Managing Migraine Headaches - How-To Tips to Help You Cope

Migraine headaches are an agonizingly painful daily reality for millions of people. Despite this, they are still in many ways a medical mystery. A quick search on any major search engine will turn up numerous web sites, news articles, journals, and blog entries touting the latest theories of Migraine Cause and Prevention, ranging from the plausible to the downright ludicrous and even possibly dangerous.

Personally, I have suffered from chronic and acute Migraine headaches for nearly 30 years. I have tried just about every prescription Migraine medicine, most of the herbal preventatives, the diets, and even some quack cures. I have found nothing that completely eliminates my headaches, but over the years I have learned some basic things that help me to manage them.

Here are five tips for preventing and managing migraines:

1. Watch what you eat.

No, this doesn't mean count calories and avoid fats. I mean this literally. Many people find that eating certain foods will always trigger or worsen a migraine. Keep a journal of everything that goes in your mouth for at least a month. Also, assess your headache level and note it in your journal. I recommend doing this about an hour after each meal, before going to bed, and when you get up. I use a scale from 1 (no headache) to 10 (kill me). If you find your headache level increases after eating certain foods, eliminate those foods from your diet.

This can be a long process. It has taken me years to find all my food triggers, partly because some foods such as aged cheeses actually cause delayed migraines up to 12 hours after I eat them. My known food triggers are chocolate, the flavoring ingredient monosodium glutamate (msg), citrus (fruits and juice), soy in all forms, wheat, barley, corn (including corn syrup), refined sugar, citric acid, aged cheeses, aspartame artificial sweetener, cashews, pecans, peanuts, pork, and red wine.

Overall, I do better when I make everything I eat from scratch. No mixes, frozen meal kits, TV dinners, or prepared seasonings. It's a pain, but I also have lost more than 30 pounds since I started cooking from scratch a year ago.

2. Have a little caffeine.

Many people have found drinking a cup of coffee or strong tea with breakfast and lunch will keep a migraine at bay. Also, when you take pain medication for a headache, drink a cup of straight, unsweetened coffee or tea with it. For some reason the caffeine makes the medicine work faster and stronger.

On the other hand, drinking too much caffeine can trigger a migraine, particularly if combined with refined sugar. For me, the best rule of thumb is, don't drink more than 2 or 3 cups a day, and avoid all carbonated, caffeinated, caramel-colored sugary drinks. If I ignore this rule, I pay.

3. Keep sensible hours.

It is an ironic truth that two of the most common migraine triggers are getting too much sleep and not getting enough sleep.

Try to make yourself go to bed and get up at about the same time every day. No staying up late or sleeping in on weekends. For me, this is very difficult, because I am naturally a night person and also frequently suffer from insomnia. However, I know several people that have had a significant reduction in their migraine occurrences simply by making sure they were not sleep deprived.

4. Move your body.

Take the time to move about and stretch often throughout the day. Personally, whether I am working at the computer or doing housework, I stop every hour or so. I do arm and shoulder circles, stretch my neck by slowly turning my head side to side and up and down, and walk around a bit. This way I don't get as tense, which is another migraine trigger for me. Also, I have found taking a short walk in the morning and evening is a helpful and relaxing way to prevent tension from compounding my migraines.

5. Talk to your doctor.

I often meet people that haven't talked to a doctor about their migraines in years, if ever. Some are uncomfortable admitting how much pain they are in, others assume nothing can be done for them, while yet others have been told that the pain was all in their head --no pun intended.

There have been a lot of advances in migraine treatment and prevention in the last ten years or so. Talk to your doctor about migraine prevention and ask about migraine pain management and treatment. If your doctor isn't willing to take the time to listen and work with you to create a pain management plan, don't give up. Find a doctor who will help you. You will be glad you did. I certainly was.

At this time, there is no silver bullet for migraine prevention and treatment. The most anyone can currently offer is a lessening of the severity and/or frequency of migraines, and the best way to manage migraine pain is to mix diet, exercise, and communication with your doctor.