isolation

"Migraine headaches are excruciatingly painful, exhausting, and scary, but almost worse than the head pain and nausea of migraine disorder is the inevitable sense of isolation- the feeling that you are alone, adrift on a raft amidst a sea of tumultuous waves of pain. Social isolation is common in chronic pain illness, but by learning some valuable coping skills, you can beat the odds."

"Sunday night I had an epic crying session. I wanted out of this body, this cage. I was tired of having to fight to do the smallest tasks, like eating or showering. I didn’t want be sick anymore. I howled and shook with frustration and fear for hours."

"People with migraines often feel isolated. The unpredictable attacks can make it difficult to plan or participate in social functions, family events or fulfill work responsibilities. A 2010 study of 246 adults who suffer from persistent migraines found that family members and friends often don’t understand and are sometimes even skeptical of the extreme discomfort sufferers experience. The study found that those with chronic migraines feel stigmatized more than people with other brain disorders. Migraine sufferers feel more rejected, ridiculed and ostracized by the people around them and the condition worsens the more severe the migraines."

These are excerpts plucked from various sources on the internet regarding migraines and feelings of isolation. This is something I struggle with a lot, especially more as an adult. As a teenager they weren't as frequent, and I would fight through them because I had no interest in being confined to a bed when there were things to do and sports to be played and tests to take. Now with their frequency and severity, it's pretty much impossible for me to just ignore it and go about my day.

I have a hard time with this. It ain't pretty. In the depths of a migraine attack I will phone friends just to hear a voice, just to feel connected. It's basically me crying while they stumble through what to say to me. I've perfected my migraine cry. See, crying hard makes the head hurt worse, so now I cry with hardly any tension. No squinting, no sobbing if I can help it. I let the tears just come, I let my face fall to my feet. In those moments you can't NOT cry. But it hurts so you kind of have to event a less painful way to mourn the situation.

It's hard to have people around on a logical level during a migraine attack. There isn't much I can do--can't jump around or talk a lot, can't really provide entertainment aside from continual vomiting and writhing. But I cannot stress how vital human presence is to me in such a vulnerable state. I'm well aware that it probably doesn't make much sense but with pain and need I don't find sense-making to be a top priority. How many friends have come to sit with me or spend the night during these moments? Not many. I can name two. I don't blame them. It isn't fun. Who wants to see someone else in pain? I'll say it again: it ain't pretty. But human presence...at a time when I feel so out of my body and mind, when I feel disconnected to everything but pain...that human presence reminds me that there is gravity, an Earth, a tether. When the pain gets really bad I feel quite desperate, and that desperation scares me so much. This is also why another person's presence is so important to me. Even if they go in the other room while I lay in bed suffering through it that's fine. It is the shared air that calms me. With someone there I will not be driven to harm myself. I don't know how else to say it.

This feeling of isolation swells and shrinks. It is not permanent, but when it comes it feels quite set in stone. When I am not sick, it hovers somewhere just behind me, waiting. Tiny but there. I know people that suffer from chronic pain, but not many--even less will openly talk about it. This leads me to wonder if I should look into starting a support group, or finding one to join. It is hard to have a foot in both words and to straddle it all--a foot in the actual world and a foot in the world of pain. It would be nice to have others to talk about it with.

Isolation sucks. It hurts. At my core, I am not a lonely person. I kind of feel forced to be. It breaks my heart.

migraine pathophysiology

Ah I love brains.

the beginning of the beginning

Change is tough, especially when it comes to breaking habits...especially habits that taste really damn good and aren't that good for you. I'm 31 and still cling to a not-so-secret soda habit. The comfort in it is long gone, and now the act of ingesting it is more reflex than anything. This alone blares big and neon to me, like HEY PAY ATTENTION AND MAKE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO BE INVOLVED IN YOUR INTAKE! Which leads me to right now, when I'm trying to be.

A list of migraine triggering foods is long, incomplete and not the same for you as it is for me. Triggers can vary from person to person. However, there are a few hard-hitting triggers such as:

- caffeine
- msg
- red wine (which I haven't had a glass of since I was about 20 years old. I know better)

Caffeine is something I find quite tricky, since it is a main ingredient in some medicines that are used to treat headaches(such as Excedrin Migraine and Cafergot). Personally, I feel like I have an internal dial set to a specific amount of caffeine. Too much too soon and I'm in a world of hurt. Too little too late? Again, I'm in a world of hurt. I am starting to cut back on my caffeine intake. Slowly, ever so slowly. I fear the headaches brought on by caffeine withdrawal(which can last up to 2 weeks).

