Friday night I had another migraine. It endured for about 10 hours, which was about normal for them. I don’t have them often, but I’m starting to figure out under what conditions they occur.
What they’re like
Usually I can tell it’s starting at about mid-day. It’s a small pain in the back of the skull and right behind the eyes. I can continue to work until about 3-4pm before I have to head home. I try to sleep it off and can usually have a small nap. Sometimes if I manage a longer nap I can cut off the migraine. When I wake up I’m really hungry and have no problem eating and am fine the rest of the evening.
If the nap doesn’t work, I’m in for a horrible evening. The pain in the back of the skull is bad, but the pain behind the eyes is monumental. I get sensitive to light and sound. It becomes like a storm in my brain. I have thoughts really fast and really scattered, and my brain is constantly trying to think in sentences but can never finish them before moving on to the next sentence. It’s almost like my brain goes from a steady candle to a raging wildfire.
I can’t eat or drink during the migraine, either. I typically try to force a few nilla wafers down and some Gatorade, but that’s only so that I have something to come out during the inevitable oral evacuation.
I typically squirm in bed, trying unsuccessfully to get to sleep, uncomfortable with light and sound, and incapable of doing anything else. Somehow, finally, sleep comes. when I wake up, the head no longer hurts, and I’m starving and eat a late dinner.
What triggers them
I’m pretty sure that what triggers them is a combination of high stress, high brain activity, and little or no food. The hard part about identifying the triggers is that I think they’re preordained the day before.
I already eat dangerously little. Usually skipping breakfast and lunch, I often survive off whatever food is put out for free in the public kitchen at work. When I get home I make a dinner and try to make enough so that I can have leftovers for lunch the next day. So I bring a lunch about 2-3 days a week. This is fine for the normal work day because my intake matches how much I burn. I usually keep poptarts, fruit snacks, and beef jerky in my office for when I need to eat. But on days where I’m really busy, giving lots of demos, going to meetings, doing a lot of work, and spending 10 or more hours at work, I’m burning energy a lot faster, and I don’t have an opportunity to get more food because I’m so busy. The same thing happens when I’m on travel. I will be in unfamiliar places with unusual schedules and doing more than normal. That means I’ll be burning more and consuming less, which will trigger.
When I was in college I would get them regularly once a week on either Sunday or Monday. That was about when it started. Same symptoms, same triggers. I didn’t have as many my Junior and Senior years, but they started up regularly again during my first year in Richland when I was eating much less and working 10-12 hour days every day.
Attempted remedies
You’d think knowing about these triggers would encourage me to eat more. I really have no excuse. I like to cook. I like to eat. I just like to do other things more. And when I’m busy doing stuff I just don’t think about eating. During the migraines eating doesn’t help. Once the pain starts at mid-day, it’s too late to cut it off by eating, and throughout the rest of the migraine the food doesn’t stay down if I try.
I’ve tried the standard pills, like Ibuprofen, Aspirin, and Alleve, but they do nothing at all.
I’ve tried putting myself to sleep. I usually watch an episode of the Simpsons every night to fall asleep, so I tried to use a Pavlovian response and play a Simpsons episode, but that got me nowhere. Being in my bed in a dark and quiet room didn’t help, either. It’s really hard to get to sleep.
I’ve tried just thinking through it and concentrating on the pain and getting it out. Admittedly not a really scientific method, but I had time and no other ideas, so I tried that. Needless to say, that didn’t work, either.
Since my brain is usually running really fast, I tried to do something that would slow my brain down; something engaging and mind-numbing. Movies actually do fairly well as a remedy. Despite the sensitivity to light and sound, I can often watch a movie, though often I just listen without watching. The movie allows me to stop thinking and not focus so much on the pain. Sometimes it even helps me fall asleep as well, which is ultimately the only thing that cures the migraine.
Conclusion
I’m definitely not a fan of the migraines. They cut my day short, take me out for the whole evening, and hurt a lot. That I don’t have an instant remedy bugs me a little, and it would be nice if I could recognize a symptom and avoid the migraine instead of seeing a symptom after it’s already too late. I hope it gets better in the future, too. Maybe I’ll grow out of them. Maybe they’ll get worse or more frequent. Maybe I’ll figure out how to avoid them completely.