Your head may actually pound. Light hurts your eyes. Every sound is noise and the noise is all too loud. You might even throw up. You feel bad, and you look bad, too.
I really can't think of anything worse than a really bad migraine. A broken leg may keep you from moving, but a migraine headache keeps you from being!
Migraines come in variations. Some are worse than others and some are merely horrible. They affect every system in your body.
Some people believe that headaches and migraines are closely related. I'm one of those people. For years and years, I never had "just a headache." Each time I started with a headache, I ended up with a migraine.
The best way to avoid migraines is to have perfect posture. For those of us who are prone to headaches and migraines, any little strain on the muscles around our neck or head can, and will, cause pain.
Keeping a strong back, including the muscles in the back of your neck, helps hugely.
Learning how to have perfect posture will make a big difference in the frequency and severity of your head pain. It's really important that you have good posture when you sit, when you stand, and you even need your neck and head propped correctly when you sleep.
Avoiding the foods that cause migraine pain for you helps, too. I had a friend who would get instant migraine when she ate an orange. After a while, she started avoiding oranges. Other times, it is not an instant reaction.
A varied and healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables helps for many reasons. One of the reasons is that constipation can create conditions for a migraine. It may be the pressure from the packed intestines on the blood vessels in the abdomen that causes a migraine, because migraines are vascular headaches. That means they are related to what is happening with blood vessels.
"Keeping things moving" through your intestines with a good diet helps prevent migraine. You might consider taking additional fiber from a bottle to avoid constipation. Also, many headache and other medicines cause constipation.
Avoiding a migraine in the first place is a much better strategy than trying to get rid of it after you are already hurting.
But, when a migraine sneaks up, or flat out attacks, despite your best efforts, here are a few tips to help ward off or lessen your pain.
* Ice. Ice the base of your skull. Use a cold pack and put yourself in the most comfortable position you can. Use a thin towel between your skin and the cold pack. You can ice and use the next tip at the same time.
* Cold. Place a cold, almost dripping wet, cloth on your forehead and eyes. You can flip it over as it warms up from your heat. You can keep a pan of ice water next to the bed to re-wet and re-chill the cloth. You can use put a plastic bag under a towel behind your head. That will keep your bed dry.
* Compress. Wrap your head in a long towel so that it is like a turban. Cover your eyes and ears with the turban, too. The idea is to compress your head, to squeeze it. This is comforting, blocking out noise and light, and helps reduce the pain.
* Alka Seltzer. Aspirin does not touch a migraine, but...two tablets of Alka Seltzer, if taken at the beginning of a migraine attack, often knocks out the migraine. I suspect that this happens because it is a large dose of aspirin all at once, rather than gradual.
Check out my web site for help to fix your posture. Good posture will help reduce your headaches.
"Because you deserve to feel better!"
