allaboutmigraine.com

Migraines – for those who suffer from it, is a recurring, unrelenting and painful occurrence that they have to deal with. With medical science not able to completely cure it, migraine sufferers feel that they have to live with it.

For those who are unaware about migraine, here are some facts- Migraine is a condition that affects about 16-17% of the population. It is three times more common in women than men. Mostly characterized by one sided headaches, migraines can cause excruciating pain in the temples followed by nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound. There can also be flashes of light or blind spots. Migraine pain once started can last from 2 hours to days.

Migraine triggers differ from person to person. Some of the triggers are light, food, stress, sounds and weather. Once a migraine attack starts there are very few ways to stop it. So preventing migraine attacks is a better approach than relieving the symptoms when they occur.

Here are some of the ways to manage migraine:

Like the number of triggers, even ways to manage differ from person to person. You can try different methods and adopt something that suits you best. Consult your doctor before trying any new method or technique.

Environment: Many of the migraine triggers are light and sound, so you have to make sure that you try to keep away from places with harsh lights and too much noise. If you cannot avoid these places completely, at least keep your room dark, quiet and cool which will relax you.

Exercise: All doctors agree that exercise helps to relieve some of the symptoms of migraine. Exercise helps to keep away stress, fights depression and releases endorphins that make you feel happy.

Supplements: Magnesium is known as a muscle relaxant easing pain. Sometimes, deficiency of magnesium can cause migraines and taking supplements for these are known to help with migraine pains. Vitamin B2 or Riboflavin also has a similar action and helps with migraine pains. Ask your doctor before you start any supplements.

Eating habits: Migraine attacks can occur when you are hungry for a long period of time. So be consistent with your meals, eat them at the same time. Also never skip breakfast; this will prevent many attacks that are triggered with hunger. With food being the trigger to many, identify your food trigger and make sure that you keep away from it. It is recommended to keep away from sugar, caffeine, cheese, chocolates, citrus foods which are common triggers.

Avoid the Sun: For those sensitive to sun, going out in the sun can cause piercing headaches. So whenever you are going out in the sun, carry umbrella or hats. Use sunglasses that protects from UVA rays.

Stress: Stress is a very important trigger for migraine so you have to be effective in dealing with stress. Having a relaxed, positive and an upbeat attitude really helps in managing migraine.

Ginger: For people with frontal headaches, ginger helps to relieve the pain quite fast. Many people have experienced that taking half a teaspoon of freshly ground ginger can stop migraines before it starts. Even vomiting and nausea are greatly assisted using ginger. Remember that it only works with 2 out of 3 of people and causes discomfort of the abdomen in others.

Sleep: For those with migraine, everything has to be kept in balance including sleep. You need to be consistent with your sleep time and should avoid staying up late.

Keep a Migraine diary: Here you note the time of the attack, what were the possible triggers and the intensity of the attack. Reading the notes will help you in identifying the pattern and will help you to manage migraine better.

When you have a migraine attack:

* Damp cloth: Using a damp cloth over your face and your neck will ease any sore muscles and relieve the symptoms.

* Pressure on the nerves: Sometimes putting pressure on the nerve which hurts the most helps to relieve the pain.

* Between the eye socket and the eyebrow: First, find the nerve between your top eye socket and your eyebrow. Pressing this nerve will make your body send out natural pain relievers. Surprisingly, this pain reliever is more powerful than the morphine drug.

Alternative therapies:

For a disease like migraine, you should not depend on just one line of treatment to relieve the pain. Alternative therapies mentioned below are known to be very useful for some.

Ayurveda: According to Ayurveda, migraine results from disorders of the three doshas that is Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Ways of treatment include, shirodhara or hot head massage, medications like Shatavari, brahmi and exercises like Yoga and Pranayam. Since migraine is due to imbalance of the doshas, certain changes in the diet are recommended.

Naturopathy: According to naturopathy, it is the toxins in the body that cause migraines. Dr. Sharad Nayampally, a naturopath believes that “detoxification of the body is very important in treating migraines.” He describes one way of detoxification, “water therapy, here you should drink water 1-4 glasses of water as soon as you wake up without even brushing. Water balances the blood pressure and cleanses the body. After half an hour of drinking water you can brush and resume your morning ritual.” He also recommends Pranayam and abdominal breathing i.e. deep breathing through the stomach.

Acupressure: When allopathic drugs don’t always work, acupressure and acupuncture are known to be effective in dealing with migraine attacks. In acupressure certain points in the body are stimulated to help relieve the pain while acupuncture involves needles stimulating some points in the body to relax the nerves.

Don’t believe that you have live with the pain, try different techniques, use tools like meditation, do light exercises and help yourself manage migraines.

While many people suffer from traditional migraine headaches, it is not uncommon for others to suffer from a different type of migraine. Traditional migraines are characterized by sensitivity to light, sensitivity to sound, powerful head pains and nausea. Another type of migraine is harder to diagnose because the symptoms characteristic of a traditional migraine are either not present or less severe. Ocular migraines are becoming more common in today’s society. These types of migraines are associated with vision and the eye more so than the brain.

