Migraine

Fluorescent lighting seems to be a new trigger for me or perhaps an increasing bother. I've noticed if I walk into a store, I can get the pain for free. If I leave quickly enough, things may calm down. I'm not quite sure how to manage this one. These lights are everywhere.

I can try to avoid some of the situations, but otherwise I'm not sure of my options. Do sunglasses help against fluorescent lights any?

Note: I don't mind looking like "cool crazy mom who doesn't take her glasses off inside" if I don't get a migraine. (Trust me, the children will bring it up to everyone they see whether we know the poor soul we pass or not. "Mommy can't take her glasses off. She gets headaches. These lights hurt Mommy's head." )

If you have any coping tips, I'd be happy to hear them. Thanks.

Liz

Whoopee Goldberg wears her shades all the time; why shouldn't you? Get some for your kids, and you could be the coolest family in the store!

Regular fluorescents don't bother me, so I can't help there. But I can't stand the ones that need changing and are flickering. And I can't stand light coming through a ceiling fan. I've never stuck around long enough to see whether prolonged exposure triggers a migraine attack.

The flickering bothers me so much that when I was buying new potties, I left Home Depot and went across the street to Lowe's. One of the lights over the bathroom fixtures displays was flickering, and I needed to do a bunch of reading and comparing, and I just couldn't swing it with the flicker. HD lost a pretty good sale.

There are several folks who have fluorescent problems, too. I'm sure one of them will chime in.

Gretchen

I find sunglasses only help somewhat & if I have to read ad/or focus, it is very challenging even with sunglasses. I recently got new prescriptions & have anti-glare & transitions, but that only helps with low glare situations for short periods...

I can't wear sunglasses all the time...I got a lot of flack for doing that at my last job when I worked as a middle school teacher. I worry horrid lighting will do me in at my next job (I've always had problems at jobs that have bad lighting)...and I can't control the lighting situation, because when you do special ed, therapy or art classes, you don't have your own room usually, so it's not like I can put floor lamps on wheels and bring them from room to room & stairs because I'm just not that strong or agile (crash! there goes another lightbulb)... If anyone has any idea how to cope with such a situation (and no, as a new teacher at a new job, I "CANNOT" tell them about my condition), let me know!

as for shopping, my partner does it...otherwise I get confused, have to run to the bathroom, bad headaches & "zappy" & end up buying lots of stuff not on the food list... if I have to shop, I go to smaller stores (no malls or supermarkets!) that the lighting isn't quite as bad & has a quicker escape.... I believe there is home service at some grocery stores & some people shop for groceries, etc. online.

Oh, when I am at environmentalist meetings, I make a point to bring this up! Environmentalists usually have no clue about the impact of flourescent lights & they putting the lights everywhere...there are a lot of people & children with special needs in my surrounding areas & guaranteed, there is going to be more behavioral issues or a big blow out one day...

I'm usually fine with flourescent lights unless they are flickering and ready to go out, although I don't care for the type of light they put out. It's just harsh. I much prefer natural light.

I also have a friend at school that's plagued with migraines, and we just turn out the lights whenever possible, but we're lucky to have the whole side of our room windowed, so we can open the shades instead. One nice thing the school has done in general is to turn off every other light bank in the hallways to save money, and the resulting reduction in brightness and glare gets no complaints from either of us.

Hi Liz,

Fluorescent lights is a big trigger for me too. I will either wear sunglasses or a hat and sometimes even both to try to avoid getting a migraine. I have sunglasses that have interchangable lenses. I can put in different types of lenses into the frames depending on the conditions. One set of lenses are very dark and polarized for the bright outside sunlight and another set I can use for indoors or at night while driving. There were other lenses that came with the sunglasses, but I usually switch between those two.

For a while there, I could not figure out why I seemed to be getting more and more sensitive to the fluorescent lighting. Then one day I was able to connect it to some of my food triggers. This is a biggie for me as what I eat can make me very photophobic. It also didn't necessarily have to be a full food trigger that made me more sensitive to light, but sometimes it was one of my stackable food triggers that may not give me a migraine by itself, but could give me a migraine in conjuction with other stackable food triggers. Just something else you may want to think about.

I wish you the best of luck and hope you find something that helps you with the lighting soon.

Pam

I'll think of Woopie Goldberg now every time I reach for those sunglasses inside.

I'd never thought about a hat being able to help some, I'll have to give that a try too. I found the food trigger combination very interesting as well, Pam. I'm still determining what foods are triggers for me. What do you mean by "stackable food triggers"?

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions!

I have the same problem, I can go in to a big store if there is lots of natural light. I have found a Woolworths where almost one entire wall is windows, so its much more user friendly for me. Apart from that I marvel in the wonder of ebay and online food shopping!! haha

Alexandra,
I hurts me to "hear" you have to hide your migraine disease! This is like it was in the '60s when teachers had to hide their depression, or the '50s, when they had to hide their pregnancies as long as they could, or even earlier, when they couldn't be married & teach.

