Triggers

There is a laundry list of possible migraine triggers, encompassing everything from the food we eat to the weather changes that we have no control over. A lot of the triggers that migrainers deal with are unavoidable, meaning we can not do anything to avoid these triggers.

Some of the unavoidable triggers are: barometric pressure and weather changes, for example, approaching storms, heat and humidity levels, air travel, and high altitudes; sensory stimulus, such as, perfumes, tobacco smoke, cleaning products, and bright or flickering lights; hormonal fluctuations, like, menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or menopause; physical exertion, for instance, bending over, aerobic exercise, weight lifting, coitus, and dehydration; sleep deprivation; and stress (found in Heal Your Headache by David Buchholz, M.D.).

It takes a long time to figure out what your triggers are, tracking your migraines through apps like "Migraine Buddy" (also available in the Google Play Store), "Migraine Diary", and "Migraine Meter" in the App Store; or "Headache Diary", and "Headache Log" in the Google Play Store; allows you to track each migraine along with what possible unavoidable triggers may have caused it. Tracking your migraines for a few months will give you a database of information such as, weather, intensity levels, location, food, unavoidable triggers, menstruation cycles, aura symptoms, medications taken, home reliefs tried, affected activities, where the pain starts, and whether any home reliefs helped decrease your migraine.

Now comes the most confusing part of the trigger list, the food triggers. I consider it the most confusing because I tried to eliminate all the foods on the trigger list, and all I ended up doing was spending a lot of money and making myself miserable at the same time with no effect on the status of my migraines. You can find a detailed list of foods to avoid HERE.

I know a few of my food triggers, and I am trying to find more. I know eating foods containing MSG or Nitrates, causes me to have migraines. MSG is found in a lot of processed foods, especially ranch dressing and Chinese food. Nitrates are found in all smoked meats, and most lunch meats, including any ham product, like bacon 😢 . My personal trigger list is varied, it includes: oncoming storms, fluorescent lights, house paint containing latex, menstrual changes, air pressure changes, stress, not getting enough sleep, the smell of perfumes and cleaning products, exercise, dehydration, MSG, and Nitrates. I am sure there are many I haven't discovered yet, I have many migraines I cannot find a trigger for.

Even some "quick fix" medications can cause rebound migraines which are just as bad, if not worse than the original migraine. I was caught in a cycle like that before I was able to see a neurologist. I was taking a Percocet almost every day because I was in so much pain. When I finally saw my neurologist she immediately took me off the Percocet and put me on actual helpful medication. It took a few weeks but eventually the rebounds went away.

There are many resources available online to help you list and discover your possible triggers, and that is the first step to knowing what to avoid if you can. I know that migraines seem like an endlessly, daunting task to deal with, but hopefully with care, caution, and sometimes a bit of pure dumb luck, we can turn this disease into something that only bothers us once a month, and not every day.

"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it." - Michael J. Fox