Migraine

Hello,

This is my first post here and I've been suffering from Migraines for about 2 years now and I wanted to pass along some information I have learned a long the way.

Before I started working full time, at the age of 22, I never suffered from a migraine. I then started a job that required me to sit in front of a computer monitor about 8-10 hours a day and about 4 - 5 months into my new job I started getting a migraine about 2 times a month and the pain was unbearable. Each time I would have a migraine, I would get the visual sign before it started and my vision would go entirely blurry and the pain would start shortly after. At first, I had no clue what was happening to me and it pretty much felt as my head was going to explode. I started doing some research on the web (after the migraine went away of course) to figure out what was happening and I found that I was suffering from migraines.

Through out the next year, I continued to do more and more research and I was able to learn a lot about what triggers migraines and how I can help prevent them. I started taking more frequent breaks away from the computer screen, installed different lighting at my desk and tried to hold better posture through out the day, but none of these 3 seemed to completely fix my migraines.

I started to examine my diet a bit more and I started to try to eliminate possible triggers from my diet. At this time, I was drinking a cup of coffee each morning and never thought in any way that would be causing my migraines. After changing my diet and eating at different times, I decided to go with out coffee for a month to see if anything would change and things did change, I didn't have a migraine for an entire month! After the month passed, I wasn't entirely convinced that coffee was my trigger, so I had another cup one morning and about 3-4 hours later I had a migraine. This happened a few more times through out the next month, but I was able to clearly identify that coffee had a major role in to why I was getting migraines. During this time, I also started doing light exercises in the morning (jumping jacks, sit up's, push up's... etc). This also seemed to have a great impact on my migraines and my energy level. Things were finally looking good!

I went from 2 migraines a month down to 1 migraine in the last 6 months, which has made a huge improvement on my life. I believe each person that suffers from migraines has their own triggers and I believe it takes a lot of trial and error to figure them out. If you haven't tried it yet, I highly suggest working in a daily exercise in the morning to wake up your body and make your brain alert for the day.

Good luck to all of you!

Hi Mike and welcome to the forum! We're so glad you're here and shared your success with us. When you have a moment, please check out the Start Here Folder for information and guidelines about the forum.

A great article to help you begin here is:

Learnng About Migraines - Where To Start

Our Lead Expert, Teri Robert, wrote a great article about the importance of exercise and how to sneak some in during the day that I think you'll enjoy reading:

10 Ways for Migraineurs to Sneak in Some Exercise

It's great that you've been able to identify coffee as a trigger for your Migraines. My triggers are lack of sleep, not eating properly, weather changes and strong smells. Here's some information about triggers you can take a look at:

Common Migraine Triggers

Stackable Triggers

Welcome again! I look forward to seeing you around the forum and if you have any questions, just ask

Congrats on your success! I'm glad you've been able to identify your triggers and eliminate them from your life and thus enhance your quality of life! That's awesome!

Exercise is definitely something that is beneficial for us all- Migraineur or not... and for some people it makes a huge difference! Glad that you're one of them!

Again, welcome, and I hope that you continue to succeed in reducing the frequency and severity of your Migraines!

Hello, Mike, welcome to the forum. I just wanted to add my welcome to the pile.

Congratulations on identifying some triggers and reducing your migraine frequency.

Keep the experiences and questions coming. We are glad you joined us.

Hello, and welcome, Mike!