Migraines

Ok. I get migraines. I've been getting them since I was about 13. And they got a lot worse after encephalitis at 23.

Then last year after practising meditation every evening, they eased. I finally came off the medication I've been on since I was about 15. And although I still got migraines, they were manageable.

Stress, however is a trigger. As is not getting enough sleep, red red wine, driving in sunlight, sunlight generally, the cinema, too much screen-work, not eating enough, and having to endure crap artificial lights.

I'm lucky in that I mostly work from home. So my lights are all natural. I can shift rooms anytime the sun is too bright. And when I feel like I'm getting a migraine, I can nip off and do some meditation, or the way more weird and intimidating Neuro-programmer brainwave programme I bought a while back (it works. It weirds me out that it works as effectively as it does, and I'm a bit scared of it, so I haven't blogged about it before).

But there are lots of places where I can't just nip off and meditate or lie-down to tune into migraine relief mp3. And during those times, I get a migraine.

On tuesday I got a migraine from attending an all-day workshop on my business programme. The lights weren't too bad. I'd brought food with me. But I simply got exhausted by the drive down and up, and having to focus on other people for the entire day. I tried aspirin. No luck. Went to zomig...but migraine drug of choice.

And it worked. But yesterday the headache came back. I meditated. I managed the pain. I drank lots of water and I relaxed instead of working into the night. But still woke with a full-blown migraine this morning. And today has been a dead loss for me. No work done. Nothing other than mostly lying down and wishing there was someone there to make me hot chicken soup with a buttered crusty roll on the side.

I hate migraines. I hate medication. I hate the loss of a day. But the thing I hate most is when I have a migraine, I make lists of all the things I'm going to give up (lovely blue cheese, red red wine, milk, cream, velvety dark chocolate, whiskey, brie etc) and I make lists of all the things I'm going to start doing (alternative remedies (feverfew, magnesium, coenzyme q10, yoga).

But when the pain, numbness, and tingling ends, and I can think and speak clearly again, I don't do these things. Ever. Would they make a difference?