Coping With A Migraine

This month's Headache Blog Carnival topic is how do you cope with your headache disorder. I've had this written down in my notebook for a few weeks now and have read it and thought about it quite a bit in that time. Sadly, all my contemplation hasn't paid off.

Honestly, I don't know how I cope. I don't know that I do cope, at least not well. Despite several years since my pain got out of control I've only recently started to focus more on living well through the pain. And that's something I've blogged about several times before. Maybe you've seen the lists - always including laughter.

Anyway, I wanted to take a different more literal approach to this month's topic and talk specifically about how I deal with my migraines. Right now I average 18 migraines a month, of course some months are better or worse. Here's what I have up my sleeve to deal with these days.

- Rescue Medications: I have some really great tools on my medication shelf that can help me manage the migraine pain in all the forms it manifests itself. Usually no more than 5 hours after taking these meds I'm able to function better. Unfortunately, everything else that comes along with the migraine (extreme sensitivity, nausea, fatigue, you know the drill) will stick around for the rest of the day.

- Grin and Bear it: I take my medications to relieve the pain so that I can still do stuff. Even though I continue to experience other effects from the migraine and of course the effects from the medications I go ahead and just do as much as I can. If I waited until I felt good to do stuff, nothing would get done. Honestly, getting stuff done feels like a great reward for powering (and I use that term very loosely) through it.

- Protect the Body: As much as possible I try to protect my body from the outside forces that can trigger or quicken a migraine. For example, wearing hats and sunglasses, drinking lots of water, being careful about eating regularly and enough, etc. But also I'm trying to do things that will increase endorphins and power up my immune system like working out (whenever possible), keeping a good sex life with my husband and eating healthy foods.

That's it right now. I'm working on a plan to help me cope with the stress in my life better because I know it will help with all the muscle tension that is literally taking over my body. Ultimately this should bring me some preventative power over my migraines, which would be the best coping mechanism of all.