Ocular migraines often start with a small blind spot in the peripheral vision. Over five to ten minutes, the spot gradually increases to encompass the entire peripheral portion of vision. Either complete blindness or object fuzziness often results. Other ocular migraine sufferers report a jagged shimmering light in their peripheral vision that grows and eventually overtakes much of the eye. It is often difficult to focus on objects. Reading in particular is very difficult since letters in words have to be viewed almost individually in order to be read. The individual might also become disoriented since they are now primarily seeing out of one eye instead of two. A dull, throbbing headache normally accompanies an ocular migraine. The blind spot or fuzziness will normally disappear with twenty to thirty minutes, leaving the individual fatigued. The individual might also still have some problems reading and focusing on particular objects since their eyes are adjusting again. Individuals normally do not have any sort of light or sound sensitivity, though it is not uncommon for ocular migraine sufferers to be nauseous due to either the temporary blindness or the panic of not knowing exactly what is happening.

Many scientists speculate that the causes of ocular migraines are similar to those of traditional migraines. A change in blood supply is often associated with traditional migraines and it is thought that the area impacted by the blood supply change is the only difference between the types of migraines. Traditional migraines are normally generated from the surface area of the brain. Ocular migraines are generated when the blood supply is reduced to the vision center of the brain. Much like traditional migraines, it is thought that certain “triggers” exist for ocular migraines. These include chocolate, stress or anxiety, lack of sleep, travel and artificial sweeteners. Limiting as many triggers as possible should help reduce the occurrence of ocular migraines. It has also been theorized that seasonal allergies could contribute to ocular migraines since the atmospheric changes would be similar to those of someone traveling cross-country via airplane.

At the onset of an ocular migraine, it is important to not panic. It can be disturbing to go slowly blind in one eye over fifteen minutes, but it is important to remain calm. Finding a quiet, dark area to rest in for thirty minutes is an excellent way to counteract the disabling effects of an ocular migraine. Being able to sit in the dark with eyes closed helps to limit some of the nausea and inability to focus on objects. Normal headache treatments such as aspirin or Tylenol can be used, but these are more effective in dealing with the headache following the visual disturbance than the actual visual impairment. By the time the medicine works, the visual impact has ended. Some ocular migraine sufferers report taking a short nap helps reduce the fatigued feeling following the visual disturbance and also reduce the impact of the headache.

If you have experienced visual impairment problems in the recent past, it is a good idea to visit your doctor to make sure these problems are being caused by ocular migraines and not by strokes or problems with the eye itself. It’s also a good idea to log what foods were eaten recently and what activities were taking place when the ocular migraine occurred. This can help identify triggers and prevent ocular migraines from happening as frequently. This is the first step in being free from ocular migraines. Since there is currently no cure for ocular migraines, it is better to reduce their frequency than try to treat the symptoms each time they occur.

Ocular migraines can be scary, but knowing the symptoms and treatments will help reduce the impact they have on your daily life.

Doctor Brandes shared some tips she offers her patients for handling Migraine in the workplace:
1. Understand that Migraine is a real disease – not just a bad headache. Migraine sufferers sometimes tend to minimize their Migraines as “just headaches,” not a disease with a range of symptoms that are as debilitating as the pain itself. Migraine is a real medical condition just like diabetes or asthma. Understanding this will better enable you to manage your Migraines and seek effective treatment.

2. Be your best advocate. Talk to a doctor about your Migraines and how best to manage them. There are many effective new treatments specifically for Migraine. The newest class of these are called “triptans.” They relieve Migraine pain quickly and also relieve the other symptoms of Migraine such as nausea and sensitivity to light and sound.

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Migraine and Headaches are two terms that are sometimes used without knowing which is what! In this article it seems to me really important to make sure that when we say “apple” we do not mean “orange”!

Both of the above situations refer to a simple fact: PAIN in our head! Since headache means exactly that – pain at your head- migraine is a condition where there’s pain in your head among other symptoms.

To make things even clearer migraine does have headache, but also has aura-or not- nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light (photo phobia) and, less often diarrhea, fluid retention and even losing your senses.

The term “aura”, that you just saw, means that there are some symptoms of your nervous system: not seeing the half of your sight field in one eye (hemianopsia), seeing black spots, even wavy lights that move in front of you. Normally the aura is what happens before the actual episode of migraine headache starts.

Migraine can occur without aura or auras sometimes evolve without pain.

Another important step in telling if migraine is what we experience or not, is the character of the pain. By that, it is observed that pain of migraine is throbbing in nature. It feels like having a small rubber pump at your head. One time it’s filling up, the next it’s pumping away. In simple headaches the pain usually it is not like that at all.

While the cause of migraines is not known there are some factors that can trigger a migraine attack. These factors can be certain foods- cheeses that contain an amino acid called tyramine-, wine, chocolate and meats with preservatives in them.

There are some other situations that are known to cause migraines to certain people.

Not having eaten for a long time (fasting), menses, emotional situations and certain drugs like contraceptives and nitroglycerin (yes, some people instead of blowing things up are prescribed nitroglycerin for their health!)

This is a brief description of some of the characteristics of migraine and I think that now, you could answer the question headache or migraine with success!