MSG. I am making a conscious effort to remove this from my diet whenever/wherever possible. Saying this breaks my heart a little bit, because it means no more cheap chinese take out. You must understand that I loooove my chinese food.

the creepy thing about MSG is that it isn't always listed as MSG. It is monosodium glutamate. It may be also called: autolyzed yeaste, sodium/calcium caseinate, glutamic acid, gelatin.

At present there is an FDA requirement to include the protein source when listing hydrolyzed protein products on labels of processed foods. Examples are hydrolyzed soy protein, hydrolyzed wheat protein, hydrolyzed pea protein, hydrolyzed whey protein, hydrolyzed corn protein. If a tomato, for example, were whole, it would be identified as a tomato. Calling an ingredient tomato protein indicates that the tomato has been hydrolyzed, at least in part, and that processed free glutamic acid (MSG) is present.

This is the first and most important step in changing my diet thus far: READ LABELS. Read the label of everything you ingest. If you don't have a label for what you are eating and it's possible, then ask about the ingredients. Right now I'm doing my best to NOT eat foods label-less(this also helps me to abstain from eating out a lot and pushes me to cook mroe at home). I think people, in general, would eat very differently if they had to read the labels/ingredients for everything ingested. Most of it is impossible for the common human to interpret let alone pronounce.

Today I read the ingredients on my baby carrots. It looked like this:

INGREDIENTS: Carrots

There is a lot of information packed onto labels so do yourself a favor and learn how to read them. There are lots of resources on the web to help. Such as this one:


Also, when reading ingredients, pay special attention to the first three or four ingredients listed. Ingredients are listed from most to last. If you see high fructose corn syrup listed second, then yeah. It's got some crap in it. Probably unhealthy.

Again, this is a long process for me. Next week I start replacing one meal a week with a smoothie packed with spinach(magnesium), orange juice(vitamin c), flax seed and other nontrigger fruits.

Here is a list of things that I have cut from my diet so far, as they are potential migraine triggers for me. I will update this list as my diet evolves. Right now, it's quite short:

- avocados (this makes me sad)
- balsamic vinegar
- veggie burgers
- potato chips
- kimchi (sigh. I will miss you so)

More soon because this lady is just getting started. So far it's been rather easy, but I know it's only going to get more challenging. Will I ever give up my comfort in soda? Will I give up my precious french fries? I shudder to think. Buuuuut if it means less migraines then it's worth it.

supplement this

Part of bulking up my anti-migraine arsenal involves supplements--vitamins/minerals I take daily to keep my levels correct. Individuals with migraines are more succeptible to B vitamin deficiencies as well as a magnesium deficiency. I've added both to my daily intake. I invested 99 cents in one of these bad boys:


Nossir, they're not just for grandparents anymore.

However, even with this handy sorter, I can forget to refill each day, so I keep the bottles of vitamins in my bathroom medicine cabinet where I'm bound to run into them while reaching for the toothpaste. The more visual reminders I can have, the better. Instead of filling for the week on Sunday, I usually fill it day by day, first thing in the morning. Don't ask me why. Sometimes I like to take the long way around.

What's in my caddy:

Super B-complex vitamin - vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12. Health benefits are linked to the immune and nervous system, and they also support energy growth in cells. B vitamin supplements definitely give me more energy, and they cut through that daily low headache I tend to get. It also makes your pee super-yellow.

Biotin - though I have stopped taking this since I started the Super B--Biotin is another name for B7, so I'm already getting some of that. Promotes healthy skin, nail and hair growth.

Magnesium - Now, magnesium is the supplement I just started taking, and I'm already finding that I need to tweak how I go about it. Research shows that magnesium levels affect serotonin and NMDA receptors in the brain--both are involved with migraines in some fashion. Here's some numbers:

It is responsible for over 300 essential metabolic reactions in the body. It is required for synthesizing proteins in the mitochondria, the metabolic powerhouses of your cells, and for generating energy in most of the body’s basic cellular reactions. It is necessary for several steps in the synthesis of DNA and RNA. Magnesium is also present in a number of other important enzymes. As important as it is intracellularly, 60% of the body’s magnesium is present in bone, and 27% in muscle. -(migrainesurvival.com)

And I just found out that it's best to take this with calcium, so there's another supplement to add to my trusty caddy. Magnesium is also found in certain foods such as spinach, kiwi, brown rice, raisins, beet greens, tomato paste. Another thing magnesium does? Helps with constipation. In other words, the mag helps ya poop. This is another reason to wean myself off caffeine as well--caffeine decreases the amount of magnesium absorbed in the digestive track. Another fun little fact: if you drink a lot of coffee, you probably have a magnesium deficiency for this very reason. How to fix that? Eat more foods rich in magnesium. This is a part of my diet I am certainly struggling with, as soda and coffee provide me with some warped sense of comfort left over from my younger years. I'm slowly cutting away at my intake--key word being slowly, as I'm quite afraid of caffeine withdrawal headaches(I get enough of them...I really don't need to add another type to the bin).

