I suffer from migraines… a lot. I’ve finally made it to the point where I’m ready to call a neurologist for an intake appointment, and I’ve picked my neurologist, and I bought a book my massage practitioner recommended (she is also a “migraneur”). I read most of the book, and let’s just say it was like… it was like…
I don’t know– I guess some of my health problems I choose to ignore, because there are only so many preventive measures I can take at one time without getting overwhelmed. I have been ignoring my headaches a lot, and many other things, because I have just figured, “Oh, it’s another symptom of lupus, what can I do? I shall ignore it.” That’s been part of making peace with my immunological problems. You make peace with the worst, but keep hoping and working for the best (when you have the energy).
However, this book, by a prominent neurologist, recommends that I quit drinking coffee (and cut out all caffeine, actually, since it’s a potent migraine trigger). HOLY CRAP!!!
I need to say that again: HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!
It’s the like health section of my brain library was just toppled by an earthquake! I don’t want to have to go back in there and sort the books and shelve them all again!
However, yesterday it struck me that one of the funniest things a Seattleite could do is to quit drinking coffee, during the holidays, in the middle of winter. Now it’s so funny I have to do it.
I have quit drinking coffee twice before, so I know it can be done, it just really sucks– and I hate “quitting” things. I went through a period in my life where I put myself on a lot of dietary restrictions for imagined weight problems, so this whole “deprivation” feeling starts getting stirred up, and it just feels ugly.
However, I am 29, not 18 still, and I am a different person now, and it will be okay, and it’s not that big of a deal. (Imagine me rocking back and forth repeatedly while saying these self-soothing things.) But seriously, if it helps me with migraines… well shit, of course that’s worth it.
Unrelated side note: My galanthus (snowdrops) are sprouting out of the ground. TOO EARLY, YOU GUYS. SOMEONE IS GOING TO SET YOU UP THE SNOW AND THEN YOU WILL BE SORRY!
Migraine, 2007
6 Comments
My dad and granddad were both career commercial airline pilots. This means a doctor’s appointment every six months, where if anything goes wrong you’re on sick leave until you get it resolved. It’s pretty lame, because being “depressed” can cause you to fail a “medical”, so you can’t tell the doctor you’re depressed, and thus can’t be on any medication for it.
Plus, every doctor tends to administer medicals in their own way. For years my dad had the same doctor who waved off his high blood pressure as part of the stress of his job. When that doctor died and dad had to go to another, he immediately lost his medical and had to go on long term disability because he’ll never get it back; much to the chagrin of the airline he worked for.
Dad told me this story once of a pilot that temporarily lost his eyesight. He of course lost his medical, but no doctor’s seemed to be able to figure out what was wrong or what had happened. After many specialists, he was at another doctor who started from the top. This doctor asked him how many cups of coffee he had a day, and he admitted to a couple dozen. There was the cause, he was ordered to severely cut back his coffee intake and all related problems did not come back.
Hi Jessie. Bryan asked me to comment/help as I have suffered from migraines for over 30 years. One sided head pain, sensitive to light and smell, auras and flashing, vomiting. I often said it was like someone was stabbing a cold ice pick into my eye.
Interesting that a lot of migraine medications, particularly over the counter, contain caffeine. That said, looking at caffeine as a trigger for migraine can also be important. Detoxing from coffee might not be a bad first step. Did you have migraines when you quit coffee before?
Have your headaches been diagnosed as migraine? A neurologist can help with that if they have not been. There are other headaches that hurt like crazy that are not migraine and may be caused by medication, stress, or other health issues.
Re: migraines. For many women a key trigger is hormonal–changes in hormonal levels over the monthly cycle can kick in migraines. Birth control can also make matters worse. It’s always a good idea, regardless of whether you find a good medication, to keep a headache diary for a couple months, noting what you ate (or if you didn’t eat), what was happening (stress), overstimulation like loud noises, sleep loss, where in your cycle you are, etc. That will help with triggers, so you can begin eliminating or minimizing. Migraines are incredibly debilitating and anything you can do to ease or mitigate them is soooo helpful. It may not make the headache totally go away, but at least you won’t be throwing up or totally incapacitated for days.
There are quite a few migraine medications out there that help. Finding one that works for you may take a bit of time. That’s one reason why keying in to triggers or recognizing the early warning signs is so important. You can sometimes get the medication on board before you are in full blown migraine. Another approach is a minimum maintenance dose of betablockers (blood pressure meds). Sometimes that works.
Another thing to consider is biofeedback or meditation as a way to keep pain bearable.
Anything you can do to gain control over your migraine so it doesn’t control you is a sweet deal.
My primary cause was hormonal. Now that I am in menopause, migraines have decreased to one every two-three months that are mostly easily managed. Having had them for so many years, I am very aware of when one is coming on and can usually get some medication on board so that I just have a “normal” headache. (Whatever that is!!!)
Good luck, Jessie. I hope this helped.
Pat
i’m hypersensitive to caffeine, and as such caffeine totally triggers anxiety attacks for me. i’ve only just realized this in the last few years. i’ve slowly reduced my caffeine intake by switching from coffee to black tea. then black tea to green tea. they green tea to oolongs and other very very low caffeine teas. now it’s tea, but not every day, which seems to be manageable for me. way better than coffee every day. plus tea is awesome and really interesting if you have access to fancy teas. these days eating a chocolate bar makes my heart race and my palms sweat. so i just eat little bits of chocolate. i think i appreciate it more this way anyways. :)
Are you *serious* about the chocolate? That’s amazing.
I realized that after Quitting Smoking (For Real This Time) a couple weeks ago, I have been drinking way more coffee. There’s some set boundary condition for my vices and so they flow back and forth according to what I’m not consuming at the moment.
But really, I’ll need to cut back on the coffee again, too. It’s just not good for me…
I think we are fortunate to live where we do, because we DO have easy access to the fancy teas, which I definitely drink a lot of. They are just so tasty. Suck it, Stash!
Caffeine and theobromine are closely related naturally-occuring stimulants. They belong to a group of chemicals called methylxanthines. A single methyl (CH3-) group is different between them. A hundred grams of dark chocolate might contain about 60 mg caffeine and 500 mg of theobromine (keep in mind that this is a very substantial serving of chocolate); for comparison, a cup of brewed coffee contains no theobromine but 100 mg or so of caffeine. Keep in mind that the caffeine and theobromine content of chocolate is highly variable from brand to brand and from batch to batch.
The caffeine content of chocolate in typical serving sizes is not enough to have any major psychological effect. Theobromine is not as well studied as caffeine; it seems to have similar but much less intense stimulatory effects, lasting over a longer period of time. Administration of theobromine in pills does not have any effect on chocolate cravings, suggesting that it’s not responsible for the seemingly addictive qualities of chocolate, and some researchers believe it has little to no psychological effect at all. The possiblity exists that caffeine and theobromine together have a synergistic effect, but there is as yet no evidence to support this hypothesis. Thus, the stimulant effects of chocolate appear to be fairly weak overall.
it might be weak but it’s enough to fuck with me!
hows the quitting going? :)
Wow, I had no idea theobromine was that interesting. Actually, I’m finishing the third book in a YA fantasy trilogy in which theobromine plays a prominent role… (Unfortunately, the first book, Poison Study, is the only good one in my opinion.)
The quitting is extremely hard, but it’s still going. It’s been almost two weeks! My brain is putting up one hell of a fight. In fact, it’s fighting so hard that it’s kind of weakening its own efforts, since I become so shocked by its efforts that I start thinking about brains instead of cigarettes.
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