogues are actually a noise that can intensify the pain. Stop thinking, literally, and relax.
8. Sleep your migraine off
If I manage to fall asleep I wake up feeling much better. But falling asleep is really hard. All the steps listed above usually help me to fall asleep.
I hope now migrain relief doesn’t seem so hard to find for you!
Strange it may sound…But I found that sometimes my favorite music relieves or even even aborts migraine attacks. It works with headphones only and only with certain bands and even certain songs. I can’t say for sure why that works. Maybe because the music is associated with great pleasure and not headache. And doctors all over the world say that the exact mechamism of migraine is still unknown so maybe there is something behind it.
However, this remedy works only with light or moderate attacks. With severe ones only pills help because literally every sound is dreadfully painful. I don’t think that will work for anyone and for many or even most people will probably worsen the attack. You may try if you want – put on headphones, turn on your favorite music and relax or find something pleasant or interesting to do to. But remember to have a painkiller or other migraine
pills that generally work for you at hand. You may need them.
I had my first menstrual migraine attack a month after going off birth control pills. In fact, I gave up birth control pills because migraine is one of the possible side effects and it tended to occur more and more often. I think I had migrain 3 or 4 days every second week or even every week. And, really, I forgot about migraines for the entire month, which was heaven for me! But the day the period began I experienced a real menstrual migrain, the one without aura.
Causes of Menstrual Migrain
Menstrual migraines are generally linked to hormone levels changes (estrogen). By the way, when you stop taking birth control pills, estrogen levels change so that may trigger menstrual migrane as well. In perimenstrual period estrogen levels are low, which is considered to be the cause of menstrual migrains.
However, doctors say that menstrual migraine mechanism is not yet properly studied and nobody knows for sure what triggers the attack. But changes in estrogen levels result in change in levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter. Low levels of serotonin a linked to bad mood and depression (remember perimenstrual mood changes?). Low levels of serotonin the have also been linked to menstrual migranes for some time.
Diagnosing Menstrual Migraine
A true menstrual migraine attack occurs during your periods, within 5 day span (from 2 day prior to 3 day after the beginning of the period). It has all the symptoms of the migraine without aura: nausea, sensitivity to light and sound etc. The headache can the quite strong. Keeping a migraine diary to mark down the regularity of attacks during the period is a good idea. If migrain occurs at different times over your period or you have the aura, that is not necessarily true menstrual migrane that occurs when the periods begin.
The good news about menstrual migraine is that you know for sure when to expect the attack. The bad news about menstrual migrains is that it is harder to treat becuase of the trigger and ways to remove it are still under question.
Triptan drugs (Rizatriptan, Maxalt) seem to be one of the most effective ways to abort menstrual migrane so far.
It occurred about a couple of weeks ago, this migraine attack was the one with aura (I have such migraines once is a few months).
I woke up and realized that something was wrong…diziness, stage vision and a strange feeling of being “not myself”. I realized what it was all about and by the time I had aura I had sweet coffee and an antispasmodic ready. I took it all very quickly, put a dark sweater around my head, closed my eyes and set down into the chair. Aura implies severe pain so sitting is better than lying in this case (at least for me). Several minutes later the pain began, but it was not as severe as I usually . Probably in an hour, when I realized that the pain wouldn’t grow, I took a hot shower and felt better. Slight pain persisted until evening, but it was nothing compared to the ususal migraine condition. I know coffee is not recommended, but it helps me best. Migraines are very personal…
However, I always have anti-migraine meds that abort migraine attack because it may start during the sleep and you wake up with headache or migraine may start somewhere where you cannot prevent headache. In addiction, aura is not always “available” to warn you about the coming torture…Anti-migraine tablets the only way out for me when the pain begins.
