Migraines can be an extremely debilitating condition that interferes with daily tasks at work and home, compromising your ability to meet personal commitments. While there is no cure, you can manage symptoms through medication and lifestyle adjustments.
Over-the-counter pain medicines like Tylenol(r) (acetaminophen) and nonprescription NSAIDs may provide temporary relief. If headaches become severe, triptans may reduce inflammation while simultaneously narrowing blood vessels to ease migraine pain.
Stress management
Stress can worsen migraines and trigger chronic pain, making managing migraines even harder than before. However, with just a few lifestyle adjustments can help alleviate stress and prevent migraines altogether.
Exercise, adequate rest and healthy nutrition are all effective ways of managing stress. But if these methods don’t seem enough, seeking professional assistance could be essential; healthcare providers can recommend techniques like relaxation and meditation that may help.
One way to manage migraines is with preventative medication. Your doctor can recommend beta blockers such as propranolol (Inderal, InnoPran, Lopressor), metoprolol (Lopressor), verapamil (Verelan, Calan) or calcium channel blockers like verapamil. Antidepressants like amitriptyline (Elavil) and anti-seizure drugs like topiramate (Topamax) might also prove effective; injections of onabotulinumtoxinA (Botox) can even further prevent migraines in certain adults. All these medications will improve quality of life while decreasing frequency and severity of migraine attacks.
Avoiding triggers
As much as it’s impossible to completely avoid migraines, eliminating their triggers may lessen how severe and frequent their headaches become. Common migraine triggers may include stress, light or glare, sound, smell and weather changes as well as certain foods like aged cheese, chocolate, alcohol caffeine skipping meals dehydration among many others. Furthermore some medications hormonal changes and neck pain could all also act as triggers.
To identify triggers, start keeping a diary or using a smartphone app to record symptoms. Look for patterns. For instance, if your migraines worsen when eating red wine or cheese, eliminate it for four weeks then gradually introduce it back in. However, if no correlation can be made between one food item and your migraine symptoms it might not be one; migraines work together, so it could take some time to pin point all your triggers.
Getting enough sleep
Sleep is an integral component of migraine prevention. Migraine pain and sleep both use similar regions in the brain for control, using chemical messengers that work similarly. Therefore, getting adequate restful restful sleep is often essential in managing migraines successfully.
Setting a regular sleep schedule can help enhance your ability to fall and remain asleep, which is critical for obtaining quality restful slumber. Try going to bed and rising at roughly the same time each day (including weekends) and avoid napping as this could disrupt the natural cycle of restful slumber. Dim your lights in your bedroom to help signal to your body that it is time for restful slumber.
Blue light from digital devices near bedtime may interfere with your natural production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for controlling your sleep/wake cycle. Therefore, try limiting screen time near bedtime. Light exercise in the morning is also great way to promote relaxation and release chemicals which block migraine pain signals.
Changing your diet
Migraines can be extremely painful and frequently accompany symptoms like light sensitivity and smell sensitivity. To manage a migraine effectively, medication and healthy lifestyle habits are typically effective treatments; certain foods, like chocolate and caffeine, may help decrease migraine attacks; keeping a food diary can also help identify triggers; then gradually eliminating these foods to test whether their removal has any beneficial results on headaches.
Many people also find that taking supplements like riboflavin (vitamin B2), magnesium, feverfew and butterbur can reduce both frequency and severity of migraine attacks. Before making changes to your diet or taking any medications or supplements, however, it’s wise to consult a healthcare provider first – this way you’re assured you’re receiving sufficient amounts of nutrition while avoiding potential side effects. Furthermore, keeping a diary of symptoms could prove valuable in tracking patterns over time.