I just googled fluorescent lights and flickering. Supposedly, lights with the newer electronic ballasts don't flicker. The compact bulbs also supposedly don't flicker.

However, these last two years, I've kept the lights in my classroom off as much as I could. I'm planning to do the same this year. Also, I'm planning to put a small desk/nightstand lamp on my desk to help ease the "fluorescent glare" on paperwork.

I also buy, in addition to all the cheap reading glasses, the cheap sunglasses at Dollar Tree. I have pairs ranging from nearly clear to very dark, all polarizing, all UV protecting. These I also leave wherever I may need them.

I'll be breaking in 3 new assistant principals this year, so I'll have to do some teaching about migraines again. I don't know how many new teachers I'll have to teach. Oh, I'm planning on printing up LOTS of your letters, Teri.

Rebecca

I find hats (& visors) to be helpful to help reduce some of the glare of flourescent lights...I'm the queen of hats (I make my own hats & scarves) so this can be a fun accessory.

Unfortunately, public schools have this weird rule about "no hats" or major headcoverings (I can get away w/headbands & some scarves, but once got chastised from wearing a hat)...which was weird to me when I was coming from working in residential programs, parochial & non-profit agencies. Apparently, this rule comes from some old Puritan rule in the States about how Christians take off hats, etc. when they entered a house of worship out of "respect" (which actually came out of the Church's fear of people integrating & associating w/ people of different beliefs that do wear headcoverings...the removal ensured that there were no people of different religions or people who integrated other practices were in the audience)...somehow this rule crossed over into buildings that were State owned or funded...many of these buildings don't institute this anymore, with the exception of schools & some government buildings.

They say the newer type of flourescent lights are better, but considering that my eyes hurt when I step out into the sunlight out my house, I'm triggered by the slightest thing nowadays. Can we say tinnitus & snoozeville?

I don't know why schools are in the dark ages about neurological conditions...some teachers, etc. think migraines & seizures are catching! ADD & sleep disorders are seen as some personality weakness(???).(I'd love to see being anal retentive & narcassistic be considered as a weakness as teacher...or especially as a supervisor/admin instead!) I had one student obsessively use hand sanitizer whenever we worked together because he was afraid to "catch what I had & end up in the hospital", lol. My recommendation: don't have a hemiplegic migraine or "seizure-like" episode in school...it really freaks them out (plus, it's nice to keep your job), lol.

quote:

Originally posted by Liz:
I'm still determining what foods are triggers for me. What do you mean by "stackable food triggers"?

Hi Liz,

Here's a link to a great Podcast Teri did on Migraine Trigger Identification and Management. In it she explains stackable food triggers as:

Triggers can be cumulative or, in the words of Dr. Jan Lewis Brandes, stackable. In other words, we can have triggers of differing strengths. Some may be strong enough to trigger a Migraine by themselves. Others may be weaker and only trigger a Migraine when we're stressed or when we encounter them in combination with one or more other triggers.

In case you don't know what a Podcast is, it is a Migrainecast dedicated to Migraine disease, headaches, and related issues. It is written and produced by Teri Robert, MyMigraineConnection's Lead Expert. There are currently about 13 different great podcasts out there ranging from the phases of a migraine, when to go to the ER, when our meds cause rebound and so much more. You can listen and/or read the podcast information.

If you want more information about food triggers, here is a link to an article on Managing Migraine Trigger Foods. There's a link at the bottom of the article to a downloadable workbook. I started an elimination diet at the beginning of the year and have used this workbook which has been a trmendous help. I have identified several food triggers which has helped reduced some of my photophobia as well as my migraines. Usually the first sign for me of something I shouldn't have eaten is increased light sensitivity.

Hang in there,
Pam

quote:

Originally posted by Bedge:
I have the same problem, I can go in to a big store if there is lots of natural light. I have found a Woolworths where almost one entire wall is windows, so its much more user friendly for me. Apart from that I marvel in the wonder of ebay and online food shopping!! haha

Now there's a lesson. I suppose we should be grateful for the options we have available, such as online shopping, that our mothers and/or grandmothers didn't have who also had to battle the fluorescent lights perhaps with their own migraines.

ahhh .. indeed! Bless the cotton socks of ebay and alike!

Pam, Thanks for all of the great information. It seems overwhelming for me to identify trigger foods. I actually seem to approach every meal as "that could cause this pain to get worse" because there seem to be so many triggers.

I'd never thought about the connection you'd made between trigger foods in combination with other triggers. I'm so glad you mentioned it!

Liz

I'm wondering if any studies have been done on the effects on migraineurs when standard fluorescent bulbs are replaced with high-quality "Growth bulbs" like plant nurseries use.

If these bulbs have been shown to significantly reduce the frequency of migraine attacks, can we invoke ADA to have, say, half the fluorescent bulbs in our workplaces replaced with growth bulbs?

Rebecca