Migraine management strategies are essential in providing relief and avoiding missed workdays and reduced functioning, including acute (abortive) and preventive medications, non-pharmacologic therapies like acupuncture and greater occipital nerve blocks.
Preventive strategies may also help lower the frequency and severity of attacks while improving responsiveness to preventive treatments, including avoiding triggers, keeping track of migraine days, eating smaller meals and keeping track of migraine days.
Avoiding Triggers
Avoiding triggers for migraine attacks might not prevent them, but can reduce their intensity. Common culprits include food additives like MSG and nitrates; fatty foods; citrus fruits and chocolate; caffeine beverages; alcohol beverages and foods with strong odors.
Keep a headache diary to understand your own triggers and keep track of them over time. Over-the-counter pain relievers may be an issue for some individuals; use them with caution. Also, exercise regularly without missing meals, moderate caffeination and restful sleep are all beneficial measures.
Sleep Hygiene
Sleep hygiene practices such as maintaining a regular sleeping pattern, following an effective bedtime routine, and forgoing caffeine, alcohol, or heavy meals in the hours leading up to sleep can improve the quality of your nightly rest. Doing this may also make you feel more energetic throughout the day while strengthening memory and concentration capabilities.
However, different studies provide varied definitions of sleep hygiene. Therefore, more research needs to be conducted into what makes up good sleep hygiene and how best to communicate this information to the general public.
Regular Exercise
Migraines may make exercise challenging, but research suggests that physical activity can actually decrease headache attacks by helping to decrease stress – another key cause of migraines.
Moderate intensity aerobic exercise and yoga appear to be beneficial in relieving symptoms, disability and quality of life in people living with migraines; however, studies have not compared these types of exercises against each other for this effect.
High-intensity interval training (HIIT), which consists of short bursts of intense cardio mixed with lower-intensity exercises, may help relieve pain, frequency and disability in people living with migraines. However, it could potentially trigger attacks for some individuals.
Hydration
Maintaining proper hydration levels is vitally important to all, but especially migraine sufferers. Dehydration can trigger or worsen migraine symptoms like nausea and light/sound sensitivity, making an already uncomfortable condition even worse.
Migraine without aura is characterized by frequent episodes of throbbing or pulsing headaches that last 4-72 h4, often associated with photophobia, phonophobia and nausea. They can often be worsened by routine physical activity and prodromal symptoms may include yawning fatigue or cravings for certain foods5.
Neurologists specialize in diagnosing and managing headaches, known as migraines. Additionally, they may recommend lifestyle modification counseling based on SEEDS: Sleep Exercise eating diary stress.
Stress Management
Stress management is key in order to decrease migraine attacks. Find ways to lower your stress levels through physical activities, yoga or meditation and even joining support groups.
Medication may help either prevent or treat migraine. These medicines include pain-relieving treatments such as acetaminophen, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), triptans, dihydroergotamines and preventive medicines such as CGRP monoclonal antibodies and gepants that have great promise in improving clinical management of migraine.
Other treatments have proven their worth as effective migraine therapies, including acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy and biofeedback. Acupuncture eases migraine pain by inserting thin needles at specific points on your body.
Medical Check-Ups
Migraine is a neurological condition characterized by frequent episodes of moderate to severe headaches with symptoms including nausea, vomiting and an extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Adopting healthy lifestyle choices as well as medication may reduce migraine attacks from occurring.
Migraine can be diagnosed through medical history review, physical examination and sometimes neuroimaging or blood samples31. An acute headache or unusual aura should raise suspicion and lead to further investigation32.
Preventive pharmacological migraine therapy should be initiated when migraine-related impairment of quality of life persists despite optimized acute therapy33. Slow titration should be implemented in order to minimize side effects; headache diaries can assist in tracking medication effectiveness.
