Blog #6: Keep your beast happy
Hey, migraine beast. How’s your day? Just relaxing huh. Well, I might just throw a few triggers your way, see if I get a reaction.
Bam, morning coffee. Booya, bit of processed meat. Here’s a ball of stress to knock your socks off with. Mmm, piece of aged cheese and a glass of red wine to enjoy at lunch (it’s a Saturday, no judging). Here’s a dash of MSG on your afternoon snack. And oh yeah, here’s a late night for you too.*
How are you doing now migraine beast?
If you have migraine disease, chances are that’s not your typical day. But what it illustrates is how lots of small triggers – factors or situations that make your sensitive brain, well, more sensitive – can accumulate throughout the day and tip you over into the migraine zone.
Common migraine triggers include hormones, stress, caffeine, dehydration, certain foods (far too many to include here), alcohol, lack of sleep, skipped meals, lights and the weather.
But what triggers caused your migraine attack today may not cause an attack another day. And what is a trigger for you may not be a trigger for someone else with a migraine brain. This makes individual migraine triggers difficult to nail down and what makes managing migraine disease so damn hard.
Like me, you may intuitively know that some days you’re teetering on the edge of a migraine attack, while other days your head feels okay. But why?
The Migraine Strong team describes this using The Bucket Theory (I mentioned the Migraine Strong team in another blog post but I have no affiliation with them, I just think they craft some great migraine content). I think other good names are The Volcano Theory, The Awakening the Beast Theory, The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back Theory or The Oh God, Not Another One Theory.
We all start each day with a bucket (brain) partially full of unavoidable triggers, such as hormones and weather.
Throughout the day you fill your bucket with triggers: lack of sleep, certain migraine inducing foods, stress, glaring lights, dehydration, lack of exercise, as a few examples. If your bucket becomes too full, it’ll eventually overflow and cause a migraine.
Knowing what triggers fill your bucket may help you to manage your migraine attacks. If you know your bucket is close to overflowing you can consciously avoid some known triggers and maybe avoid an attack.
In this blog I discussed all the pieces of treatment pie I use to manage my migraine disease. Each piece of pie helps to keep my bucket from overflowing. This is important, because each morning my bucket is already partly full of unavoidable triggers.
For me, I know around my period I need to prioritise sleep, stay hydrated and exercise. It doesn’t always work, but I keep trying.
Like I said, I already knew some days I was more at risk of having a migraine attack, but understanding the bucket theory has helped me visual the impact of triggers and gives me a sense of control over my beast.
What are some triggers you can avoid or minimise when your bucket is nearly full? I encourage you to use pieces of your treatment pie to try to start each day with only a partially full bucket.
Please comment below about how you keep your bucket from overflowing; you may help someone else keep theirs from spilling over.
You can also join the conversation on Facebook or send me an email: sarah@sayline.co.nz
* If you don’t have migraine disease, those mentioned are some common triggers for us migraine brain people.
Coffee – caffeine, may contribute to a migraine attack.
Processed salami – nitrates, may contribute to a migraine attack.
Stress – may contribute to a migraine attack.
Aged cheese – tyramine, may contribute to a migraine attack.
Red wine – tannins, may contribute to a migraine attack.
MSG (monosodium glutamate), may contribute to a migraine attack.
Period – changes in oestrogen, may contribute to a migraine attack.
There are a tonne more, I only had so much space to illustrate my point.
A few articles I read while writing this blog, check them out if you’re keen to learn more
The Bucket Theory, Migraine Strong
6 Surprising Truths About What Causes Migraines, MigraineAgain
What Causes Migraine, American Migraine Foundation