Exercise induced migraines are a struggle for many of us, yet we are all told to exercise to prevent migraine attacks. Itâs a little confusing right? As someone who has lived with vestibular migraine for over 4 years and had 24/7 dizziness along with feeling like I was walking in a bounce house all day, this was an extremely frustrating part of migraine treatment. How on earth can I move when I feel so terrible? My Personal Journey This was a question I had for a while as I searched for a new exercise plan after I lost my job to migraine. I usually just stayed at home but I…
-
- Alternative Therapies, Anxiety, Chronic Migraine, Episodic Migraine, Migraine, Mindfulness, The Treatment Pie, Vestibular Migraine
Managing Stress and Migraine Attacks During COVID-19
What a difficult few weeks it has been. Itâs hard enough to manage migraine disease during normal life, but adding in quarantines, worrying about the health of family and friends, and having to disinfect every little thing that comes into our house is just so incredibly difficult. For me, staying at home isnât much of a change. I work from home and most of my job is already done online or in the kitchen. But even I am getting restless not being able to see my friends and especially my mom and dad. Overall I hadnât had many challenges adjusting, except for having to cut back massively on my grocery…
-
The Benefits of Therapy for Migraine
I used to be one of those people who thought therapy was only for people who had gone through something really traumatic. Something from their past, maybe a death in the family, but not just for a ânormal personâ like myselfâŚwhatever that means. Now I realize what an important tool it is for everyday life, especially when managing a chronic illness like migraine. For many of us, our worlds are turned upside down by terrifying symptoms like vertigo just appearing out of nowhere one day. For others, weâve been beaten down by years of dealing with pain, canceled plans, and special accommodations for our diet, travel arrangements, and workplace that…
-
5 Reasons Your Migraine Diet Isn’t Working
One message that I receive fairly often on The Dizzy Cook goes something like this – Hello, Iâve been on the Heal Your Headache diet about 2 weeks and Iâm not feeling better. Why is my migraine diet not working? If anything, I feel worse. Should I stop? Can you help?! It seems crazy to me that anyone would expect huge changes just two weeks in, but I forget that I used to be one of them. I was about a month or two into the Heal Your Headache diet when I felt frustrated with it as I wasnât really seeing any noticeable relief. It was difficult to always have…
-
Overcoming Chronic Migraine – My 18 Year Battle
I have been encouraged to look back at my chronic migraine journey and to share my experiences to hopefully help others that are on a similar path. This is a rather painful exercise. Not because of where I am now, or even where I have traveled. I think I look back on the 18 years of chronic and mostly intractable migraine and think how different my life might have been without it. Migraine As A Thief When I went back to school, would I have been able to finish becoming a Physician Assistant, as planned? How much more involved could I have been with my kids’ activities? And donât even…
-
How to Recognize Migraine Baseline and Reintroduce Foods After an Elimination Diet
The migraine brain is said to be hyper responsive to its surrounding environment. We respond with migraine attacks to things that people without migraine wouldnât react to at all. The Bucket Theory was developed as a way to explain how difficult to control triggers (like hormones, stress and weather) fill up a portion of our bucket each day. While these triggers are hard to manage, the ones that we have some control over are the ones that we eat and drink each day. ** While Migraine Strong writes about the latest in migraine treatments, this is not medical advice. We are patient educators and all information you read should be…
-
Migraine Glasses – A Review of Indoor and Outdoor TheraSpecs
Alicia’s migraine glasses review When I first experienced the horrible symptoms of chronic vestibular migraine I worked at a giant corporate office with an open floor plan – my worst nightmare. As my light sensitivity and ataxia got worse, I was grasping at any treatment I could to still be able to function at work. Itâs a terrifying thing to be faced with expiring FMLA and still have ongoing symptoms. I found myself wearing sunglasses almost everywhere, just to get some relief. Thatâs when my neurologist recommended I try FL-41 glasses. Who knew that migraine glasses could help so much. Both lenses were provided to us for free by TheraSpecs in…
-
Sleep: The Often Overlooked & Underrated Migraine Treatment
The relationship between sleep and migraine is a complicated one. Too little sleep and also too much sleep can provoke symptoms. There are times when a migraine attack can happen while weâre sleeping causing us to wake up symptomatic. Yet other times, sleep can help us kick out an attack. This means sleep can be both a trigger AND a treatment. According to The American Migraine Foundation people living with migraine are up to eight times more likely to have sleep problems than the general population making poor sleep a real risk factor. If we want to feel good and stay free of painful attacks, restful sleep is critically important.…
-
My Top 12 Takeaways from the 2019 Migraine World Summit
Iâve been tuning in to the Migraine World Summit since I first heard about it, shortly after I got sick in 2016. I couldnât wait for the summit to drop in 2017 and decided to purchase it, along with 2016âs summit, so that I could catch up on everything I missed. Half of the proceeds go to migraine research and migraine groups that work to move education and awareness forward. Isn’t that awesome? In addition, learning everything I can about vestibular migraine helps me gain better control over my symptoms. The summit always leaves me feeling more empowered and hopeful. If you’re interested in purchasing the summit you can do…
-
Drowning in Symptoms: How I Overcame Chronic Vestibular Migraine
The Night That Changed My Life One perfectly normal night in April 2016 I went to bed feeling healthy. I turned over in my sleep in the middle of the night and felt hard, room spinning vertigo. I was instantly nauseous and vomited for the next few hours but, by late morning the next day, I felt mostly recovered. As long as I was upright I felt normal, but if I laid back I felt hard room spinning vertigo again. I had what seemed like textbook Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). BPPV happens when calcium carbonate crystals located deep in the inner ear get knocked out of position. These crystals…
