At two points in my life I lived with excruciating, chronic, cluster migraines. Cluster migraines are so painful you want to pull your brains out your eye sockets. They can feel like a sharp pinching pain in your head and make want scream but noise hurts. They can cause other symptoms liked numbness or tingling, olfactory or visual hallucinations, and more.
As the name implies, they happen multiple times a day. Just as one starts to reduce in intensity or possibly even seem to be going away, another starts. Sometimes I could not sleep for more than an hour or two a day, for weeks on end. I went to urgent care at first and their special migraine cocktail would reduce the pain enough to sleep a couple hours, then it would come back stronger than ever. I avoided ERs but visited a couple during the waiting period to see a neurologist. I saw neurologists, and nothing they tried helped and some things made me worse. This was sack before with MACS. Finally I saw a naturopath who has a book in her office written by a neurologist who got migraines. It said there were 4 parts to head health..and honestly I have found the neurologist part to be the least of the four things. The three things I have found most helpful in reducing my headaches are: mast cell maintenance, light exercise/stretching, and stress reduction. The neurologist would include her specialty, but I haven't seen a neurologist in years as was seeming to waste money.
Reducing triggers, and adding antihistamines helps the most. A low histamine diet may help some....but whatever your particular triggers are, reduce them. This sounds impossible to those of us with salycilate sensitivity, but it's worth it! When I eat foods that are high in histamine and run into environmental trigger, migraines a likely occurrence, but staying away from the things that trigger mast cells helps immensely! antihistamines that first helped me were zyrtec during the day, and hydroxyzine at night or on days with breakthrough pain. Now i use Allegra during the day, because Dr says it's stronger, seem to need more of them, so i am not convinced.
Stretching and light exercise like yoga was the next most helpful addition. Be careful if you have vertigo or exercise induced anaphylaxis, but when i stretch, I have less migraines.
Finally and certainly not the least important of the three, stress reduction. This may also sound impossible for those living with chronic health problems and pain. the stress of less than understanding friends and family, doubting doctors who look down on talk down us and often make difficult seek treatment, emergency response teams who have never heard of a mast cell disorder let alone Mastocytosis, financial woes, and the list goes on...all can make reduction a challenge, as well as very real anxiety which is triggered by some of the chemicals released by mast cells whether you have MCAS, Mastocytosis, oral allergy syndrome or something else entirely. But a few things helped me to reduce my stress.
First I added meditation to my daily practice. Getting quiet time by myself with no distractions in other words. Even five minutes each morning helped. Yoga, part of my exercise regimen, also helped reduce stress as can other forms of exercise if you can tolerate them.
Once I slightly reduced my stress that way, I was able to also develop coping mechanisms for dealing with chronic illness. A therapist can help think things through and problem solve or prioritize. as well as introduce you to new or slightly altered ways of thinking about health. Sleep was one of the things i learned to prioritise as it is a stress reducer and promotes overall healing. And Hydroxyzine has a slight anxiety reducing capacity as well.
Stress reduction could be a post all it's own, but trigger reduction, exercise and stress reduction seem to be a migraine busting team!
What helped you cope with headaches?
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