It has been so exciting to witness the release of the new CGRP migraine treatments to treat and prevent migraine pain in the recent years. These are the first migraine specific acute medications to come out in decades since the Triptans. They are also the first preventive medications to ever develop specifically for migraine! If you have chronic migraine, CGRP migraine treatment may help prevent migraine attacks and/or make them less severe.
Migraine and Constipation – Approved Advice About What To Do
Constipation and I go way back. We have been lifelong companions though not friends. I can confidently say that after decades, I now have the upper-hand and rarely fall into the “strained” relationship. OK, pardon the pun. As a registered dietitian, I am sure that my professional and personal experience can help you with migraine and constipation.
Prednisone for Migraine Explained – 5 Questions & Answers You Need to Know.
A steroid taper is commonly prescribed by headache specialists in certain circumstances to break a prolonged migraine cycle. Are you wondering if a course of prednisone for migraine is something you should ask your doctor about? This is written from the patient and patient-advocate perspective and is not medical advice. The goal is to help inform you so that you may work with your doctors. Specific questions about medications and whether they are right for you can only be addressed by your doctors. 1. What is Prednisone? Prednisone is a medication in a group of drugs called corticosteroids or steroids, for short. Prescribed steroids are man-made medications that are similar…
Migraine Preventive Medications: Comprehensive Guide
While over 1 billion people world wide have migraine, only a small percentage of them use migraine preventive medications to control their migraine attacks. A migraine preventive medication is considered and offered when people with migraine meet certain criteria: Four or more attacks per month or eight head pain days – Can include severe throbbing pain or a pulsing sensation, usually on one side of the head. It is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound. Migraine attacks typically last for 4-72 hours, and the pain can be so severe that it interferes with daily activities. Vestibular migraine attacks might not have head pain, but will include…
What No One Tells You about Migraines and Menopause (and Perimenopause Too)
I have always been a headachy person. Fortunately, migraine didn’t interfere with my life in a debilitating way until my 40s. Perimenopause was the culprit. Having gone through perimenopause with migraine does not make me an expert. It’s one of my areas of interest as a patient and patient advocate. I have poured over the literature on migraine and migraines as well as watched in-depth interviews of 4 well-recognized experts in this area that were interviewed during the five Migraine World Summit broadcasts. Their intention was to help during a difficult, undiscussed time and that is my intention, too. My Story I hit the big menopause milestone 6 years ago. …
Migraine Cocktail: A Comprehensive Guide
According to the Migraine Research Foundation (MRF), migraine affects one billion people across the globe, 39 million in the United States alone, and it’s the 6th most disabling illness in the world. Finding an effective migraine cocktail is one of the single most important things that anyone with migraine can hope to find. Everyday we have conversations about acute medications in the Migraine Strong Facebook group. Which ones work best, what can be combined together and just how many triptans are there on the market? I hope having all of this information in one place will be helpful for anyone treating migraine or trying to put together an effective migraine…
What to do for Migraine Headaches – Migraine World Summit 2020
It’s a simple and powerful mission statement: To reduce the global burden of migraine. Since 2016, the Migraine World Summit (MWS or Summit) has brought together dozens of leading migraine experts, doctors and specialists from around the world. They are interviewed to help answer the most difficult questions for those with migraine in desperate need of relief. We all want to know what to do for migraine headaches. What is the latest? What might we have missed? What’s next for us so we can get better? As I sit here at my desk writing this, I am truly struggling. We are in the middle of a pandemic. Like you, all my plans and intentions have been…
- Charleston, Diet, Episodic Migraine, Heal Your Headache, Medication, Migraine, Rebound, Sleep, Supplements, The Bucket Theory
Minimizing Migraine Attacks: What I wish I knew…
There is so much I wish I knew about minimizing migraine when my frequency of attacks was ramping up a few years ago. I would have avoided chonifying and been so much healthier had this blog site been available to me just a few years ago. I know you don’t feel lucky to ONLY have episodic migraine, but count your lucky stars that you haven’t “chronified.” Social media, has changed the way people educate and help themselves today. You have so many more resources to help you get better. I assume you have episodic migraine that is worsening and you are here trying to figure out what to do to…
4 Steps To Tackle Migraine Headaches
For as long as I could remember, I considered myself a headachy person. At some point the headaches progressed to migraine. Fortunately, for most of my life I had infrequent episodic migraine (EM). An attack would start, I’d treat it with ibuprofen and I was better in an hour. I sought treatment when I began losing a few days per month to terrible attacks that didn’t respond to over-the-counter (OTC) remedies. Over time, my frequency of attacks increased and I “chronified” while under the care of my well-intentioned primary care physicians. Differences Between Chronic and Episodic Migraine I was diagnosed with chronic migraine after seeking help from a headache specialist. …
How to Manage Light and Sound Sensitivity with Migraine
Light and sound sensitivity with migraine have plagued me for years and I have had to learn to manage both conditions during attacks and in between. This is not an uncommon problem to have. While approximately 85% of people with migraine report sensitivity to light during an attack and about 80% sensitivity to sound (Harriet & Schedt, 2014), almost the same percentages report the same sensitivities in between attacks. The migraine population is coping with migraine symptoms, sometimes on a daily basis. Managing At Home To manage light and sound sensitivity during a migraine attack at home is fairly straightforward. I will typically take my migraine cocktail. A triptan would…