A few things I am preparing to add to my daily intake:

Butterbur - Butterbur is a herb that, according to some researchers, may cut short the duration and intensity of migraine attacks. Info:

Migraine incidence decrease ranged from 37% - 62% among analysis participants, with approximately no side effects. The only offshoot stated was slight gastrointestinal upset, and that was in a little part of both the herb and placebo groups. - articlesolve.com, "Migraine Busting Butterber"

More thoughts on this after I start taking it.

Feverfew - Feverfew has been used traditionally to treat headaches. It's a member of the sunflower family(this random fact tickled me for some reason). Also:

Another study found that people who took a carbon dioxide extract of feverfew had fewer average number of migraine attacks per month compared to people who took placebo. A 3-month study with 49 people found that a combination of feverfew, magnesium, and vitamin B2 led to a 50% decrease in migraine attacks.

Source: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/feverfew-000243.htm#ixzz2Ku8XXfP9

Up next, more on my diet/food intake. What I'm taking out, what I'm adding, and what(if anything) I've learned so far.

the program

The adventures of a chronic migraine sufferer. On getting sick, getting better, and surviving both.


Today is the day after a migraine. This one was sharp and came on quick. It was on the right side of my head, which was all kinds of disorienting since I am used to them being on the left. Even how I made my bed on the couch had to change. I managed to squeeze out a half-day at work before saying uncle and going home. I was dangerously nauseous on the bus ride home--the only thing that curbed it was balling up my hoodie and pressing it against the right side of my head and breathing as slow as possible.

Currently I'm digging deeper into the 1-2-3 Program book, by David Buchholz. The idea is that one can heal their headaches by things like dietary change instead of quick fixes like medication(over-the-counter or prescribed). I'm all for this perspective. The more I read, the more excited I get. Until...

...until I hit the chapter with suggested dietary restrictions. Oy vey, what is there left to eat?

For example, tyramine is a trigger. What is tyramine? Tyramine is a natural-occurring compound found in many foods that can cause blood vessels to dilate, which can set off nasty head pain in people prone to migraines. This amine is prominent in foods that are processed/aged. The more it is aged, the worse the trigger can be. This covers anything dried, pickled, fermented, salted or smoked.

I'd like to try a low-tyramine diet, for sure. Here are a few things that I will have to say au revoir to:

- sauerkraut
- pickles (NOOOOOO)
- olives
- sourdough bread
- snow peas (NOOOOO)
- lima beans (NOOOOO)
- tofu
- avocado (Sigh. No, please not my avocado)
- eggplant
- beets
- spinach (!?!?)
- fermented or overripe fruit
- nutmeg
- ginseng
...and more that I am now getting too depressed to list here.

MSG is also a trigger. MSG is a form of concentrated salt added to foods to enhance flavor. I think a diet free of MSG would be awesome. To make that happen, here are a few things I will need to avoid:

- soy sauce
- overripe tomatoes
- mushrooms
- any snacks with powdered cheese(Doritos, Cheetos, etc)
- veggie burgers
- sausage
- take-out chinese food
- Progresso and Campbells soups
- marmite
- bacon bits (OH NO)

...Again, the list goes on. The part I find extra-cruel about these triggers is that they may not hit the trip wire immediately. Meaning you may have a food trigger and not get a migraine for up to 72 hours.

According to the 1-2-3 Program, here are a list of other things I will need to avoid:

- caffeine (this is going to be the hardest thing for me to kick. I doubt I will ever completely remove it from my diet, but I would like to knock my intake down a peg or two)

- chocolate
- cheese
- nuts, including peanut butter (I'm not ready to give up my pb yet--it's where I get a lot of my protein anyway)

- citrus fruits and juices, including pineapples, oranges, lemons, lines (I cannot even wrap my head around this one. I love my citrus fruits. I had an orange wtih breakfast this morning--how could I possibly kick those buddies to the curb?)

The program goes on to say that you should follow the diet strictly to get the full results. It's honestly a little too ballbusting for me, so I think I'm going to take some things from the 1-2-3 program and adapt it to my own bastardized version of a migraine diet. For example, I am confident that I can remove MSG from my diet. I can work on removing foods high in Tyramine, but that might take longer. Buchholz recommends following his very strict diet for at least 2 to 3 months before slowly introducing foods to see what triggers one might have. I can't imagine following that sucker for a day let alone months. Oof.

So yeah, food triggers? They are everywhere. And it is a bummer to think about.

My next post will cover more of my current diet plan in detail.